In a previous thread, the subject of strand based hair surfaced. As an animator (like most of you), I'm always looking for ways to shorten the rendertime of frames, while still maintaining the highest quality possible. So with that in mind, strand-based hair never appealed to me, especially if I could get the look I want from modelled hair, without sacrificing realism. However, there are many instances were model hair is simply not going to get the movement you may want or need, especially if your goal is realism. So, strand hair is the other solution.

As a test of production rendering for animation using strand-based hair, I've put together several stills using "Hair and Fur" in 3dsmax 7.5. Here's some information on these renders:

Hair: Hair and Fur module in 3dsmax 7.5, buffer mode
Scene: 1 figure (13,708 polygons), 35,000 polygons total, 9000 hair strands
Lighting: 3 standard spotlights; 2 with depth shadows (bias:0.1, size: 1024, sample range: 10), and one keylight with area shadows.
Renderer: MentalRay; 1/4 pixel samples, Gauss filter
Render Size: 720x480
System: Single 2 gig Pentium 4, 1 gig RAM

With each new hair style, the only change is in the materials and styling. The strand count is the same in each instance, although thickness may have been altered slightly. Render times are located on each image:

Medium-length Blonde
Medium-length Brunette/Wet Style or Gel Look
Frizzy/Afro Style
Long Blonde Hair

Clearly, judging by these render times, strand-based hair is definitely do-able for animation purposes on a single machine, and even moreso over a network. However, there are many limitations too, such as: you MUST use spotlights, or else the shadows don't show up. Omni lights are out, unless for fill lighting. If you want GI, you need to either render the hair with their own lights as a seperate render pass, or else suffer the result of very high rendertime from using dome lights (lots of lights on a hemisphere). The hair won't render shadows if you use true GI, unless you turn it to geometry, which would make it 10x slower. If you have a huge network of 90 machines, then go for it. ;-)

If anyone would like to share the results of their own strand-based hair tests using other platforms (like Poser, Lightwave, or Maya), I'd love to see them. Please post rendertime and detailed information about the renders so we can get an idea how viable they are for "amateur" animation on those platforms. This is basically about rendertimes vs. quality.

Message edited on: 02/04/2006 18:29

BTW, if anyone decides to run their own tests with different applications/platforms, try to use the same render size as my examples (720x480), with 3 point lighting. Obviously, this isn't a benchmark test, since no one will be using the same geometry, etc., but it might be interesting to see the level of quality we could get for strand hair on different platforms using simple 3 point lighting, and the time it took to get it.

Ok, I'll try this in the morning with Carrara and Poser, but I already know there's no way I'll match those render times and still have that kind of shadow quality. Maybe if I use only Poser's engine, but certainly not if I import it to Carrara. Carrara just doesn't handle Poser's native dynamic hair well.

Your hair examples look good from what I can tell. I'd be interested to see a short animation done where the hair is moving around. I like the second one with the gel look because I've never been able to get that kind of look from strand hair in Poser, but that's not to say it can't be done. The rendertime also seems quick, and considering the strand count, the shadowing is excellent. Do you notice any problems with artifacts when the hair moves around?

Have you seen the new hair engine that's out for Cinema4D? Supposedly, it sets new standards for speed and quality. Some of the teaser footage I've seen looks outstanding! If there's anyone in here who uses C4D with the the new hair plugin, I'd like to see some renders.

Message edited on: 02/04/2006 22:08

From Maya's render log file: --------- Generating shadow map for spotLightShape1, with clipping values: 0.01 16.124 Rendering current frame. Frame triangle count: 138334 ==================================== Resource Usage At End Of Frame ==================================== 7980 Page faults 167.355 Mb Peak total size(Estimated) 53.019 Mb Peak arena size ==================================== 168.707 Mb Current 15.737 Mb Arrays 1.875 Mb Data Blocks 1.750 Mb NURBS AG 9.375 Mb MEL 0.874 Mb Transforms 0.125 Mb Keys 14.592 Mb Render Cache 0.007 Mb Render Geometry Arena ==================================== Postprocessing rendering result. Time For Tessellation (hhss): 00:00:00 Time For Shadow Map (hhss): 00:00:08 Time For Post Process (hhss): 00:02:19 Time For Frame Render (hhss): 00:02:34 ------------- Using: 258 follicles Each follicle emitting 25 hair strands and 5 multistreaks (hair instances). Render engine Maya software + PaintEffects Triangle filter 2.2x2.2 samples: min 2 max 8 shadow depth map file rez 512 result: see pic

oh, I forgot: That hair rendering was done using 26 light sources (only one casting shadows) at 640x480 (ignore skin and background, those were different passes).

Nemirc, nice work! 2:34 @ 640x480 is definitely reasonable, considering the quality achieved. I've always heard great things about Maya's hair system. What were your system specs like? IE., what kind of machine did you render from?

System specs: AMD AthlonXP 2700+ / 1Gb RAM (don't remember it's speed) / Seagate Barracuda 7000rpm

Ok, you guys got me beat for sure. I couldn't get Poser to render the dynamic hair in a reasonable amount of time, regardless if it was casting shadows or not. This first render (above) was my first attempt. Rendered at 720x480, 3 lights, all of them casting depth mapped shadows. Took Poser6 5 minutes just to calculate the scene shadows and set up the render, then took about a minute or two to render after that. So this render took a total of about 6 minutes, and I don't think the hair looks that realistic.

This one is my second attempt at bringing down those render times. This one uses 3 lights as well, but only 2 are casting shadows, and the hair is NOT casting any shadows at all. I upped the shadow map size, and reduced the bias, as Operaguy has instructed. It works for getting the rendertime down. This render only took about 2 minutes total on my machine, at the size of 720x480. The only thing is now I lost even more realism, and the hair looks less convincing that the previous render.

I will be getting Poser 6 not-so-soon so I will be testing poser hair. Maybe I will have some luck :p

Posers firefly in about 3 minutes

Poser's Poser4 render in about 1.5 minutes

Carrara 5 with transposer. Full raytracing 1.58 minutes

"This one is my second attempt at bringing down those render times." The hair doesn't look bad there, Jimbo. If you added some good skin textures to the girl, and some other textures, it would be do-able in that time. What are your system specs? "Carrara 5 with transposer. Full raytracing 1.58 minutes" I like this one better than the Poser versions, dueyftw, and the rendertime is very good it seems. Can you post what kind of system you have used for these?

I did not adjust anything. The 2 major problems with using Poser is it has no rendering farm. The best workaround is to buy batch render and render overnight. The other problem is that doing any animation beyond figures is a study in aggravation. Once you work with any other 3d program, you keep asking, "Why can't I do that in Poser?" The one place that it currently out does any other program is content. I can get more stuff for Poser that any other 3D program. Poser 6 did not impress me. I tried the demo and It has a nicer layout than Poser 5, but to buy an upgrade for a new layout and toon render? I don't think so. Dale

All done on an older Alienware,pentum 4cpu 2.4 ghz, 2gig of ram. Currently the only down side to Carrara is it rendering farm uses tiles and not full frames. I have Vue and it sends the full frame to each node. What happens is if you have one fast machine and the frame is slower, P3 866 Mhz. then the source computer finishes before the farm does anything because by the time it receives the frame information and renders anything the source has moved on to the next frame. Dale

I have a nice graph editor and the trax editor in Maya... why can't they do that in poser... and that complain IS real :p

Hi guys, just poking in, I am distracted by another project, but I'll contribute to this thread latter this coming week, plus try to interact with things already posted. ::::: Opera :::::

472 folicles, 17 hairs per folicle, no multistreaks, hair segments to 3, 26 light sources (geometry using a useBackground material for alpha channel). Rendertime: 31 seconds :p

Message edited on: 02/06/2006 00:55

An attempt at some realistic hair translucency with Hair and Fur module in 3dsmax 7.5. Original Render Size: 720x480 Rendertime: 2 minutes, 12 seconds CPU: 2 gig P4 / 2 gig ram 3 standard spotlights with shadow maps (1024 size) MentalRay renderer The head is a model I was sculpting a while ago, but never finished. ;-P

That's coool! Excellent highlight realism and the general way the groups fall together. I am rendering an animation for this thread now, but kinda high on the renderbudget, over 400 seconds per frame. It'll be done in about 8 hours, will post. ::::: Opera :::::

COOL! O_O I am still having trouble getting the "backlighting effect" correctly.

Broken down on 3 layers: hair shadows, hair base and hair translucence. Each takes no more than 40something seconds.

472 folicles, 20 hairs per folicle, no multistreaks, hair segments to 3 (for curvature), 26 light sources. Rendered at 1024x768 using triangle antialias settings. BTW hairdo is based on that of an anime girl named Peorth: http://hk.geocities.com/blue_chris200x/Peorth.8.jpg

Message edited on: 02/06/2006 11:34

Poser6 Test Animation: Strand Hair
4.6 MB Quicktime

Frame size 720x480
Frame Rate: 30fps,
Frames: 120

Render settings:
Raytrace off
Min Shading rate 1
pixel samples 3
Max texture size 1024
Bucket 64

Lights (see diagram)

Rendertime: 292 seconds per frame, 4min, 52 seconds
Hair Simulation, all frames, all groups, total: 31 seconds (collision off)

Model: EJ with default texture

Hair model: Kate hair, provided with Poser
Hair stats:
4 Groups: 4226, 2880, 2113, 3456 strands
Total: 12,675 strands
Settings: these are the default Kate Hair
settings, with the exception of "Position Force"
which I changed from the default 0.00 to 0.02
see notes below.

My goal here was just to put Kate Hair in motion, so please forgive the jerky, unpolished animation.

Funny, but the default settings for Kate Hair cause the hair to fall straight down when draping, and to fly around wispy during movement. This is "sexy", but without collision, the hair goes thru the head/face, and the strands end up all a-jumble and tangle and covering the face most of the time. So, for this test, all I did was jack up the setting "Position Force" to .02 which I have discovered by experiment lets the hair move, vibrate and sway a little, but general returns it to the original shape.

I did a test simulation with collision on for all four hair groups colliding with the head. It took 41 minutes. But I didn't render it; there is a problem with hair and collision, probably caused because I have not put enough time into the settings. You get "atomic vibration." This means, the anti-collision is so strong, that even if the head makes the slightest movement, or maybe NO movement for a few frames, the hair still bounces around, trying to "avoid." See and example of that here: Quicktime, 4MB. Can anyone help with this problem? I'd except the long sim time associated with collision prevention if the results would be great, but so far they are not, for me.

My lighting approach was to see what could be done by letting the hair cast shadows. And contrary to my former belief that hair shouldn't cast shadows because it will ruin the rendertime, I am getting spoiled, and hair not casting shadows, in a closeup, looks too unreal to me. There is a price to be paid, for sure, but for this test I wanted to see the results.

As a tradeoff, I kept the render settings, lighting settings at what I'd call medium rather than the other extremes of "Intense" or "Quick&Dirty". Also, the fill light has shadows turned off.

I didn't spend a lot of time trying to make the lighting great, but the idea is that this test has sufficient settings to perhaps deliver realism in skin, shadows and strand resolution, but still retain a modestly realistic render time. Another render I did with settings pushed higher, and a frame rendertime of about 7.5 minutes each, is here: 5.6 MB Quicktime. Longer version: 24.4 MB, Quicktime.

Even this animation could be pushed higher in realism, but the framerate would start to skyrocket.

[Note: I am actually working on a series of extreme renders, with frames over 1000 seconds per frame, on closeup with very powerful shadows and tight resolution of strands. Will report those results here, as well.]

::::: Opera :::::
Message edited on: 02/06/2006 20:07

Message edited on: 02/06/2006 20:08

i never sacrificed detail for realism, my average pics take hours to render now i'm starting to move to animation, ouch >.< well not start, i've animated plenty before, just not realism only did with the basic 3d look :P i'm going to cry very soon you gave up on carrara, i still have hopes >.< lol even if i have to merge 2 renders!

" Broken down on 3 layers: hair shadows, hair base and hair translucence." Nemirc, very good! I like the soft look to the hair, and the slight hint of translucency. I think the rendertime here is quite acceptable, considering the quality, and length of the hair, and especially the size you rendered at. I'd like to see a more close-up render of the hair. "Poser6 Test Animation: Strand Hair" Opera, real nice job with the P6 hair! The hair looks realistic, and the shadowing is good. The movement in the animation is good also... not too much wildness to the strands, and just the right amount of flow to it (like it had been hairsprayed in place, as you would imagine it). How do you feel about the rendertime? I think it's slightly extensive, but you're getting impressive quality there. As for the collisions, have you tried running them on a low-res prop that is scaled the same size as the head? The less polys they need to collide with, the faster it will be. You could build a low-poly mock-up that roughly fits the shape of EJ's head, and use that to collide the hair against, then use the solution to render on top of the actual model. PS: This is yet another problem of working with only the dense, hi-res mesh of Poser figures. In Max, for example, I have the luxury of working with the low-poly base mesh for running the simulation quickly, then just subdivide that mesh for the high-res render. You might be able to fake that in Poser though.

export the figure as obj, open a modelling program, and import just remodel a bit, keep head only, and lower the poly amount alot export, import back to poser, parent new head to the old collide only on the new head, it copies the motions, works fast genesis hair in marketplace is same thing, the "proxy" is already made not sure if one for ej though

Yep, that's exactly what to do, anxcon. Decimate the mesh if possible with a modelling app, down to a reasonable poly count. By reasonable, I mean something at least half (or less) what it currently is now.

Why don't you simply use a sphere?

"Why don't you simply use a sphere?" A sphere could work too, if you resize it in approximation with the head of the model. Some magnets might come in handy for that too. The only problem would be that if it's not sufficiently close to the head's shape, collisions will not look accurate when you do the final render, especially if you need to pull off some close-up shots.

hey guys, those are good suggestions for reducing the sym time. I have a few trickes like that in the bag and can add to your suggestions. But beyond the sym time........it's the dancing hair effect. Help me with that if you can. When you render the animation with the sym in place, which you created with collision on, You can't get the hair to lay still. Even if you halt ALL subtle movements, you know, those little head sways that add realism?.....the hair just won't settle down, strands keep moving as if avoiding collision. Any of you ever take strand hair with collision dynamics into a full render that has a stop in it? Does the hair fully stop for you? ::::: Opera :::::

anxcon, i did not fully give up on Carrara, nor have I not decided to move into Messiah or 3DSMax, both of which I am very serious about. I just gave Carrara a quick look-see to check if I could hit a triple down into the corner on the first pitch. No such luck. I still have room in Poser to find productivity, such as staying in realism but getting my times down with other tricks. Maxx: "How do you feel about the rendertime? I think it's slightly extensive, but you're getting impressive quality there." Well, here i/we are, on the cusp. At some point you have to look at the tradeoff-line between realism and rendertime. There is still room to bring down render time with good realism. I am persisting. My issue is, I love closeups, human subtle movements, strand hair that moves, skin realism and fantastic shadows. These are NOT conducive to low render times. Honestly, sometimes I just want to "go toon" or "go sketch" and end it all! [but not really] ::::: Opera :::::

do you guys know about zooming in on the shadowcams, which then enables you to set the map size lower and get the same resolution, thereby reducing render time? If I didn't have that trick, the rendertime in my clip above would be about 20% longer. ::::: Opera :::::

"At some point you have to look at the tradeoff-line between realism and rendertime."

Agreed, but I look at it in the opposite way. If a project is worth it, I'd be willing to swallow larger rendertime to achieve the realism I want. For me, 5 min. per frame at DVD resolutions is acceptable, but I've rarely had to deal that kind of time anyway, even for highly realistic results. Poser, however, is a different animal.

"When you render the animation with the sym in place, which you created with collision on, You can't get the hair to lay still. Even if you halt ALL subtle movements, you know, those little head sways that add realism?.....the hair just won't settle down, strands keep moving as if avoiding collision. Any of you ever take strand hair with collision dynamics into a full render that has a stop in it? Does the hair fully stop for you?"

Yes, it does, if I use enough dampening on the dynamics. Dampening, at least in 3dsmax, keeps the hair from moving until a certain velocity is reached. I don't know if it's the same with Poser's dynamic hair, but that's what it does with Hair and Fur in Max 7.5. This keeps the hair from getting "nervous", and prevents popping/jittering with every little movement that causes collision. If you look at real hair, or study your own hair, it doesn't move a great deal at all until you are really in motion. Subtle movements may make some longer hair move about slightly, but that's all. Even light, thin hair takes a bit of velocity and/or gravity to cause it movement.

One solution for you, Opera, might be to either experiment with dampening parameters in Poser's hair room (I don't recall if it has dampening or not), or to NOT run a simulation for scenes that have only slight movement, and instead keyframe animate the strands for those shots if need be. I think I recall the ability to keyframe animate dynamic hair by moving the strands manually.

Message edited on: 02/07/2006 00:46

Definitely play with damping values for the dynamics, Operaguy. Poser has a few options for that, and it's the same principle as dynamic cloth. Without the damping forces, the hair appears too jumpy and restless, just like with dynamic cloth. Higher values should cause the dynamic strands to come to a rested state faster. Also, you'll want to experiment with bend resistance, root stiffness, and position force to keep the shape of the hair.

All these examples so far are looking good. I think the 3dsmax renders look the most realistic so far, but the Maya ones seem to have the fastest rendertime.

Message edited on: 02/07/2006 02:09

okay, that's good information -- it's not a fatal defect in the hair engine, it's that I have not put in my dues with the damping settings (and there ARE damping settings, you can see them in my post above.) Will do so. Thanks for the feedback. Maxxmodels: "but I've rarely had to deal that kind of time anyway, even for highly realistic results" In otherwords, you can get this level of realism, on the hair, the shadows, the skin, etc., in well under 5 minutes? Well naturally, that renews my 3dsMax envy and horse-switching fever! Greg (or anyone), can you post an animation? Say, 120 frames, camera about the same distance from the face as mine, at 720x480, and provide the stats? Try to emulate the realism in shadows, skin and hair on the level of mine. Hair about the same length and style. That would provide me with a reality check. ::::: Opera :::::

So now I'll post MY hint for speeding up sym time, not that there is a thing wrong with the proxy ideas posted above. I just write down my settings for hair count, then reduce the density by 75% and run the sym. I then put the density back. I don't know if this idea is flawed....the results look fine, and it sure speeds up the sym. Also, I make the groups not being calculated invisible. That helps too. ::::: Opera :::::

"In otherwords, you can get this level of realism, on the hair, the shadows, the skin, etc., in well under 5 minutes?"

Yes, definitely. If you look at the links in my original post, you'll see the rendertimes on the images I linked to. Those images are the original render size. I think the realism is there, and most are done in under 3 minutes. The long blonde hair was the only one that took over 3 min. Even the realistic translucency example was done in under 3 minutes, and that one is a close-up. I'm using 3-point lighting for all examples, shadows on all lights. I think the main difference, Opera, is that Max and Maya can render shadow maps much faster than Poser. In fact, in most cases, they can render even raytraced shadows in the time Poser takes to render depth shadows.

It all depends, of course, on the complexity of the scene too. I think Nemirc's Maya examples might have me beat in terms of rendertime if you consider the length of the hair he's working with, and the number of strands/follicles.

"can you post an animation? Say, 120 frames, camera about the same distance from the face as mine, at 720x480, and provide the stats? Try to emulate the realism in shadows, skin and hair on the level of mine. Hair about the same length and style. That would provide me with a reality check."

I'll see what I can whip up later today or tonight.

Message edited on: 02/07/2006 03:28

i don't see any links in your post #1 here. I've read it over three times now, and no links. I guess that's why I'm asking for a comp from you, because I don't have your test frames, and therefore your times. ::::: Opera :::::

***" i don't see any links in your post #1 here. I've read it over three times now, and no links. I guess that's why I'm asking for a comp from you, because I don't have your test frames, and therefore your times."***

Hmmm. I posted them as links within the message, so it's strange you can't see them. Wonder if anyone else is having that trouble?

Anyhow, hopefully you can see the image attached to this message.

This is the hair I'll try to animate for you later today or tonight. This still render took exactly 4 minutes to complete at the size shown (720x480). I'm using 3 lights, and one of them has raytraced shadows. So even with raytracing, I'm still getting acceptable time. I think the skin realism and hair style are reasonably close to what you have shown in your example.

Greg, you don't have to render an animation on my account, now. I can see that image. It's a comp, if not better. I hope I am not nuts, but I can't see/find any links in post#1. Got your IM with the links, however. So, assuming I could fiddle with the Poser animation I posted in #24 above and bring the quality of the realism up to your image/s, the comparison would be 4 minutes against 5 minutes. That's not as bad as I thought. However, I am not confident I can match your quality at 5 minutes. The outrageous stills (and soon an animation) I am getting in Poser, which IMHO DO equal Max/Maya realism, are in the range of 1800 seconds per frame. More to come. ::::: Opera :::::

Tanking a deep breath, I see your times are WAY lower than 4 min for the other images, but that when you move in closer so the hair fills more of the frame (post 40), you are up to 4 min. You are still not as close in as my composition, however. That's a reality for all of us. Strand hair grief multiplies geometrically with distance from the camera as you push in! ::::: Opera :::::

"That's a reality for all of us. Strand hair grief multiplies geometrically with distance from the camera as you push in!"

That's definitely true, although if I hadn't used raytraced shadows on the one light for added detail, it would have been less than 3 min for the image in post #40. The length of the hair also plays a role it seems. The longer the strands, the more shadows it needs to calculate, resulting in longer render time. Length can be almost as computationally intensive as density, at least in 3dsmax. So the shorter the hair, and farther away from the camera it is, the faster it will render.

I'd be interested in seeing nemirc render a close-up using Maya's hair system to see if the same holds true for it. I'm thinking it would. Message edited on: 02/07/2006 07:13

Yeah nemirc, move in close with that girl and fill the frame. Let's see what Maya can do!

Ok. I must be doing something VERY wrong here, because I can't get anywhere near the level of realism being done by some of you in under 5 minutes. I'm using Poser 6, but even using Carrara, it still takes well over 5 minutes to get it looking good at that frame size. The render in post 40 looks absolutely amazing. I think it would be very hard to beat that kind of realism in under 5 minutes. The hair style in that post reminds me of Koz Messy, which is a prop hair by Kozaburo for Poser. Operaguy, I must applaud you. Your efforts have been the best I've seen done in Poser in that amount of time, but the shadows seem much richer and more realistic in the 3dsmax and Maya renders posted so far. I would also like to see a closeup of the maya hair. Great job by everyone so far! Great threaad.

Thanks Jimbo, but you ain't seen my best work yet. Watch this space in 12-24 hours for a stunning Poser6 animation. Jimbo, what hardware are you on, please supply specs. And to all Poser people....I repeat....do you know about zooming in on the shadowcams? It gets you 20-35%. ::: og :::

"Ok. I must be doing something VERY wrong here, because I can't get anywhere near the level of realism being done by some of you in under 5 minutes." Post your render settings for Poser 6. Maybe Opera can find something in there that you're doing differently than him.

I'm using an Intel Pentium 4 845E chipset 1.7GHz, 512mb RAM.

I'm at work now, but I'll try to post some screenshots of my render settings when I get home.

Message edited on: 02/07/2006 08:58

.

Just for kicks and giggles, I decided to re-render the same scene/hair that's in post #40, this time using the FinalRender engine, rather than MentalRay, with comparable settings. The rendertime and other info is stamped on the image above. I actually saved 30 seconds on that frame just by using FR over Mentalray, without any apparent loss in quality there. Hmmmm.

excellent. fantastic illumination. The AO-type effect under her straps is terrif. Highlights on lips terrif. backlight terrif.