Hi.  I would like to know how  make dynamic hair in Poser 5.  All I seem to get is when I try is something like a monk's croff...ya know that ring of hair around the head.  I can't get it to layer to cover the whole head.  Is there something I need first or am I doing something wrong?

Are you clicking on the head first to make sure it's selected? That really tripped me up in the beginning when I tried to use the hair room; I'd try to create a new hair group and it would never stick. I don't know how I figured it out, and the manual was vague on this point.

Yes.  I select the figure's head and click create new hair group.  Thank you for your reply.  I'm determined to figure out the Hair Room. :)

First off, it's reccommended that you use the premade Skull Caps for the figure your making hair for if you're using the default figures. The hair will be saved attached to this prop when you complete it. Beyond that, you must select the skull cap, or head of the figure if they don't have one. Then use the "Grouping Tool" to select the area of the head or prop upon which you will grow the hair. Once the area you want covered is fully highlighted in red you can close the grouping tool and click grow guide hairs. From that point i's up to you to grow it shorten it style it and whatnot. Have fun.

It's difficult to get dynamic hair to be thick enough to cover the scalp without bogging down your system.

You'll notice that dynamic hair that comes with Poser 6 uses textured skullcaps, as a sort of cheat. 

I often use 3Dream's textured skullcaps.  Not to grow hair on - they are too high-res - but afterward, to cover any bald spots.

That won't work with monk-style hair, though - you need the bare scalp for that.  The only thing I can suggest is to increase the hair density and strand thickness until you get the coverage you need.  You won't need many vertices for a hairstyle like this, so you can make the hair denser.

If you haven't downloaded Kirwyn's free Genesis hair, do so.  It's a great tutorial for dynamic hair.  (He uses two skullcaps to get the needed thickness.)

I get around that by setting clumpiness to 0 and having a root size setting between 3 and 6 depending on how short the style is. High root size for shorter styles helps hide the scalp. Just leave the tip size below 1 for realistic looking ends.

Thank you all for the great advice. 
I'll fetch Kirwyn's free Genesis hair ASAP :)
I've been trying to design a specific style for Micheal 3, because I haven't been able to find anything similiar to how I want his hair to look.

If you want you can easily create a skull cap for Mike or any other character who doesn't have one by usingt he Poser grouping tool to select the areas yof his head you want to grow hair on. Here's the steps:

1: Load the figure
2: Select the head
3: Open the grouping tool and hit the "New Group" button and give it a name like scalp.
4: Select the areas of the head you want to use for the scalp
5: Click on Spawn Props

You now have a prop called head and one called scalp. Delete the extraneous Head prop and save the scalp prop to the hair library of your choice as a base for all future hair styles for this figure.

The problem is that results in a skullcap that's too high-res.  Dynamic hair works best in a low-res skullcap. 

PhilC has free skullcaps at his site, but they are also really high-res.  About 3,000 polys.  If you check the skullcaps that come with the P6 dynamic hair, they have only about 200 polys.  I've even seen people use really low-res skullcaps - 8-20 polys. 

The thing is, the lower the poly count on the prop, the lower the follicle count you'll get and to correct the bare spots you'll have to up the haircount via the dials exponentially as well as increase the rootsize to a point where it becomes unusable in renders. At least with the prop spawned from Low Rez James, you'll only have to double or triple the hair count and not have to raise the root width to an un renderable point to cover the bald spots.

I don't know who you know who's making 20 poly hair props, but I'd like to know their secret.

That's why I use low-res skullcaps.  The simulation takes too long with a high-res skullcap.  If it runs at all.

Well we're comparing apples and oranges in our uses then. For animation and from the distance you're usingand the length of hair you're showing the bald spots aren't as noticeable. It's different for closeup still shots as well as shorter hair styles.

Also, when you use the "Style" tool, which is what I've been focusing on, you're not likely to run many simulations because the styles you create just fade away when you run them through simulations. 

Studio Verite used to have a nice dynamic hair tutorial.  She made a low-res skullcap that was offered for free download as part of the tute.  IIRC, it was only 20 polys.  She used styling rather than sims, and got some very good results.  I wish that tute was still up.  It was excellent.

Bald spots are always a problem with dynamic hair.  I've seen a lot of different ways to deal with it.  I like using a textured skullcap myself.  (I use 3Dream's, added after the styling or sim is done.)  Kirwyn uses two low-res skullcaps, one inside the other, with hair on both.  And some people use skullcaps that are high-res just on the parts where it's needed.  (Along the hairline, for example.)

The dynamic hair skullcaps in Poser 6 have something like a tenth the polys of the dynamic hair skullcaps in Poser 5.  I think they realized the trick to getting the Hair Room to actually work as advertised was to lower the system resources.  They deal with the thin hair problem by coloring the skull cap.  That's not as good as real texture, though.  It's okay for medium or long distance, but looks funny in closeups.

Yeah widening the root width too much looks like they've had oil poured on their heads in closeups if you go over a root width of 5, at least in my experience. But the lower 4 seems to be a good setting for what I've done so far.

Studio Verite recommended not going larger than 2, for a realistic look.  Still, dynamic hair tends to have that wiry, Barbie-doll look at the root, which is another reason I usually use it only for medium or long distance.

Stew recommended some render settings to help dynamic hair look softer.  IIRC, he uses some Gaussian.  His renders look terrific.

randym77, can you tell us where to find 3Dream's textured skull caps? I haven't been able to find them in either the Free Stuff or the Marketplace.

Also, I would like to try the render settings you mentioned, but my search of the forum on user "Stew" found nothing. Does Stew have another name in the forum and/or galleries?

Thanks,
Rick

Is there a way of grouping multiple texture zones into one to create one single hair prop for a figure? It would have to bend with the figure... I'm trying to add fur to the animals in Poser7 - the wolf's tail is in desperate need of some fur.

Quote - can you tell us where to find 3Dream's textured skull caps?

See -> 3Dream's Universal Skull Caps

Thanks, nruddock. Looks like 3Dream did a nice job with the USC set.

I don't suppose you know who "Stew" is? I'm still curious to see how he adjusted his render settings for dynamic hair...

Dynamic hair can be extremely tempermental. I use it alot in my images, and have had only a few successful close up shots.

the key to realistic looking hair is realistic numbers of actual hairs (120,000+ at least) Textured skull caps are still the best method to get rid of bald spots.

Styled Dynamic hair can still be easily put through the dynamic calc, but the key is to get your settings for bounce, spring, weight and g-force setup correctly, so that the hair naturally returns to its styled position if the model doesnt move, but still has enough movement to swing around when movement occurs.

Still, since most of my work is animation without much close-up work, I think it will be worth the effort.

I'm using Kirwyn's marvelous Genesis Hair, and have played around with the default Dynamic settings, but they appear to be very sensitive and tempermental.

With that in mind, I'd very much like to get your thoughts and feedback on the default Dynamics for this hair, shown above (Sorry about the size - I don't know how to show it bigger, but if I click on it in Preview, it opens a window where the image is larger and the text is legible). These settings work quite well during movement, but the "settled" position hides much of her face when the character is standing still.

Speaking of tempermental settings, the Gravity parameter is a very, very small number, and is negative. That seems counter-intuitive to me, but when I changed it to a positive value, the hair floated up. Strange.

Its been a very long time since Ive done this (just came back to pose a few days ago) but I will try my best to help you out.

Gravity
This setting is not actually the amount of gravity applied (such as the name implies) but the speed at which the hair will naturally move along the global Y axis. negative numbers move the hair down, positive up.

Spring Strength
this is the setting for how springy the hair is, such as curls bouncing a little after they move.

Air Dampening
This is how much resistance the air has on the movement of the hair. higher numbers will start to make the hair look like its moving through liquid

Spring Dampening
This setting sets how much the momentum of the hair is reduced while it is springing. if you set this to 0, the hair would take a VERY long time to stop moving, and it would rely almost entirely on the air dampening setting.

Bend Resistance
This is how hard the hair is to bend. higher numbers make the hair more stiff (as if it has gel in it) and lower number numbers make the hair more like silk in its ability to fold.
0.84 is about average, but if your working with styled hair, a higher setting of aorund 0.88-0.92 will help keep the hair in its correct shape this setting is extremely sensitive.

Position Force
This setting is key for styled hair, this sets how much the hair "wants" to return to its original position. too high a setting will stop the hair from moving all together unless something physically interacts with it. too small a setting will cause the hair to struggle to return to its original position due to air dampening and gravity settings

Root Stiffness
This setting is basically Bend Resistance, but just for the first part of each hair. higher numbers make the hair stiffer. the lower you set this number, closer to the head the hair will start to bend. this setting is key because to low a number, and the hair will sit unnaturally on the head. too high, and the hair will start bending too far away. looking strange.

Root Stiffness Falloff
This setting is the distance along the hair that the Root Stiffness setting no longer takes effect. This setting works in direct relation to the one above, lower root stiffness, but higher falloff can give the same effect and higher stiffness with a lower falloff.

I hope this helps some. If I get time, I will do some examples when I get home

Thank you, templargfx, particularly for explaining the Gravity parameter. It makes sense now. Armed with this information, I can start to make reasonable tests and experiments to refine my animations.

Also, operaguy in a thread in the Animation Forum reinforces your point about Position Force: "My suggestion is to start with "Position Force" at a high value, say .03 which should make it not move at all in a simple animation. Then, lower it gradually until you get just a little motion. Once you gauge the temperment of "Position Force" you could try altering the damping settings."

It's a long, four-page thread over there, getting into the Poser vs. other apps debate at points, but it basically ends up re-affirming the delicacy of strand-based hair settings. Here's a link:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2570850&page=3

With your help, perhaps we can end up documenting a workable min-avg-max range for the most sensitive parameters, so that all of us Poser dynamic hair enthusiasts can build on our strengths. Thanks to you and Kirwyn, we have a start. For example, it sounds like we are suggesting Bend Resistance: Min = ?, Avg = 0.84, Max =  0.92

Min on bend resistance I would suggest no less than .69 anything less and the hair will go absolutely haywire due to the spring and gravity settings swinging it around like a gail force wind!

I was dissapointed about the documentation that came with poser regarding these settings (and most of the documentation on any settings in that manual) they are way too complicated and over the top for the average user (just read up on some of the camera dials LOL)

I will try and get some min-avg-max settings tonight for both styled and "genisis" type dynamic hair.

the genesis collition model is fantastic tool for those who only have poser as a 3D application, and it will save you all manner of time when it comes to colition calculations.

I myself use V4 which has had some aggressive polygon reduction done via polytrans (polytrans has the ability to reduce the polycount of a mesh while enabling the bones in poser to still work on it as if it was the original high res version (although morphs dont work)

Ricky - Stew uses the name "Stewer" here.  (Someone else already had "Stew.")  His real name is Stefan.

Here is one of the threads where he talks about render settings and dynamic hair:

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=1556320

Thanks, randym77. Stew did a beautiful job on the rat's fur, and I will try out his render recommendations, excerpted here for completeness:

"I found strand-based hair looks best with mapped shadows, a high number of pixel samples (7 or more) and a gaussian or sinc post filter of size 2."

In the meantime, I have found that setting the dynamic hair to be invisible to raytracing greatly speeds up rendering, although the figure's ground shadow then looks disconcertingly bald. To compensate, I increased the light's Shadow Blur Radius to 5, which makes the ground shadow blurry enough that the "baldness" isn't apparent.