Can dynamic hair be exported to max or other programs well?

As far as I know, only applications that have a Poser importer module can import dynamic hair (Vue, Mojoworld, Carrara, some others).

I may be wrong about this, but I have an idea that dynamic hair needs Transposer 2 for import to Carrara.   That comes included with Carrara 5 Professional, but is an add-on for the basic edition - and not exactly a bargain, in bytes-per-pound terms.

Possibly relevant additional point:  last I heard, Carrara 5 was not going to support Poser 7 ever.

I haven't tried dynamic hair imports to Vue, but I have been using the interface between Poser 7 and Vue 6 quite a bit lately.   I don't know what it does to dynamic hair, but I know what it does to mine...

Sorry, I have no knowledge of Max.

You cannot export dynamic hair period!  If you export as Wavefront OBJ you get triangulated polygonal representations of the guide hairs - that is it.  Dynamic hair is otherwise only supported by 'import' to applications using the Poser SDK which considers the hair groups and recreates the dynamic hair settings.
No.

Yes you can export dynamic hair - when you write out an OBJ file, the hair gets written out as line primitives. To include the full hair and not just the guide hairs, turn on "show populated". These are the raw control points of the hair, not a triangulation (Poser never triangulates hair). The thing is though that many programs read only polygon information when importing OBJ files and ignore the line primitives. Try finding a better OBJ importer for your programs then.

Um, I've exported dynamic hair as Wavefront obj and the result is triangulated polygon objects - I mean triangular - not tris compared to quads.  Should I do some screen shots to show?

Yes, most (MOST) programs do not handle the line keyword in OBJ files - as this is not the usual intention of OBJ files - the usual intention being polygons (you know that the Wavefront OBJ specification has some other things as well - who uses them?).  So how does that help anyone?  I know for certain that Cinema 4D doesn't handle this.  Lightwave 3D doesn't.  Max probably not.  Maya no. Houdini, no.  XSI - who knows.  Can you name one?  Shade? - oohhh, the industry standard.... Thanks.........

What would you want Poser to export? We're certainly open for suggestions. Is there a cross-application file format that has native support for strand-based hair? So far I have seen only proprietary solutions, and I could not find much about it in the FBX or Collada specs. RIB is aimed directly at rendering, I haven't seen many non-rendering programs that import RIB at all. If you get a triangulation, odds are the program that imported the OBJ created it. When you export an OBJ file with just hair from Poser, you'll see that it does not contain any polygons at all.

Definitely the programs that I've seen import Poser dynamic hair are interpreting the line's as polygonal geometry (or ignoring them completely).

But that's the thing.  The only recourse here is to have a proprietary solution.  I can write one ;), but most others are stuck with the built-in support.

One of the things that I'd like to do for my interPoser Ltd plugin is convert the OBJ import from Cinema 4D's to my own (as used in interPoser Pro) while maintaining the same group-to-object structure for Ltd.  Then I could include dynamic hair in the exported scene as splines instead of settling for that which Cinema 4D interprets.  Time is a predator. :)

stewar: "Yes you can export dynamic hair - when you write out an OBJ file, the hair gets written out as line primitives. To include the full hair and not just the guide hairs, turn on "show populated". These are the raw control points of the hair, not a triangulation (Poser never triangulates hair).The thing is though that many programs read only polygon information when importing OBJ files and ignore the line primitives. Try finding a better OBJ importer for your programs then.

So if I export .obj with "show populated" all the hairs will export not just the guide hairs. These will be 'line primitives". If my importing program imports .obj and respects line primitives.....voila I should get the whole hair model in.

But what about the simulations? and animations of the head itself?  any path there? Or...should I be happy I got the full hair model over and just contend with animating in my destination app, assuming it has a dynamic engine that will run a sim on line primitives?

Do I have that right?

::::: Opera :::::

No simulations or animation in the OBJ file - no, OBJ doesn't support these.  You might get animation by exporting a frame range - but how that would be interpreted by the importing app is another story.

I'm pretty certain that the OBJ export of the dynamic hair splines considers the current 'simulation' and styling end affects - meaning you won't get just a porcupine of straight hair splines but the currently simulated result - one hopes.  So for stills that should be enough if attached to the head geometry (e.g.).

I am looking into Poser --> PoseRay--> PovRay--> render out to folder (image sequence)

http://mysite.verizon.net/sfg0000/poserayhelp.htm#What_is_PoseRay
Here's what it says about dynamic hair.....

"Problem: Poser 5 dynamic hair does not show right.
Suggestion: Poser 5 exports hair as line elements. PoseRay can read those lines with no problem but unfortunately it seems that Poser 5 does not export all the dynamic hairs. It only exports the guide hairs. Maybe in a future service pack this may be enabled. "

.... or maybe they didn't pick up on the concept, as mentioned above by stewer, that you have to 'show populated."

As for the sim/animation, PovRay CAN deal with this....but it needs to see a folder of seqentially numbered files ..... in format .obj!   Ok. You can export an animation that way... takes a while but Poser will send out a .obj for each frame.

I am going to follow this lead a little, see if I can actually get this to work and if hair will move through, although kuroyume is saying no. Even if so, I want to take a look at POVRay to see how it does with a non-hair, non-dynamic cloth scene.

::::: Opera :::::

I Yi Yi YI!

http://hof.povray.org/chado.html

Be sure to click open the large version.

I know this is a thread about exporting dynamic hair and that's why I'm here. Investigating....

::::: Opera :::::

I actually had that image as a screen background for a while - very 'zen'. :)

I did get this frame of my "diamond" animation
to render, 2 hours for a large output on "final"
It certainly is "SHARP." that's for sure, and I did not get any reflection going, including the diamond itself, let alone the glass table top. That is just unfamiliarity, of course.

So I'm looking at all the POV sites for animations, with a goal of finding animations of dynamic hair....not much result so far. People are using this to render still shots, not animations, although animation rendering is supported. I would have to dig deep and do some experimenting to continue the investigation.

Meanwhile......few soft shadows. Either POV-Ray is not good at soft shadow ray trace, or it could be that very few people are interrested in using it for that, due to the spectacular abilities of the program for sharp-edged ray trace. POV-Ray is an admirable project, that's for sure.

::::: Opera :::::

Uploading into PoseRay/POV-Ray, the program "sees" the incoming data and lists the groups (see image here) but when loaded I do not see the hair in the preview and it is not visible when I render.

So............obviously Poser is exporting the strand data, but either in a form POV cannot understand, or else there is some tweak in the import I must perform that I am ignorant of.

First 20 lines of the large .obj file:
#  ----------------------------------------------------------
#  InternalName: JessiFollicleSurface
#  ExternalName: JessiFollicleSurface
#  Num verts:  133
#  Num sets:   464
#  Num elems:  116
#  Num tverts: 134
#  Num tsets:  464
#  Num tElems: 116
v -8.33976e-005 0.621022 0.0191863
v 7.02204e-005 0.61976 0.0350383
v 0.010665 0.617991 0.0345131
v 0.0113165 0.619198 0.0197885
v 0.00834853 0.613118 0.0482234
v 0.0170418 0.609243 0.0460998
v 0.0190347 0.613462 0.0334344
v 0.0253903 0.608555 0.0182667
v 0.025279 0.606262 0.0312241
v 0.0297856 0.598135 0.0265625

.... followed by vt and vn lines........follwed by I lines such as these:

vn -0.625299 -0.654642 -0.424788
vn -0.623137 -0.656508 -0.425085
vn -0.621702 -0.657741 -0.425279
vn -0.62158 -0.657846 -0.425296
vn -0.621801 -0.657657 -0.425266
g HairRIGHT
g HairRIGHT
usemtl Hair
l 86335/86336/86335 86336/86337/86336 86337/86338/86337 86338/86339/86338 86339/86340/86339 86340/86341/86340 86341/86342/86341 86342/86343/86342 86343/86344/86343 86344/86345/86344 86345/86346/86345 86346/86347/86346 86347/86348/86347 86348/86349/86348 86349/86350/86349 86350/86351/86350 86351/86352/86351 86352/86353/86352 86353/86354/86353 86354/86355/86354
l 86355/86356/86355 86356/86357/86356 86357/86358/86357 86358/86359/86358 86359/86360/86359 86360/86361/86360 86361/86362/86361 86362/86363/86362 86363/86364/86363 86364/86365/86364 86365/86366/86365 86366/86367/86366 86367/86368/86367 86368/86369/86368 86369/86370/86369 86370/86371/86370 86371/86372/86371 86372/86373/86372 86373/86374/86373 86374/86375/86374
l 86375/86376/86375 86376/86377/86376 86377/86378/86377 86378/86379/86378 86379/86380/86379 86380/86381/86380 86381/86382/86381 86382/86383/86382 86383/86384/86383 86384/86385/86384 86385/86386/86385 86386/86387/86386 86387/86388/86387 86388/86389/86388 86389/86390/86389 86390/86391/86390 86391/86392/86391 86392/86393/86392 86393/86394/86393 86394/86395/86394
l 86395/86396/86395 86396/86397/86396 86397/86398/86397 86398/86399/86398 86399/86400/86399 86400/86401/86400 86401/86402/86401 86402/86403/86402 86403/86404/86403 86404/86405/86404 86405/86406/86405 86406/86407/86406 86407/86408/86407 86408/86409/86408 86409/86410/86409 86410/86411/86410 86411/86412/86411 86412/86413/86412 86413/86414/86413 86414/86415/86414

Any insight?

I am headed off to the POV forums....since there was a "problem" noted that the hair only displayed the guides, that seems to indicate that hair should be able to be imported. 

::::: Opera :::::

Splines - as in almost any 3D application - do not render.  Then need to be polygonized or something else to be renderable.  Remember that Poser hair, Cinema 4D Hair, any other strand-based hair is going to be using gulde splines with populations that are handled specially by the renderer to be seen.

Once converted to polygons, expect no memory and a near-frozen system (unless you have 64-bit, 4+GB ram, and 4-8 processors). ;)

kuroyume i do not have such a computer, so I expect the trouble you predict. 

However.....can you be more specific? Do you know how to polygonize what are apparently splines in the .obj?  Would that be done inside PoseRay/POV-Ray, or in some other program?

If you have the answer to that, please explain in detail as I am not an advanced user. Thank you.

::::: Opera :::::

if it is splines i wonder if Animation:Master could open it. But then....what would it do with all the other polys! LOL

That all depends on the application - know nothing about Pose/POVRay.  In Cinema 4D, you would have to add a Solid Spline tag (Paul Everett plugin) for each spline created.  This generates polygon geometry around the spline (in a tubular form).

You'll need find an application that will import the lines in the OBJ file and also has a way to generate geometry for the splines or convert it into geometry.

Sorry that I can't be of much help here. :(

If you go in the pane of PoseRay tagged "Lines" you can convert splines in polygons (this is a functionality not documented in PoseRay manual, that ignore the "Lines" pane). The conversion, however, creates a giant file...
I hope I was clear: English isn't my language...

i will try it, thank you!

Gracias. Danke Shoen. Merci. Grazie mille.

By the way.....this is not exactly 'export', but..............

With BodyStudio, your entire Poser scene, including dynamic hair with sim, can be hosted in 3DSMax for render.

::::: Opera :::::