I haven't seen this discussed for a while - how to get your character wearing a hat plus a decent hair style. The problem, of course, is that the hair pokes through the hat. I experimented a little with this. Originally I thought that it ought to be possible to create a new polygon group in the hair, select the poking out polygons, and assign a transparent material. It didn't work, partly because the grouping tool isn't adequate for what becomes quite a delicate selection, partly because the polygons are then assigned to more than one material, which means they don't become transparent. There may be a way round that... but frankly, it isn't worth the effort.

Then I thought that rendering the hat alone and then the scene with everything but the hat would work, compositing the renders in Photoshop. The problem here is that you lose the shadows from the hat. In the end I tried magnets, and the results were quite good. Here's some examples with Jessi, the light edge bob hair, and the silly hat she comes with.

First, the raw render - note the hair sticking out of the hat; it would be almost impossible to fix this in postwork:

Then I added four magnets to the hair. The mag base and zone were moved into position then the magnet itself 'pushed' into the head, taking the hair with it:

This produces the following effect, sans hat:

It looks weird, but since you can't see the top of the head once the hat is on, it doesn't matter. Finally, add the hat and the result is:

I think this is quite a good result, and could probably be improved with tweaking. The trick is to scale and place the mag zones so that they don't affect (or only very slightly affect) the hair which will show.

Sorry if this is old hat (pun not intended!) but I thought some people might be interested.

Steve

Nice way to show the abilities of magnets, not only to create 96zz boobs ;-)

Thanks very much for posting this! Will definitely give it a try. I've had this problem myself in the past and could never figure out how to get around it, so this is very much appreciated! :D

Good stuff, Spedler, Thanks!

I usually just render it with and without hair and fix it up in postwork.

...I just leave em bald. When someone says, "She's bald!" I just say, "Of course, silly. That's why she's wearing the hat ;)

Thanks for the mini tut, real helpful.

I usually find one magnet is sufficient, given a bit of work on scaling the zone.

One thing you probbaly already know is - when you work with magnets try scaling the base down (I usally use about 4 percent) so you can see what you are doing. The magnet will automatically scale with the base. I did some "Hats with Hair" for DAZ as one solution to this problem, I've also done hair sets that include a hat and morphs in the hair to fit it.

What Phantast said.
You dont need four magnets to do this.
I just scaled the magnet to 65% to make her hair dissapear.

I use magnets a lot, and my workflow is usually like this:

1. Load magnet
2. Set magnet display to outline
3. Move/scale magnet in the general direction I want the morph to go
4. Create the morph by scaling/moving the mag-zone

Dont forget to tick "Deformers-Show current selection only"
if you work with several magnets at the same time.

I usually "use up" several dozend magnets for a face morph, so every three or four magnets I spawn a new morph and delete the magnets so that things dont become too confusing.

stahlratte

Message edited on: 01/31/2006 14:53

Stahlratte, do you think you could post another image of what you did? I don't really understand magnets all that well, so if I can achieve this with 1 magnet all the better.

Thanks a lot for the info, I was just going to ask the same question! :)

I'm trying to do this.

Can someone tell me how I can get all of my magnets to show up at the same time so that I can post a screenshot of my set up and find out if I have the magnets and magnet zones positioned properly?

Do I have them set up properly to accomplish this and push the hair into the head so I can fit a hat?

Quote - I usually find one magnet is sufficient, given a bit of work on scaling the zone.

Same here - one magnet is usually sufficient for me as well.

Quote -  Here are screenshots of my set up.  I don't know how to get the magnets to show up with the red like in the images at the top. Do I have them set up properly to accomplish this and push the hair into the head so I can fit a hat?

My magnets generally always show up red as above... unless I set the view to wireframe, but here's a few posts to give you a quick rundow of my method using one magnet... (as follows)

You can scale the Mag Zone very large in the x and z (like two or three hundred %) for example if necessary to get the Magnet's intensity to be stronger along the outer areas of the hair. 

Hope you find the info of benefit. Good luck!

One final note... once you get everything like you want it, you can select the hair and go to - "Object: Spawn Morph Target"  and give it a name like "Hat On" or whatever, it will create a dial in the Parameter window with that name. You can then delete the magnet and turn the morph dial to 1.

However, How do you get the magnet to have colour and substance?  And how do you get  only the magnet zone to be wire frame.  When I click on the Magnet Zone and then the Wire Frame in the DocStyle, Vicky and the magnet become wire frame and the magnet zone stays a flat circle outline. I think it would help me to see the magnet zone in such a way that I can see what is included instead of just trying to envision it based on a flat circle.

Here is the screenshot of what I am clicking.

I want Vicky and everything else to be texture shaded, but I want to be able to pick and choose what I want the magnet zone to be....either flat circle or the wire frame.

Whee!!!! My first magnet success......sort of!  I have to do some fixing in post work because I couldn't get some of the hair but for the most part it worked!!!

Thank you so much for the easy step by step tutorial. That's just what I needed :)

Congrats! - Glad you found it useful! :)  You could always add a second magnet to the part that didn't fall into place.  Make the zone of the second mag cover only that area...

Quote -  I want Vicky and everything else to be texture shaded, but I want to be able to pick and choose what I want the magnet zone to be....either flat circle or the wire frame.

To do this, select the Mag Zone, go to the "Display" menu and click "Element Style" you can then select "Wire Frame" from the item list..

I haven't been this thrilled with Poser since I figured out how to put shoes on my figures!  LOL  For months and months all of my figures were barefoot because I just couldn't manage to get shoes to fit them.  Then the next paramount accomplishment for me was discovering dynamic clothing. For once my figures could actually be posed in a position other than near upright!

Wheee!!!!  No sleep for me tonight I'm off to put hats on everyone, hehe

Quote - Can someone tell me how I can get all of my magnets to show up at the same time so that I can post a screenshot of my set up and find out if I have the magnets and magnet zones positioned properly?

Display menu | Deformers | Show All

It's worth mentioning that you can mov the magnet base to somewhere convenient so that it's easier to several zones in a small area.
You can also scale the base to make the base/magnet combination a more convenient size.

Doesn't the magnet and base  have to be large enough to enclose the area you want to manipulate? I know the magnet zone has to be, but doesn't the magnet base and magnet have to be too?

Quote - Doesn't the magnet and base  have to be large enough to enclose the area you want to manipulate? I know the magnet zone has to be, but doesn't the magnet base and magnet have to be too?

No, only the zone size and position is important for what's affected when you transfrom the magent relative to the base.
When you add a magnet Poser sets the base so that it's approximately as big as the group your attaching the magnet to, and centres it on the group.
This isn't always convenient as the magnet and base will probably get in the way of setting the zone correctly, and is especially awkward when your using more than one magnet on the same group.

The Mag and Mag Base are just visual representations of the deforming force the magnet causes. The Zone is all that needs to encompass the area, the position of the Base is important though, particularly if you plan on rotating the Magnet. The Mag Base will determine the center of rotation. Likewise, it also determines the center of all forces performed by the magnet. 
For example, if you position the base at the back of a head, and scale in z, the front of the head will be pushed forward to a greater degree where as the back of the head will remain more or less in it's same position. If you position the base in the center of the head, the scaling will be more uniform in all directions.

Note that this is also a valuable technique for pulling around hair with few morphs in it, as well as anything else (clothing, whatever).  A very common application for me is putting some gravity bend on hair with few morphs.

Just as  note, in addition to the very good techniques shown above.. Those with P7 can use the new Morph Tool in PUSH mode to achieve mush the same results, sweeping over the hair, pushing it toward the head until is is invisable under the hat.

Thsi may prove a bit easier, again for those with P7, that find the magnets a bit hard to work with.

mike

Quote - Just as  note, in addition to the very good techniques shown above.. Those with P7 can use the new Morph Tool in PUSH mode to achieve mush the same results, sweeping over the hair, pushing it toward the head until is is invisable under the hat.

Thsi may prove a bit easier, again for those with P7, that find the magnets a bit hard to work with.

mike

Hmmm, that's the first "must have" that I've come across in Poser 7 that I like.  Now if I can find 2 more I'll probably upgrade :)

Quote - Hmmm, that's the first "must have" that I've come across in Poser 7 that I like.  Now if I can find 2 more I'll probably upgrade :)

How about no more worries about texture sizes for one.

I haven't really done much with magnets, but this is a really solid method of solving an age-old problem.

I usually just combine two renders in Photoshop. One with hair, one without. I suppose which method you use will depend on whether your quicker with Photoshop or with Poser magnets. Purists will say the latter is the best option, of course :). Me? I chose whatever gets the job done.

Quote - > Quote - Hmmm, that's the first "must have" that I've come across in Poser 7 that I like.  Now if I can find 2 more I'll probably upgrade :)

How about no more worries about texture sizes for one.

Nope :)  I don't strive for total realism and I haven't had any problems with texture sizes on my new computer because I tend to not do really complex scense. So I really have no need to be able to use textures that are humungous in size.  In fact I found that when I had my old computer and I had to resize all of my textures to 1024 on the long side, that I didn't notice a difference between the resized ones and the originals.

Good tip.  However, instead of spawning the magnet on the hair itself, I find it helpful to spawn the magnet on  the HAT instead, but leave the hat's magnet's dial value at 0.0, then, add the hair to the magnet's "objects to deform"  (thus the magnet & deformation zone are parented to the hat, but only deforming the hair).

This allows the hat to be subsequently re-posed on the head and yet, without readjusting the magnet, still scrunch any hair that happens to fall underneath at whatever jaunty angle I end up using.

@Nance - Excellent idea! - That way if you're animating for example, the character could even take off the hat, (the Mag Zone going with it) and the hair would revert to it's original shape as the hat comes off.

Humm, Nance, your suggestion is making me think about going back to magnets... With your technique the hats could be saved and OFFERed (as free stuff or merchandise) with the magnets which would be a nice touch by the vendor. This is something like the magnetic deformers in the G2 and V4 figures in reverse.

Nice touch!

mke

Thanks. I think I sort of understand that. Had to read it a few times, hehe

I'll try it. It sounds promising :)

Don't forget that you can spawn morphs on the hair props from the magnets so that you don't have to do all the work over and over again next time. Same goes for Morph Brush morphs!