I am on the fence with ordering upgrade and want to see more renders of the hair modeler. I make animals and wildlife... Thank you - I need convincing. R

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2707190

I haven't played with hair yet.. guessing they based it on Eric's Anything grows?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2707190 That fur looks topnotch: another reason why I should learn to use Carrara 6.

Thanks Miss Nancy - are there any others? Mark is a pro. I'm looking for examples from average Joes... In the hands of a pro., anything can be tweaked to look great.

The hair is not based on anything grows. It is all new, strand based and quite a bit more advanced than AG.

http://www.tutengraphics.com/fullpic.php?fullpic=graphics/Recent%20Works/project%20images/Victoria%20Hair%20closeup.jpg

http://www.tutengraphics.com/fullpic.php?fullpic=graphics/Recent%20Works/project%20images/Michael%20disp%20hair.jpg

looks great, I may just have to do a little investagation

This was my first try at creating hair in C6... I love C6, even though there are some bugs, it can still do some great things :)

Thanks thomllama, discoseven, and patrick - great examples. I so want to pick up the new version. Be sure I'll post some examples if I pick it up. Thanks

Discoseven and jfbeute, I like your hair. please describe how you created it.

This hair actually consists of two hair sets. One is all over the head, the entire skullcap was selected (set up: 16 segments, 5000 hairs, 400 guidehairs, uniform), the hair brushed to the hair band (tip use the 4 windows capability in the hair modeler [left, right, back and top] to quickly switch views and keep on brushing), then all hair was cut at the hair band. Apply a single iteration drape (the drape only works after brushing and applies collision rules to the brushing, making it appear more natural). I have not applied any simulation to this piece of hair. Using the standard hair shader with just the tip color set to the same value as the root color. Make a test render to make sure this bit looks good, if not add more guidehairs and brush some more.
The tail is a separate piece of hair, with only the faces behind the hairband selected (set up: 32 segements [you might need more for a free flowing look], 5000 hairs, 170 guidehairs [the more the beeter the spread in the simulation but it'll take time], uniform), no brushing, just run the simulation (when you have set up an animation with some movement, otherwise brush until it looks good). Standard hair shader again used but this time with some length variation (20 %).
In short brush if you want a specific look (always run at least 1 iteration of drape to make it look more natural), simulation if you have dramatic movement (it does go wild very quickly, actually too quickly). Use as many segments and guidehairs as you need (both brushing and simulation only work with the guidehairs and hair only bends at the segments). Options in the hair shaders can give very dramatic effects, use them with care.

A few more tips:
After dragging the hair on the figure and selecting the hair regions always reset the shape. I don't what it uses as its default shape but it is plain wrong. Pushing the clear button will remove all drape and simulation, it will not reset the shape to zero.
Do NOT set hair density to zero, this will cause an endless loop.
Do not apply a force of 100 times gravity, this will cause hair to grow downwards.
I still haven't worked out if gravity is applied by default or if is just too weak. I/m still trying to get long hair to move correctly in an animation and momentum always wins (I have yet to find a way to control momentum). There are many settings that can be applied but for most I don't see any effect at all. I assume they are using the physic engine to drive all this and as we all know that one doesn't work too well. Or maybe there are simply not enough decimal places to do the calculations correctly.

Still playing with hair. Short hair is easy and works well. Long hair suffers from an overly active simulation and no way to control it properly. Nice to have a time range on the simulation, shame it doesn't actually work.

Some more simulations and it seems that root stiffness is the key to the problems i'm having. All force obey root stiffness except for momentum. So when any movement starts the hair wants to stay in place (momentum) and this moves the root (altough a high root stiffness should have prevented this) and the other forces  con not counteract this since they all obey the root stiffness. Reducing the root stiffness to near zero solved most of my problems. At least other forces can now actually move the hair.
I will test some more (tomorrow) and when I can confirm this I will report this as a bug.

jfbeute, thanks for your detailed reply. just two more questions: 1. which poser model is that (I'm guessing michael 2 or 3)? 2. how does one select the skullcap? I have been trying this with apollo, but I don't see the skullcap there to select. I had to paint in the polygons, then add guide hairs. there are still quite a few bugs, so don't hesitate to report any you encounter.

Great job on the wrap! I've been having problems just adding a new shader to dynamic hair - I get the pinwheel every time. Any ideas?

Quote - jfbeute, thanks for your detailed reply. just two more questions: 1. which poser model is that (I'm guessing michael 2 or 3)? 2. how does one select the skullcap? I have been trying this with apollo, but I don't see the skullcap there to select. I had to paint in the polygons, then add guide hairs. there are still quite a few bugs, so don't hesitate to report any you encounter.

For most of my work I use P5 Judy and Don with lots of spins of dials in the face room and on the body. Far less resource hungry as the DAZ characters and for anything but close ups just as good (i have 4 to 20 characters in the shot, so it always be at some distance to get all in). I do have and use (if rarely) all Vicky and Michael characters. This is actually Judy.

For the skull cap I use the standard P5 skull cap, with morph putty from P7 just pull it into the right shape. It doesn't have to be perfect, as long as the bulk is just outside the head but the edge just intersects. Hair grown inside the head don't show, any bumps on the skull cap give some depth to the hair. To select the skull cap in C6 select by material and use the second skin head or whatever material the skull cap uses. By the way if you save a scene in P7 make sure you select not using external morphs and select P5 or P6 in Transposer in C6 or C5, that will import your scene with minimal problems. Select your camera angle (not imported) and check your lights (probably need a tweak), set up materials (anything metal or glass will need new materials selected, characters are generally pretty good, unlees at exterme close up).

Note: Apollo has known (and resolved) issues in C6, so wait until the first service release before using him. Just select the polygons and apply guide hairs uniform (works best in most cases).

Quote - I was having no luck trying to create a long hair style on V4 using draping -- the hair goes through parts of the head and shoulders rather than colliding. I gave up for now and played with the millenium cat instead. I see potential with more work and experimenting with tools and textures.

When intersecting the head or body increase the collision distance. This will resolve most problems. Reset the pose, brush a bit to get the hair going in the right direction (otherwise a lot of hair will fall in front of the face), select an appropriate root and hair stiffness and let it all drape. If doesn't go fast enough in the right direction just add a gravity force pointing down and maybe a bit of wind in some direction. If you want to get hair exactly right brush a lot, apply a 1 iteration drape (to get to look more natural and get rid of intersects).

Quote - Great job on the wrap! I've been having problems just adding a new shader to dynamic hair - I get the pinwheel every time. Any ideas?

Sorry, don't know what you mean with getting the pinwheel all the time. What are you trying to do? I use the standard shader and change some settings with no problems at all.
If you want to change the color you can click on the color and you will get the pinwheel for coarse selections or you can click on the little arrow to get numerical entry for exact color selection (as always in color selection in C5 or C6).
Using a texture map in density or length can create some interesting effects (begin with a ball and some big contrast texture map to see the effects).
The last 4 parts of the shader should be used with care, they quickly go over dramatic, a little bit goes a long way. Note that any change in the shader will require rerunning drape and simulation to apply the changes correctly and might upset any careful brushing, always try one thing at a time and build up slowly.
Remember anything that works on short hair might not work well on longer hair.

Hi**
** **fivecat,Nice kitty. Looks great .
Thanks jfbeute and everyone contributing, this is a terrific and valuable thread.
cheerio  lululee

**

Finally it clicked.
It's not a hair problem, it's a transposer problem. Importing an animation with transposer creates a complete mess if you want to use it together with hair.
So it all works great if you need a still but importing an animation doesn't work if you want to use hair.

WOW jfbeute, Thanks for that great, time saving tidbit of info.
cheerio  lululee**
**

Thanks lululee and ominousplay! Putting fur on animals was my main incentive to upgrade to C6. ominousplay, I tried to view your movie, but it's not working for me. Do you have a still image to share? (Absolutely love your avatar, btw). Lot's of great info and images in this thread.

Thanks fivecat - I have to use the home computer - but I'll admit, it's not as real looking as your cat's fur. Did you set it all up? The fur direction looks very natural... great job. I'm having trouble adding the ends you can edit/move - I get the sphere and then can't see how to click to add a guide hair from it. R

ominousplay: For the cat fur, I did a lot of experimenting to get the fur texture and length I wanted. I used the hair length tool to shorten the fur around the head, muzzle and feet. Then I used the brush to move the guides in a natural flow on the body (this is easier if you turn off the visibility of the hair so you can see the guides). As for adding guides, the sphere shows you the influence of the brush. Just move the sphere so it intersects the body where you want to add a guide and click.

Thank you fivecat - I'll try adding guide hairs later. Again, great results on your milcat. I am excited to put fur on a few wolves. Finally, Carrara has hair and fur! I've used Anything grows for a while, and with results I was happy about, but now it is easier. The one thing AG does that I don't see in dynamic hair is it allows for objects to be placed on the tip - at leaset I don't think we can do that with dh.

Quote - I still get the pinwheel or death (mac) when I try to change anything on the hair prop in shader room - even the tip color, it just starts spinnin'. I might be out of juice - eMac 1 gig ram 1.25ghz.

This is a known bug that any rigged model will crash the shader room preview -- hopefully to be fixed with the 1st service release.... The work-around is to turn off AUTOUPDATE on the preview window before you load any rigged figures.

Thanks for posting a still of your seal. Looking good, though it will be difficult to get the texture just right with the shader room bug. I want to experiment with multiple hair instances, too. I don't know if multiple instances can exist on the same polys, but it will be cool if they can. Most animals have the thick short undercoat and a longer top coat, and having multiple lengths of hair will look more realistic.

I think I did it, but they both have the same shader... one is short, one long... I'm also getting a strange reaction when painting the density of hair/fur on my model... when I try and paint on thicker or thinner fur on the seal's nose, the purple indication of "weight" also paints on the tail, or other parts of the figure. What's with that? Thanks hd for pointing that out, I didn't know.

Wow! No, I need to whitch to guide-based. I was having the hardest time adding guide hairs with texture based - it all went to the front. I like the long, whispy hairs... very cool.

Why I can't delete or edit my previous posts? Can someone do it for me, please? 

Another try:

Great Panda! I like the soft fur look - even around the mouth, you must be using shading domains to keep it so clean. Add a little around the ears - the black needs a little texture. If follows the hands and fingers- looks good.

Quote - Great Panda! I like the soft fur look - even around the mouth, you must be using shading domains to keep it so clean. Add a little around the ears - the black needs a little texture. If follows the hands and fingers- looks good.

 
Thanks. I'm using shading domains indeed. A nice tip, to create the soft fur look, is playng around the density and the hair lenght tool.

Glad to see you posting again Noviski - how did those PSAs go using the elephant character? I remember you were working on public service announcements or something...