...throw away your conditioner and stick the Blinn node into Alternate_Specular.

I have no idea why I didn't try this before.

...and use a soft "translucent".

Can we see an example of the outcome SamTherapy?

And a screencopy of materialroom settings?

please?

regards,

Bopperthijs

In a bit, if you don't mind waiting.  My network is out of action so I have to transfer stuff from one computer to the other via CDRW.

another way is to use one of those usb flash drives. they're rather inexpensive right now.

Quote - another way is to use one of those usb flash drives. they're rather inexpensive right now.

More than I can currently afford, I regret.

*"Take two bottles into the material room? Not me!..."

Here's an example.  I'm still messing with the idea so I'm sure it can be improved on.

No trick to the Material Room setup, btw.  Just turn OFF the standard Specular and plug Blinn into the Alternate_Specular node.  The Specular_Color on the BLinn was set to a light brown but you can set it to anything you like.  White gives a super glossy look but with the wrong lighting, can make the hair look too grey and washed out.

Values on the node I used are:

Eccentricity - 0.5
SpecularRollOff - 0.25
Reflectivity - 1.0

WOW
how do you understand all that stuff :(
I need a tutor on material room settings lol!

ooooooh yes! thats what im goin for ^_^
THANK YOU!

How did you do all that.... you must be a material room whiz!!
-bows to you-
lol

mine doesn't turn out that way :(

Quote - @ Karen - :lol:

Here's an example.  I'm still messing with the idea so I'm sure it can be improved on.

No trick to the Material Room setup, btw.  Just turn OFF the standard Specular and plug Blinn into the Alternate_Specular node.  The Specular_Color on the BLinn was set to a light brown but you can set it to anything you like.  White gives a super glossy look but with the wrong lighting, can make the hair look too grey and washed out.

Values on the node I used are:

Eccentricity - 0.5
SpecularRollOff - 0.25
Reflectivity - 1.0

What hair + texture are you using there, Sam?

Quote - What hair + texture are you using there, Sam?

That is ** Sapphire Fox Hair** at Daz, or I'll eat my hat. :p

In Love Again for Sapphire Fox Hair here at rendo is a great add-on.

Quote - ...throw away your conditioner and stick the Blinn node into Alternate_Specular.

I have no idea why I didn't try this before.

Try this: http://www.sharecg.com/v/30625/Poser/HAIR-Colours-CREATOR---Poser

The Hair Color Creator by Abacus3d.  Basically, it works in the materials room making shader adjustments.  There are TONS of presets included as well for all sorts of effects.

Quote - > Quote - ...throw away your conditioner and stick the Blinn node into Alternate_Specular.

I have no idea why I didn't try this before.

Try this: http://www.sharecg.com/v/30625/Poser/HAIR-Colours-CREATOR---Poser

The Hair Color Creator by Abacus3d.  Basically, it works in the materials room making shader adjustments.  There are TONS of presets included as well for all sorts of effects.

You sure you're talking about the right product? The image on that page indicates it's for tweaking textures in Photoshop, not for doing stuff in the material room....

Those hair examples do look nice.

For a nice shinny hair use anisotropic specular too, with an small value in the u highlight size and a long value in the v highlight size, combine with the blinn specular for an even better effect

Quote - ...You sure you're talking about the right product? The image on that page indicates it's for tweaking textures in Photoshop, not for doing stuff in the material room....

Yes, I'm sure.

It comes with a "default" blonde texture so you have something to work with if you need it.  However, it also comes with umpteen bajillion presets organized by hairtype/effect in the material room.  The default blonde hair texture it comes with is really just a target for it to load when in the material room for a difuse texture.  It sets up the material's tree using that texture and then you redirect that image map node to the original base texture for your hair.  You then do the same thing for the image-map assigned to the transparency so your transmap lines up.  Walla, you're done.  The drawback is that you have to reassign those two maps whenever you change the material node settings while experimenting.  But, you can turn around and save the hair/matpose and won't have to worry with it.

They're pretty decent materials settings.  Try them out.  (Note: they're not going to make a bad texture look good.  But, they will help a decent texture look great.)

Just an example:

Blonde hair is the hardest to reproduce.  To top it off, most blonde hair textures that come in even the hairs with the best reputations are crappy.  Yup, they're crappy and everybody knows it.  But, what ya gonna do when it's just so dang hard to get right?  Most people fudge it and just leave the fake highlights and shadows on the original hair texts from 3dsk or wherever they got them.  Well, that's a pet peave of mine - painted/fudged highlights and shadows on 3D objects.  You know, that kind of defeats the whole purpose of the "3D" thing, doesn't it?  But, you can't blame 'em.. blonde hair is hard.  So, I'm trying to "fix" that.

Here is a WIP texture of blonde hair about 1/3 of the way done.  (I have to get a seam/UV "guide" made for Radiant Jaguar Hair to finish removing all the unecessary shadows and highlights properly.  ( I dinna built da model.. I dunna know where it goes..)  Radiant Jaguar Hair is probably in the Official top three of "Bestest Ever Hair Models Ever Created In the Universe, Ever" list. (Yeah, it's an Official List.. true story.)

It's not bad for a simple image texture but, sort of bland, isn't it?  (Keep in mind, it is 1/3 of the way done and will look nothing like this.)  Well, it's supposed to be bland.  It's just an image map and a transmap.. no frills.  I haven't even finished making it "blander" so I can get a good finished result from the "rest" of the work that needs to accompany the image map.. namely, the rest of the entire shader tree.  But.... let's see what happens when we add an Out-of-the-Box shader setting from Abacus3d's hair shaders (the light blonde one.)

Tada!  From bland to "Almost-Wannabe-Breck-Girl" using shaders and that bland image map.  There's still 2/3 more work to be done on the hair texture as you can see it's too dark in some areas and too much red is coming out in some areas and too much yellow in others.  But, this is about the lighting and shaders and not so much about this particular WIP texture.

The key point is this:

Morkonan hates painted on shadows and highlights on textures made for 3D models.  I hates them.. I hates them forever..

99.99903% of the problem with blond hair maps is they are cut&pastes of someone's hair and either have the shadows left on them or have them painted on along with painted/fake highlights.  In darker hair, that's not such an issue.  Light is an amazing thing and it scatters differently depending upon its wavelengths, angle, the material, refraction, yada yada yada etc.. Feynman would say it's "goofy that way" but.. whatever.

Hair is translucent.  If you had a stack of iron rods bound together and shined a flashlight on it, you'd see shadows in between the rods but very little reflection and no refraction/scattering/etc to speak of.  But, if you had a stack of glass rods bound together, what would you see?  All sorts of nifty colors, scattering, reflections, etc..  Therein lies the problem.  Most people "paint" that crap on and it's simply "Wrong Headed" thinking.

So, I got tired of crappy blonde hairs and decided to fiddle with it.  The above represents a whole 30 MINUTES! of work in Photoshop and then slapping Abacus's excellent shaders on top of it.  It'll take another hour to finish the base texture and about twenty minutes after that to finish modding the shaders to give good results with the hair.  Then, I'll probably throw in some "effects" for the shader tree to be added for good results with backlights, high speculars, etc.. and see what it looks like.  It'll be better than 99.99902% of blonde hairs out there.

(Lights are mine - crappy neutral IBL with AO, one infinite white main light, one infinite fill/backlight.  The face morph is about 1/3 of the way done as well and so is the texture on the figure - It's V3 Elite Lana text but I'm redoing the face texture and just haven't finished it yet either.. . the story of my life, it seems.. can't get everything finished!. :) )

Thanks for the notes, Mokonan.

Funny, just a few days ago I was asking here if there were any good tutorials for rendering hair (nobody really had all that much to offer for recommendations). Will see how this works out.

**ima70,
where do i plug the blin into?
**

Quote - Thanks for the notes, Mokonan.

Funny, just a few days ago I was asking here if there were any good tutorials for rendering hair (nobody really had all that much to offer for recommendations). Will see how this works out.

It's more of a personal rant than anything constructive.. :) 

I really, really, really can't stand it when artists paint shadows and highlights on something.  Sure, there are some things that such touches might be useful on.  That list is aweful short.  But, to arbitrarily pain shadows on, for instance, body textures, is ridiculous.  The same goes for hair as well  Blonde hair is hard..  Everyone knows that.  But, when you encounter something that is difficult yet continue to use the same tired approach over and over again which has never worked... well, there's a word for that - Ungood Thinking.

As the OP has pointed out, Poser has a Material Room that has all sorts of nifty shader options and many of them could have application in regards to hair.  Hair artists, especially, need to pay attention to this.  Their customers would be much happier if they did.

I agree with you..... I don't like 'painting' hilights or shadows in my hair... unless its for a specific reason. I like the natural look :)
This is my first hair model... but I have created textures for hair.. and I just don't think it looks good. SOME hilights are ok... but to soley rely on that to force it to look natural defeats the purpose if there are dark or colored lights in the scene lol....
hehe :D
I added to your rant ;)

Quote - I'm getting this... white mess on the under side of the hair...
How can i fix this?

"White mess"?  It might just be my eyes but, I don't see any white mess.  I do see where the texture just happens to line up some of the lighter shades and, at that angle, they appear a little lighter than you would think behind the ears next to the neck.  Is that what you mean?

 hehehe yeah -blush-
Sorry.. i was kinda falling asleep when I posted that -grin-
I love how the textures came out when rendered... but that behind the ears and neck is unwanted. I also tried the "anisotropic specular" as mentioned in a post above... but I tweak and tweak and just does not look as good.
I'm going to try that Hair colours creator as suggested. But I want this to be a learning experience as well as for accomplishing my goal. I'm trying everyones suggestions and I'm hopefull that something will work out ^_^

Oh a question... are these shaders merchant resourse friendly :D

Interesting stuff here, which may help me with something I've been contemplating, creating the opposite effect, lank greasy hair.
I started by dulling the specular colour but was'nt  happy with that, Morkonan's point about highlights and shadows on the original texture leads me to think I will have to rework the textures and try again.