Ever try to model Hair?  What a mess!  You quickly get bogged down in intersected polygons and things just get messy.  So, you end up settling for messy, or tossing out your idea and just going with something simple, which already exists thousands of times in the store.  (Flat bob anyone???)

Worse, maybe you've used the hair room.  Enough said.

Well, how about this?

Start with a flat planed circle, and cut it into radial strips, texture each strip with a basic hair texture, put as much curl and twist into each strip that you want, but still leaving the plane basically flat.  Export that out and load it into Poser as a dynamic prop!  Run a simulation and drape it over the head and let the strands, with their curls, fall over the head and around the shoulders and down the back.

Now repeat the process with variation, and drape THAT over what you've previously done

Continue until satisfied.

Sound good?

I intend to try this out as soon as time permits.  If anyone else would like to run experiments, please report here!

-WTB

 Intriguing -

I'm game - having never been fully able to model the types of hairstyles I really need to use.

The second dynamic simulation should collide against draped hair prop from first simulation, and so on for subsequent layers.

It does not work well if there is too much shear on the strips. I tried this a couple of years ago when I got Poser 6 and the strips look really bad if the head is tilted away from vertical. The strips need to shear significantly to properly simulate hair. I tried several settings of shear resistance and I could not get an acceptable result.

Maybe in Poser 7 or 8 the shear is better modeled.

FlyerX

The head will never be tilted.  The goal is to make a static prop or cr2, not to run simulations every 10 seconds lol.

I understand what your approach is:
Namely, using the dynamic simulation process to "set" the mesh haristyle.

Once you got all the layers "set" or "baked", you saved it as an HR2 file in the hair folder of the libraries. 

I am guessing you can also create morphs for different shapes of the base hairstyle, but adjust the parameters and the frames for the dynamic simulation.  You would export as morph target for these ones.

That's the idea.  I'm having some trouble in the cloth room, and I'm no expert.  Going to need brains on this.

I had thought of the same idea but as a posable "octopus" figure. Strips/locks coming off a central T or H shaped meeting and rigged for bend etc. possibly ezpose. You would layer these wigs after posing the locks and spawning as prop with one of the existing "prop from figure" scripts. Then you could "cut" length with the grouping tool.

Back in P4 days I had a set of morphing props spawned off the ball prop that were a hair construction set. Lost it to a big household disaster. It was a great way of making lowish res hair. Was based on a Kozuboru tutorial on trans maps and textures.

good in theory. but doesnt work when you go in poser.

I agree with ice-boy, it's a good theory, but the big problem is firefly dont like transmap ...

Aren't all hairs transmapped?  Where's the problem there?

I have only ever seen one artist who can light dynamic hair so it doesn't look like a post-work paste job which is unfortunate since it seems more dynamic hair is in realistic style then transmapped hair.

Honestly though I still have not seen much hair in ten years of Poser that rivals Kozuboro's work from 1999-2001. I don't see any problem with transmapped hair... just that some even prominent vendors are lazy about their texturing and transmaps.

I very often have to put my own textures on hairs I buy which seems like a real shame on the vendor to me since I am by no means competent to do commercial quality work myself.

 In case there is confusion - Dynamic Hair styling is a completely different topic from Dynamic Simulation of Props.  

OP is referring to latter.

Cheers

I'd like to see the results of whatever you come up with.

One idea I had to possibly deal with this was to use an "ear proxy" - basically a prop which would cover the ears and be collided against during simulation.

Anyway, I'll follow this with interest to see if anyone comes up with something I hadn't thought of.

there is a V4 head proxy dummy already on the free stuff if I remember correct...

There was a range of them, by Kirwyn - but he's withdrawn his free stuff. 

 Firefly likes transmaps as much as any renderer. It takes time to calculate shadows through a transmap which is why the rumor that "firefly doesn't like it" yhas started. And yes, there IS a current problem with transparencies of any kind + IDL. But that's not really a firefly problem (or at least not JUST a firefly problem) as I understand it. It's a bug they're working on.

Momodot, I can't remember offhand if you've got Poser 8, but try Dynamic hair in that. It looks a lot better than in previous versions, apparently the renderer has been optimised for Dynamic hair now and it shows. It really looks like hair!

That looks terrific. I am really impressed. Hope I can figure out how to do it too :)

That looks really nice dadt

What was your render time for the dynamic hair?

That render took about 10 minutes using fairly low settings in Firefly. I cannot give more details because I did not keep the scene.

just to say, you don't have to do your cloth sim in Poser.  you can do it in your modeling program.  i use Blender, and i pretty much always do my initial draping there.  also, ears and such are only a problem if draping is your final solution.  it's not a big deal if you're building a prop, because then you can sculpt and edit corrections as you need them.

thanks for the idea, WTB!

I tried clothifying strips for hair a long time ago. It folded funny, like cloth, when it was pulled in any direction but straight down along the bend line, if you know what I mean.

Flyerx mentioned "shear" earlier. If I understand what shear is, that is what I saw and I agree - shear is a problem.

I'm much more interested in solving the "how to style dynamic hair" than how to clothify transmap hair. But I digress...

they need to make stlying dynamic hair easier. its just to hard for me.

 Ice-boy... not that I'm any expert in styling dynamic hair.. but the few times I've tried I've found it pretty straighforward. What's your problem? Perhaps I can help :) (then you can teach me about lighting in return L)

TG:

If you can help me figure this one thing out, I'd be astounded.

With Poser hair, you enter a length. This length is the same for all hairs. You can, of course, ask it to randomize the length, but I want neither random nor identical lengths. I want it styled.

For example, my hair is buzz cut #3 up the side and back, but longer on top, and still longer in the front. It all flows together, though. It's not like there's a hair group that's short and another hair group that is long.

Now the buzz cut stuff lays down close to the scalp. The stuff on top is looser and a bit curly and carefully crafted to look random, but not random kinky, like when you use the hair "kink" features.

Pretty much like this (but I'm not so good looking), but a little shorter on the sides.

I haven't got a clue how to do this.

I'd also like to know how to do this simple style.

Notice that the hairs coming from the top are longer than the hairs coming from the side, exactly so that they all arrive at the same place around the neck. How do you do that?

And how do you get that nice inward curve at the end?

yeah those two examples are great. if i would learn to do this then i think it would be easier for other type of hair.

and it looks like a lot of people dont use dynamic hair because there are not enough tutorials.

Make your styling in the modeler,  export,  change ALL instances of the letter "f" back to "l" (again depending on your modeler) , then re-insert the new hair object data back into the ".hr2" file - being carefull to observe the indentation ( find&replace can help you there as well.)  (I suppose a Python script could be writen to help automate the back and forth. )

It's quite do-able, and with some practice you should be able to make stuff never seen before.

(see images) 

Wow! this is so cool!
This way it could much more accurate to "style/model" dynamic hair!

the easiest way to style dynamic hair is using a low resolution scalp cap and dividing it on areas like back-left-right-top groups
the problem is that when you come back you end up with many different props attached to the scalp cap.
It would be great if those groups where visible only on the hair room and become one object when on the pose room.

Also about that great test that jdcooke made, does anyone knows which modeler can import lines?

Quote - .... Make your styling in the modeler,  export,  change ALL instances of the letter "f" back to "l" (again depending on your modeler) , then re-insert the new hair object data back into the ".hr2" file - being carefull to observe the indentation ( find&replace can help you there as well.)  (I suppose a Python script could be writen to help automate the back and forth. )

It's quite do-able, and with some practice you should be able to make stuff never seen before.

(see images) 

I've been toying around with the idea in Hexagon of creating dynamic hair.  It will model lines and you can import those lines into Poser.  But, I'm not sure how to get them declared as "dynamic hair" objects or recognized as such.  That would seem propriety to Poser, wouldn't it?  So, it may take more trouble than it is worth to model dynamic hair from scratch outside of Poser and then import it.

But, as far as styling goes, if you can preserve all the necessary info (if there is anything other than the model itself) your method sounds like a way to do it.  I'll have to try that and see.

Quote - ... Also about that great test that jdcooke made, does anyone knows which modeler can import lines?

Hexagon can export them in wavefront obj format.  BUT, when I turn around and try to import that same object BACK into Hexagon.. poof, they're gone.  Yet, Poser sees the lines just fine when that object is imported into Poser... But, if Poser exports it, the lines disappear...Hmm..

Weirdness.  Gotta play with it some.

Hexigon does lines?  Cool.

Well,  to make hair from scratch,  I would first start in Poser and create a scalp and dynamic hair as normal.  - don't do anything fancy, just save it into the hair room as normal.  It will be used as a place holder.  The resulting ".hr2' file will have object data for BOTH the scalp and the hair guides.  Also  it will have indentations just like a Python script and those indents have to be observed or the stuff won't work.

Next go into Hexigon,  load in a scalp model and start creating hair from scratch.

When finished, save out the hair as OBJ.   Use that OBJ text file as a source to "splice" your object into the Dynamic hair  "place holder"  you created in Poser.  It should completely replace the existing Hair data in the ".hr2' file - be sure to observe the indentations - the OBJ you just output from Hexigon may not have them.  - The Find&Replace function in your text editor is your friend.

Once you have a hair object in a modeling program you can do almost anything,  like make Bagginsbill's spikey hair by tapering the guide hairs, or create braids,  pull hair into a bun,  hold it with bobby-pins,  and make your favourite anime character.

the sky's the limit.

hmmmm,  might have to make a tutorial.....

later all

Hmmm,  just been thinking about creating hair from scratch.....  The guide hairs work by having a root and a tip,  and the strand follows the spline inbetween - that order may be crucial  - if so, then creating from scratch might be a lot trrickier than taking an existing hair object, copied out of the ".hr2' file.

hmmmmm.

also very cool to know!

Pretty quick and easy to do as well.  - might be useful  too.

take care

morphs for dynamic hair?
well this sounds cool!
that means we can export a shape and than control the intense of it!
that will help styling!
great discovery! Thanks! :thumbupboth:

You can also use magnets to style dynamic hair. I haven't tried, but would think that the wave modifier works too. 

I found out some time ago that you can put a magnet on dynamic hair, and even a wave.
Bur be ccarefull; When lines start intersecting, Calculations are really slowwwwwww.
AO, or IDL colculations take a lot longer.
it might be just a perseption,  i' d have to check again.
But magnets, and waves work.