Is there a way to get trans-mapped hair to show the sort of semi-transparent backlighting that occurs in real life when edges of hair are lit from behind. The absence of this effect is one of the tells that can reveal fakeness. Also, hair has a shiny highlight that reveals the strands. Baking in the highlight isn’t adequate for a texture that will stand up in all lighting conditions. I’m thinking a bump map combined with a specular setting might create something like this. Is there an established approach to solve either of these issues?

i have created a shader that doesnt use the texture maps of transmap hair but it does need the image map of the transparency, this allows for the shine on the hair to correctly follow the light, i havent tested backlighting, will give that a go when im back on the computer. currently im working on a transmap hair that uses no image maps,will post images later,if anyone is actually interested,as i think i put images of an early hair shader a few years back but no one was really interested

Interested.

Quote - currently im working on a transmap hair that uses no image maps,will post images later,if anyone is actually interested,as i think i put images of an early hair shader a few years back but no one was really interested

I'm very interested. I was away more then 10 years from poser and picked it up again with PP2012. With IDL, light emitters and sss it has come a long way toward realism, but transmapped hair is still on the level of 1999 when i saw Kozaburos first hair prop for Posette.

my last two renders in my gallery dated 2009 have the shader on the v4 hair.hopefully sometime today i will post some renders.

this do intrest me and i would  use it

FYI, Alfaseed (desir) at dna and Polymage (wildhair. was here) both dealt with this in their props. They are heavy (3 V4s) but versitile. Desir hair has poseable wisps even and good mobility. Plays well with PPro2012. I've not purchased hair in a long time so, not aware of new developments.

Transmap hair is a great low poly fix but has a shell like object that is hard to break up visually. This is why speculars are usually burned in. A lot of work was done with hair nodes here a few years ago but my crappy searches do not find them.

I'd watch for morphs that can lift and wisp or have "wind" options.

shedofjoy, on the images you mention, are you using just the transparency map with your shader and no texture? 

just transparency,the rest is nodes,i also did a scatter version,but the down side is render time

it works on most transmapped hair as long as the uv is running from top to bottom as in most hair maps

oh and the reason for using an image on the transparency is because all hair products sold have different strand lengths on the uv, and i have no way of getting a node to know the length of the uv map, shame because i would have a shader that uses no images and works on 99% of all transmapped hair

I have an interest.

once the kids are in bed i will b able to knock out a couple of renders to show the shader off

I'm interested too, of course. I'd like to see the material room settings for the shader as well.

anyways these following renders are done on minimal settings with idl on,Bagginsbills env sphere with no map set to grey, and one spot light pointed at the head and set to blue so you can track the light in the hair (as its not painted on).

Blotches in the hair are caused by the render settings and im not rendering this on excellent quality, i havent that sort of time at the mo, thats up to one of you when i post the shader.

In this one the light is top right... as you can see

This has the light at the back of the head so the hair looks quite plain.

Ohh and the hair is Clandestine hair if anyone is wondering...

i shall post a couple of more pics of different hair with the shader...

Is anyone still interested?

Quote -  

Is anyone still interested?

Yes. I would like to see the effect with some brighter light, like an infinite. On the first and the last picture it is not easy to see what's going on, but the second looks really promising.

This is Kishka hair

this is WASG hair.

sorry for the extreme lighting but this shows what is happening with the hair. i shall post some normal renders for you...lol

oh and this shader does not work on egypt hair or cool coils because of the weird uv map layout which is way off

Quote - or cool coils because of the weird uv map layout which is way off

Perhaps it would be possible to remap hair with wrong layout. Looks good so far. The baked reflections of the eyes are slightly distracting though.

yeah,sorry about the eyes,lol. will be putting up some more images after i have watched another episode of the mentalist.

is anyone still wanting the shader if so i will upload it to my website and write out some instructions.

ohhh and before i forget the shader needs one texture map that is for the skullcap, this is because this generally doesnt follow the uv map rules for this shader....

remapping cool coils and egypt hair would be possible but a nightmare, currently im working on a new version of the hair shader that uses no texture maps or transparency maps....but thats my little secret that may be up for sale in a month or so.....

I'm definitively interested, from the images you posted, the shader is an improvement over the textures, specially those with baked highlights and specular, which I absolutely hate (and are the most common).

Love your last render.

Looking forward to giving this shader a shot.

Yeah. Looks good, looking forward to trying it.

If you have Poser9 or Pro2012 Sr2,1 or SR3 you can use Snarlygribbly's free EZskin2 and add Subsurface Scattering to the hair. That is the main thing missing when you talk about hair reacting more naturally to light.

Here you see Akaste Hair-with and without SSS.

Cheers!

Very cute demonette! I'd love to lay my hands on this hair shader. 

adding sss to transmapped hair still shows the painted highlights, you can clearly see that in your image eric,the idea is to remove that burned on shine that is present,which is what ive done,one question though, with sss added to your hair is there a significant hit in render time, as my hair shader with sss takes alot longer(none of the pictures ive shown have sss on the hair).

If you have Poser9 or Pro2012 Sr2,1 or SR3 you can use Snarlygribbly's free EZskin2 and add Subsurface Scattering to the hair.

I couldn't get my hair prop to light up like that with EZskin2. It's a darker hair color. I'm not sure if that has something to do with it.

shedofjoy still hasn't posted his hair shader, so I'm on to exploring the viablilty of Zbrush's "fibermesh." It creates hair with a megaload of polygons, but it loads and renders fast enough, on my system at least. I'm using 16 threads to render so I can't say how well this would work with other systems.

been a bit busy,i will put the shader up on monday. have upgraded it to version 5, which is looking very cool, i also have done a version 6 which makes the hair look even more real,the only problem is the hair mesh, because it becomes obvious that the hair is in single sheet grown from one length and not multiple sources, shame because it looks awesome,anyway i will post the shader and the how to instruction on monday

are there any pictures of this fibremesh hair?

Quote - i will post the shader and the how to instruction on monday

I'm looking forward to it. 

Quote - are there any pictures of this fibremesh hair?

Better you don't see it, because then you'll want it!  

There was a discussion on the old DAZ forum, made by Mec4D, for DAZ Studio.

No Poser development at the moment...

Already asked. :mad: 

perhaps in the next version of poser

Thanks. I'm looking forward to it.

are there any pictures of this fibremesh hair?

I made a few test renders without SS on the hair and the specular isn't optimized. Short hair and chaotic longer hairstyles are fairly easy. It would be more difficult  to create a Princess Leia spiral or a Marge Simpson curl stack.

I think you may be thinking too two dimensionally maybe. Zbrush's fibermesh are geometry, and as such, are subject to all the things ZBrush can do with geometry. With the latest release of ZBrush, we can now draw out tracks of objects along a curve. So, why wouldn't that work for fibers? Food for thought and maybe worth experimenting with.

With the latest release of ZBrush, we can now draw out tracks of objects along a curve. So, why wouldn't that work for fibers? Food for thought and maybe worth experimenting with.

*Good point. I need to install the upgrade...

I have Wild Hair and will apply this shader and post results.

thankyou operaguy, im intersted to see what everyone else is going to do with it. remember everyone. the transparency of the hair needs to go from top to bottom, but the skullcap doesnt matter as that needs a texture map.

i have written the readme file, created the two shader materials one for the hair the other for the skullcap, i have started to prepare my website for the upload and im currently doing multiple renders to get the different values for all the colours of hair you will all want,which will be available in the colour readme.

monday is looking good for the upload folks

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2855414