Is it just me, or is anyone else bugged by the fact that quite often you see in the galleries a Poser character with hair composited in from a photograph. I know often it's the desire to make the characters as realistic as possible, and the hair is tricky, but to just drop in hair from a photograph seems like a cheap trick. Personally I think hair makes for a great challenge, and particularly like the innovations that some have come up with on Renderosity and other places. Not to mention, just try to animate that character with composited hair so they turn their head, for instance. I mean, if you just want realism, why stop at the hair, just composite in the eyes too, or the face, body and...oh yeah, that's called a photograph. Yeah, well so is that composited hair!

Somefolks find it much easier to use photographic clips than create a 3d item. Hair is a bitch and when starting out it can be almost imposible to get right(I still have a problem with it in some situations). I prefer to not do any post work myself when possible but it is useful in some situations. Give em a break when they get better they will do it all in 3d and not later in the mix. I still have problems with eybrows!

You also have to realize that not everyone is interested in 'realism' either--many are very stylistic and more illustrative than photographic with lots of post work.

Well, they can use photos of hair for all I care, but I've seen many images where you can clearly see that the hair was just copied and pasted from another image and that looks a bit silly. I hardly ever use any hair props anymore, to me painting the hair from a scratch is almost the most enjoyable phase of making an image. But that's just me. Happy renderings, everyone! :)

Well it would be a good point if it were true,intercept789, but I've just looked at the most recent 60 pictures in Poser Gallery and I can't find any. I must admit I have seen 1 or 2 over the last 12 months that I have been coming here but I wouldn't say that is "quite often" But, anyway, surely people produce their art anyway they want. This is not purely a Poser site. The quality of the art work is surely what matters. Peace and love, Bebop

Show me some 3d hair models I can use and I'll buy it. Unless you want your female figures to look like strippers you are out of luck, there are no casual or short style hairs for female available except the gel hair at DAZ... I don't see an awefull lot of woman with peroxide manes half way down thier backs in my daily life. I have tried to make my own models, but I'm just not up to the chalenge, thats why I ended up morphing hair right out of the scalp to use on my figures. Ugh.

I've used the hair from the Cosmo Makeover CD for some of my images simply because of the style I'm looking for. Sometimes a look I'm after doesn't exist in a 3D hair prop. If I can find a certain look I'm after and that's the only one I can find, and it works, then I'll use it. I don't see anything wrong with it if it's done well. I think the end result of an image is all that matters. It doesn't bother me at all when post work is done. Melanie

Did you ever write an extremely clever post, filled with stinging irony and pithy innuendo, then read over it and realize, that although exceptionally amusing, it was just plain'ol mean-spirited and served no real purpose for the community? Uh, Nevermind.....

I use models and scans of real hair, however I don't 'just drop it on the model' I take a lock of hair and build it up from there, part of the challenge is to make it look like a convincing hairdo! As melanie says, quite often there isn't a hair model available for the 'look' that is needed. I don't see that there is anything wrong with using photo's of hair or photographic backgrounds, its the image as a whole that counts. :-)

Personally, I prefer to accept the limitations of Poser hair even if the textures are not totally realistic. Introducing hair as a montage or postwork usually ends up with it not being lighted correctly compared to the rest of the image, which is a worse problem.

That all depends on your skills in Paintshop or Photoshop Phantast

Good example is Will Kramer--but there are lots of others. I hate to exclude anyone who does wonderful post work, but my mind is blank. Then--there is Paul Haefeli who uses a different way of using hair--on a square. There seem to be 2 courts on this--one which prefers 'pure' Poser and the other that uses Poser as a building block--like Will, Lorraine, and many others. Diane

Sounds like the folks that were asking what to make models of for sale might do well doing hair. Include textures,et all and instructions on how to use them and they have an instant seller.

Well, Kozaburo has wonderful hair in Freestuff--also Confuscious has a good morphable hair based on the P4 curly hair. There is also Jim Burton's and Anton Kiesel's hair(s) plus the several at 3DDaZ. Still, these often need some post work, IMO. And then, as Melanie says, you often need others--and the Cosmo alpha channel hairstyles are good beginnings. I am totally NOT a model maker, but from what I understand, hair is quite difficult. Otherwise, I expect we would have had an onslaught. Kozaburo's model/textures for Nene broke ground, for sure--and we also have to credit Allie for the first transmap for the P4 curly long hair. Oh, and then there is Nesteranko's (I'm sue this is not quite right S).

Well, I guess the post work on rendered hair doesn't bother me as much as just using hair dropped from a photograph. But I guess to each their own. Perhaps because I am more interested in animation than stills it bothers me more than others. I think the Vicki Flip Hair and other hairs mentioned above are pretty darn good, and agree post work is still often needed. Which is a pain in animations, because I have to go frame by fram in After Effects. Has anyone seen the trailer for Final Fantasy? The hair in there is very good, but still seems to move heavy. But still some of the best I've seen. Also doing certain hairs in Lightwave is easier with the collision detectors. But for putting a quick one with decent quality together, Poser works pretty well.

As for the Cosmo hair, I sometimes piece together bits and pieces of various styles to compile a new style. It takes some work with some layering and cloning, but I've had some success with it. Melanie

I agree about that Melanie--and cloning from various ones works well too. My feeling is whatever it takes. I'm not from the 'pure' Poser school obviously--I can understand animators, but most of us aren't.

I'm not a purist either. Whatever achieves the finished effect I'm looking for is fine with me. It's the end result that counts, not necessarily the route I took to get there. It's the same as the argument that digital computer art isn't really art. In my opinion it's just another medium and just as much art as anything else. Same with the hair. I've superimposed trees onto a Terragen scene, too, and the effect turned out pretty well. As long as the finished project works, what's the difference how it was done? Melanie