Not bad on the shader there! Yeah, I know what you mean, but styling is a pig in Poser... I'm forever losing guide hairs beneath the surface and having them go the wrong way. I think the main thing your hair there needs is to be less forward and more sideways from the middle. Then a little more length to just rest it over the shoulders and I think it might just be there, though it does look a bit thin.

1. For most hair projects I use a low resolution mesh. This means it is possible to adjust the guide hairs one or two at a time,

2. The mesh should match the shape of the characters hairline, many of the available skullcaps are far too low down the forehead. I adjust the caps in Wings to suit the individual characters.

3. Split up the hair into as many separate groups as needed. Any position where adjacent guide hairs are requred to go in different directions require them to be in separate groups or Poser will interpolate between them producing a fan of unwanted hair.

4. For most hair do NOT run a simulation. This will totally destroy your carefully created styling. Short and mid length hair does not move much in real life anyway and for long hair, which does move and would benefit from dynamics, the collisions in Poser legacy work very poorly and in Bullet physics don't work at all.

Thanks for the tips, dadt!

I don't see a problem running a simulation. The key is that once the simulation is set, go to the dynamics setting at the top of the parameters tab for each hair group, and turn it down. Even 0.05 should get just that hit of randomness that even well-groomed hair has.

I disagree, in a simulation the hair falls vertically and the strands become more parallel and less random. However that is just my opinion and whatever works for you is the thing to do.

Yeah, I suppose if the figure isn't posed at all, you'd get that. A slight wind force does help.

Honestly, I think what you've got there is pretty decent, Cage.

I assume the hair density setting is going to vary from one skullcap prop to another, depending on the size of the mesh divisions. But as far as thickness, right now I'm doing tip and root a lot closer than I used to. The render I just posted, for instance, mostly uses tip widths of .26–27 and root widths of .3.

Since I can't model worth beans, I borrowed Nanette Tredoux's skullcap she used on her Center Parted hair (and for all I know, she may use it on all her V4 dynamic hair, and she may have got it elsewhere to begin with). I have two large groups, left and right, and one small group for bangs in the center. The large groups have a density of 57000–but keep in mind that I loaded the hair prop twice, so there's a lot more hair than that.

If you are having trouble with hair not doing collisions in legacy double check that no strands are intersecting the figure. I know some of the dynamic hair that came with poser had this problem (at least I think it came with poser. I've had some of  this stuff so long I don't remember)You also may need to check using the show populated checked. I recommend only having one group checked at a time. It can over whelm your machine otherwise.

Cage, try checking your shader try reducing the root or not using any at all.

Forgot another gotcha: new hair groups come in at a minimum shading rate of 8.0 (!) by default. Gotta change that. Dunno if there's a way to alter the default... wish there were.

Quote - Cage, try checking your shader try reducing the root or not using any at all.

Do you mean the "root" on the hair material shader, or the "root width" setting in the Hair Room? 

A few points Cage:-

In the Poser surface node of your shader the Diffuse Value and Specular Value should be 0, the hair shader uses the alternate diffuse.

In the Hair node set the root softness to 0 and check the Opaque in Shadow box.

I don't know how many growth groups you have on this hair but if it is only one then the total number of hairs is low. You really need about 20,000 hairs in total.

The skullcap is visible in the render,change it's material to transparent.

redphantom, what does adjusting the root softness do exactly? On my layered hairstyle, I have it pretty low on the "lower" layer and a bit higher on the upper layer, but I'm just kind of guessing what it does.

Quote - A few points Cage:-

In the Poser surface node of your shader the Diffuse Value and Specular Value should be 0, the hair shader uses the alternate diffuse.
In the Hair node set the root softness to 0 and check the Opaque in Shadow box.
I don't know how many growth groups you have on this hair but if it is only one then the total number of hairs is low. You really need about 20,000 hairs in total.
The skullcap is visible in the render,change it's material to transparent.

Thank you.  There is no skullcap, in this case.  That's a scalp material on the actual figure head, which was set to a darker material to try to keep him from looking like he's balding.  (As noted, the character has only worked decently in distant shots.  :unsure:)

Yeah, Diffuse is still set to 1, isn't it?  Huh. 

I guess the root softness is explained above.  Last I read, one was advised to un-check "Opaque in shadows", because that feature caused Really Slow Renders.  Is it faster, now?  If it's still slow, I'll leave it un-checked as a whaddayacall optimization.

I always check Opaque in shadow. Ultimately speaking, I wouldn't think the render would be slower in the look run, since it should require less hair density than otherwise, I think. And less hair density = quicker renders.

I wouldn't give the skull a material. That's as much hassle covering up and hiding as the skin, unless you're only going to render distance shots. Otherwise, you'll need to up your density. (Or have thicker root widths, but I'm not a fan of that solution, and I don't think it would work as effectively as higher density.)

I've just done a couple of test renders with "opaque in shadow" on and off. The difference in times was less than 1 second in 2 1/2 mins. There is a subtle difference in the results with the on setting looking better in my opinion.

Quote - redphantom, what does adjusting the root softness do exactly? On my layered hairstyle, I have it pretty low on the "lower" layer and a bit higher on the upper layer, but I'm just kind of guessing what it does.

According to the manual it does this:  Root Softness: The Root_Softness attribute controls the root’s transparency, which helps hair blend into the scalp.

Which basically translate into the skullcap or skalp in the cap is transparent will show through easier. I know something changed in how poser rendered dynamic hair a few versions back and older hair suddenly needed a whole lot more density, perhaps this is something that worked better before that change.

Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.

But... what is happening in this render?  I have also raised 'Root softness' from 0.1 to 0.8, for all three sets of guide hairs loaded onto this figure.  All of a sudden he's... properly shedding hair, with some kind of blow-away effect.  :scared:

No, wait... gotta reduce the root softness.  Dangit, dangit.  Reduce, not raise.

Interestingly, this is a pretty good representation of what it felt like when I realized I was losing my hair, some months ago.  :lol:  Sigh.

I'll have to figure out how to pack this up for a useful bug report, unless anyone understands what I'm seeing here.

It's a bug. When I contected SM, they had no idea how to fix it on our end. I thought a fix would be in a patch, but perhaps they haven't gotten to that one yet.

there's a total hair control product somewhere, maybe here, that makes it a bit easier to do that sort of thing that you want.

personaly I will often use photoshop to help with those sorts of hair positions.

Love esther

Cage, I too have had that flyaway problem on numerous occasions. It shouldn't have anything to do with a material setting. I wish I knew what triggers the bug so I could avoid it, tho I haven't had it happen in PP2014 yet.

How long has this bug been showing up?  Was it new in one of the Pro12 SRs?  I'm encountering it in Pro14.  Seems to relate to geometry.

I've got a scene that says it's poser version 8.2 that has it.

Whoa.  That long?  Oh my.  :scared:

I think I've experienced it since at least PP2010.

Hi again folks,

Hmm, I hadn't been getting notifications for this, so I thought the thread had died, but then I read through and nearly died laughing at Cage! XD Transformed Edmond's hair from a noun to a verb, that brought tears to my eyes and I'm not even drunk!

Well, clearly you guys are getting some reasonable results in the hair room, which is promising. I think I'll try magnets for now (I've never created magnets before...) and ease myself into the hair room, if there's reasonable support for it and Annie doesn't go bald like Edmond did... >.>

Cheers,

Glen.