2 CRUCIAL HAIR PARTICLE IMPROVEMENTS FOR PROFESSIONAL RESULT
- Ability to control hair thickness with a black and white mask:
Realistic hair has not the same thickness but it would change randomly or smoothly change in value.
- Possibility to generate hair particle guides form curves:
It would allow using a sculpted hair mesh as a reference, by drawing the curves over hits surface and then switching these curves in hair guides.
These 2 features are the only tools that Blender is really missing for building realistic hair. They are present both in Maya and 3ds Max and therefore in the workflow of all the 3d Grooming Artists.
In my opinion, these improvements would make Blender more attractive for little and middle-size animation studios.
8 Comments
if you would like such details in realism, maybe use meshes instead
You can get a long way toward what I think you are looking for in your second request if you perhaps change your technique. Look up the excellent hair tutorials on YouTube by Nazar Noschenko - Blender Hair Tutorial Part 1 (Styling the Hair). Blender's hair isn't perfect, but none of them are - they've all got their clumsiness and difficulties.
In regards to thickness, realize that while you can't control the thickness with a mask, you can control the transparency along the length with a mask - and that will, visually, tend to have the same effect. For example, when using Arnold in XSI, tapered hair tips were very computationally expensive, but the same visual result could be achieved by fading the hairs transparency toward the tips - without the computational expense.
* @joe * Many thanks Joe, I'm having a look at Nazar's workflow it looks very efficient. I also think that the transparency solution would be perfect for the purpose, does this technique applies thanks to the transparent BSDF? Could you please give me more information about how to do it? I would really appreciate it!
* @Ugo Maria Espsoito * Hi Ugo - Sorry for the late reply. Realize that hair in Blender is a geometry primitive, so you can use any shader you wish on it. The keys to getting it all working would be to use the "Hair Info" node in the Shader Editor and pipe it's "Intercept" value into the "Vector" slot of a Mapping Node and then use the "Vector" output of the Mapping Node to drive the position and rotation of your map that controls color/tranparency. Control the hair width under the Particle Tab settings under "Hair Shape". You will also want to experiment with the hair primitive types - you will probably have the best luck with "Rounded Ribbons" in Cycles, and/or "Strip" in EEVEE. These settings are found on the Render Properties tab under the "Hair" rollout. If you are using EEVEE, you will need to make sure the material Settings>Blend Mode is set to something other than "Opaque" to see your transparency.
* @joe * Hello Joe, many thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. I'm applying Nazar's method for eyebrows and now I'll go straight to play with the "Hair info" node as you suggest. Thanks again!
From what I have understood, particles in general will not get any update (aside from bug fixing) until the new hair primitive is properly implemented with the everything node project.
The node type design : developer.blender.org/T78515
The hair object design : developer.blender.org/T78606
* @Shimoon * Many thanks for your reply. It means that they are working on something new. Is there any date of release for this new hair primitive?
* @Ugo Maria Espsoito * Not that I know but maybe I have missed something. But the primitive itself is already present in the experimental features.