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Hair Rendering

Jay Jay_1264499Jay Jay_1264499 Posts: 298
edited December 1969 in New Users

Morning,

Everyday I'm learning more about this great program thanks to loads of the great advice I've received on this forum. I was wondering how best to render hair? I've included a new pic that I did over the weekend to highlight my question better. The sea nymph hair renders brilliantly but the hair on the guy looks a little average in my opinion.

To be honest I know nothing about shaders and the best way to render hair so was wondering if someone could give me some pointers?


Thank you to anyone who can help me

Cheers, Jay

Fairytale654356548.jpg
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Comments

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited July 2013

    Hi, Jay! That's a really nice image, though I agree with you on the hair. What did you use to render it? Different programs and render engines handle materials very differently, so it would be helpful to know that before offering any advice.

    Edited to add one more question: what sort of lighting did you use?

    Post edited by Scott Livingston on
  • Jay Jay_1264499Jay Jay_1264499 Posts: 298
    edited December 1969

    Hi Scott


    Thank you for the kind comments and for taking the time to read my post. I actually rendered the figures in Daz (3Delight) with one Uberlight, one Directional light to simulate the sun and two Alpha light planes to cast some 'fill' lighting to the scene. Rendered at 3000 pixels wide.

    The background was done in Vue and then comped it all together after.


    Thanks again

    Jay

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited December 1969

    I have those two hairstyles, so I can take a look for you this evening (if no one else beats me to it). I will say that I am a fan of the Luminous Sleek Hair texture expansion, but there should definitely ways to improve the appearance of the hair, that don't require you to shell out more money. :)

    It might help to add an additional specular light to the scene...maybe add another distant light, set its rotation to the same values as your sun light, and change the illumination to Specular Only, then adjust the intensity as required. But aside from this I think there are things you can do with the surface settings of the hair itself, and that's what I want to experiment with.

  • Jay Jay_1264499Jay Jay_1264499 Posts: 298
    edited December 1969

    Ah great idea with the specular light. Brilliant, I shall experiment again tonight also

    Thanks again for the reply

    Jay

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited December 1969

    Hmm...did some experimentation as promised. Honestly I think the main factor here may be the textures maps, as the default surface settings are the same between Pure Hair Sleek and Sea Nymph Hair. Even the darker shades of PH Sleek look better than the lighter shades to me. So then I thought maybe the default settings don't work as well on the lighter shades as they do on the darker shades...but so far at least, I haven't found any that seem to work any better. Spec light seems to help a little though...

  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    I played around with PH Sleek settings a bit this evening. I changed the following attributes.
    Specular - Removed the specular map from the Specular Strength, Changed Glossiness from 50% to 40%
    Ambient - Changed Ambient Strength from 0% to 100%
    Opacity - Changed Opacity Strength from 100% to 75%
    Bump - Changed Bump Strength from 10% to 100%, Changed Negative Bump from -0.10 to-0.25, Changed Positive Bump from 0.10 to 0.25
    General - Changed from Plastic to Skin

    The renders below show default settings and the new settings. I was using Lantios Uberlights. Based upon my experiments the opacity of the hair was what really did the trick when you weren't in a close up shot. It softens the edges of the hair strands. I also used a specular spot that shines on the subject to give the hair some life. If you wanted the more platinum look using the new settings then change the ambient from 0 0 0 to a dark grey like a 54 54 54.

    Thanks for asking the question. When I first was playing with the hair I was so disappointed in the result I was getting. So I just put it on the shelf. Your question made me remember that I really like this style and that I needed to see if I could fix the problems I was having with the package. I really like what I got.

    Render_51.jpg
    565 x 800 - 376K
    Render_50.jpg
    565 x 800 - 375K
  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Dollygirl...that looks really good!

  • Jay Jay_1264499Jay Jay_1264499 Posts: 298
    edited December 1969

    Thank you both for your replies and for testing this out. I didn't get a chance to play around in Daz last night but really look forward to diving in tonight and trying those settings out

    Thank you both again. Really appreciated

    Jay

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited October 2013

    Resurrecting this thread in order to add another option...I've been researching/experimenting with using the UberSurface shader on hair and came across some really nice settings by jamminwolfie of DeviantArt (also a vendor at Renderosity). I tested them on the Pure Hair: Sleek product and got some good results. The presets are available as a free download here.

    Below you can see a render of the hair with the Platinum color in its default state, and with the Shiny preset applied. The lights and scene are those that come with various hairstyles by AprilYSH (I though it would be a good test scene for hair).

    sleek-jamminwolfie.jpg
    800 x 800 - 171K
    sleek-default.jpg
    800 x 800 - 174K
    Post edited by Scott Livingston on
  • DollyGirlDollyGirl Posts: 2,656
    edited December 1969

    Thank you Scott for the link. When I get done putting my current lot of new stuff installed I will play around with the Uber stuff.

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