Understanding different types of hair (discussion)

RexRed

I have recently bought perhaps nearly 50 or more types of hair.

I find that hair is very important in making my figures seem real.

But, (here is where the "but" comes in)

There are a lot of different kinds of hair.

I don't mean styles, I mean kinds, as in, some hair is very fine, some is sort of fine, some have caps and some do not.

Some hair has many morphs and some only a few, while some hair has dforce and some does not.

I really wish there was a roadmap on each item for these kinds of differences.

The Daz store pages do not tell you how fine the hair is but you can sort of tell by the images included with the product.

The Daz store does usually indicate whether if hair is dforce or not and usually all of the hair morphs are listed.

Sometimes hair comes with smoothing modifiers already applied and with non dforce hair, there is no telling how adding dforce to the hair, it will react.

There is a lot to try and figure out about hair. I think back a few years ago when finding good hair was completely impossible...

Now, there are some really good hair models but (here we go again) understanding the hair choices is like traversing a jagged and steep landscape.

Some hair models I have bought come with a separate skull cap and then hair choices and I can't seem to even get them to work at all.

They will require an hour or so of research to find some sort of tutorial explaining how they work. I have several hair types like that that don't even work "yet". 

I know they are very high quality hair types by the pictures that accompany them in the store, but (there is that "but" again) they have a learning curve just to get them to even function properly.

Then there is the issue of different head types and sizes. do I or do I not use smoothing modifiers? Do I use the head scale or the cap scale? And if I expand the cap too much the hair gets lost under it.

I wish there was a one-stop resource where all of these things were explained.

Then there is mesh grabber that works in some situations.

The problem is, when i use a really fine hair on one character then that leaves only a few choices on the other character. 

Because the really fine hair makes the course hair really noticeable...

I would really like to see more detail in the store on ALL hair. Maybe a better standard 

before allowing them into the shop, or demand that creators add (and update) better details in the shop description. I would rather not buy hair that is not going to be fine and high quality.

When I buy bad hair, well... (it's bad)

Long hair should all be compatible with dforce.

Hair pages should stipulate if they have a skull cap or not.

If these detais are not present in the hair page description, I am becoming more likely to not purchase them. 

Also... it would be nice if items in the store had a date of when they were uploaded to the store.

This would also indicate whether if a hair item was of the newer "fine type" compatible with dforce and smoothing modifiers etc...

Making my own hair seems like a drastic measure but it gets more attractive as time goes by.

Also, hair colors, some hair have a lot of color choices and some have only a few. Some have a lot of iray choices but when i click on them there may be several, 

light brown colors listed for iray but they all seem like the same shade?

Why make hair colors that are so similar that you cannot even notice the difference?

Well I guess I have exhausted myself with all of this banter.

If you can add to this discussion and clarify some things please do, your comments are very welcome!