Kitbashing Hair, What might I have Forgotten?

richardandtracy

I wonder if someone might be able to help me.

I am kitbashing an old Victoria 3 hair model and trying to get it to work with G8F as if a newly modelled hair. The hair is the now unavailable Las Vegas hair by Jim Burton. It doesn't attach well to G8F which is why I'm trying this idea.

The process I am following is this: 

1. Save Toulouse Hair as an .obj file.
2. Load into a modeller (my own one in this case)
3. Delete all the hair, but leave the hair cap.
4. In DS save the Las Vegas hair as an .obj file. This hair has no skull cap.
5. Merge the obj file in the modeller with the Toulouse Hair skull cap and translate the hair strands as needed while leaving the skull cap in position.
6. Export the hair as an .obj file from the modeller
7. Import the hair model into DS, load in Toulouse Hair.
8. Use the Transfer Utility from Toulouse Hair to rig the hair.
9. Load each morph into the figure using stages 4-6 and then load as a morph using Morph Loader (the simpler one).
10. When fitted to a character, specify that the original base figure is 'Unsupported'.

Right, having told you what I did, now can I ask what I did wrong, or could do differently? Should I have changed facet group names to match the G8F facet group names or does the Transfer Utility do it all? Or is it better to specify a compatibility base figure? Victoria 3 has a 'Neck', while G8F has an upper and lower neck. Unlike modern hair, the rigging of the original hair starts with the 'Chest', with the left and right shoulder being rigged off the head... It's all a bit odd by comparison with modern hair.

If I have done it not too badly, I may try doing some hair totally from scratch at some point. I wanted to start with something where I knew it should work if I get it right rather than start with something that may be impossible from the beginning. I forgot to mention the result of the process above - it seems to follow the character shape quite well, but I am not sure whether it's a fluke or whether I have followed a sensible process to cover all that I need to cover.

Regards,

Richard. 

richardandtracy

I have fitted the new hair to G8F, and it's shown in the 3 renders below. The blonde hair is Jim Burton's original Las Vegas hair on Glamorous Vicki 3 (a 16+ year old Victoria 3 based character) the dark version is the converted one on FWSA'S McKayla for G8F, including the Toulouse Hair skull cap and all the Las Vegas morphs applied. So far as I can tell, it works as a native G8F hair, shrinking and growing, twisting and bending as you'd expect a conforming hair to do as you change the character and pose.

Regards,

Richard.

 

richardandtracy

Regards,

Richard.