Omni Hair Shader manual?
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,643
in The Commons
Is there a manual or detailed guide anywhere that explains what all the paramters of the Omnishader do? I understand most of them, but I'm not really able to reduce the specularity very well, and have found it impossible so far to make black hair (it's always so shiny that it ends up looking brown, even using 'black' presets). Thanks in advance.
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https://docs.omniverse.nvidia.com/materials-and-rendering/latest/templates/OmniHair.html
That's not where I expected to look, heh. Thank you very much. On a similar subject, the Selena Medium Hair uses the Omnishader, but also has a whole lot of extra parameters that look like dynamic simulation settings. However, when I try to simulate it, I get a generic error ("error preparing objects to simulate and collide"). Do you happen to know what that could be about? Thanks again.
edit: :sigh: So it seems there is no way to make black hair like in the nVidia tutorial unless you use Hair Dye (every omnishader preset I have for every strand-based hair makes it brown), and I can't seem to make that nearly as shiny using the same provided parameters. Also, there's no real explanation for all of the hair-specific dynamic simulation parameters (which clothing simulation presets have no effect on)? Why is learning anything about this program still like trying to locate a missing person after 20-odd years?
@SnowSultan by default the OmniHair shader is very metallic/glossy - I took special care with both of my OmniHair products to try and reduce this in a realistic manner:
https://www.daz3d.com/feeling-fruity-omnihair-shaders
https://www.daz3d.com/express-yourself-omnihair-shaders
In essence it's usually a combo of reducing refraction index, using hair dye and roughness values but that can vary based on the colour of the hair, ie darker hair will need higher roughness and lower refraction so that it doesn't appear super glossy.
As regards to black, I was considering making another OmniHair shader set that focuses on blondes, brunettes, blacks and reds - my Express Yourself set didn't do well so don't know if there would be enough demand to make it worthwhile.
Here's a viewport render of a quick example, taking your avatar as inspiration - there's also a couple of Easter eggs for future products in here ;)
If you dont want super shiny hair, reduce the ior to something like 1.3 and turn up the roughness. You can also use the hair dye weight as well.
The dynamic hair parameters wont make a lick of difference on that hair with the "error preparing objects to simulate and collide" which is an error message that the dforce modifier is broken. The only way that can be fixed is by the vendor. Editing to add that I do have a thread around here for teh parameters but it needs to be updated as its at least 5 years old now.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/380281/chevybabe-s-dforce-sbh-hair-thread/p1
I have your express shaders wishlisted in case I have a need for funky omni hair at some point. They honestly look fantastic, so if sales are low, it may be because, like me, people don't have an obvious or immediate use for them.
What I can say is that I'm definitely on the hunt for more omni hair shader sets for more natural colours. I find those that I do have to be a bit shiny and, depending on lighting, I might swap out omni hair if I'm in a lazy mood and can't muster the will to fiddle about with parameters. Maybe I should be saving out any adjustments as my own presets, but I'm still lazy. I don't think it's just a problem with black hair either - I have problems lighting blonde hair too. I can't promise I'm the market, but fwiw, any set of omni hair shader parameters that appear in the store with strongly lit promos and not too shiny hair would likely hop into my cart pretty sharpish.
Thank you Silias, that's very cute. :) Actually though, my problem is that I cannot seem to *increase* the glossiness on black hair. For now, I still might use AI on DAZ hair, when it works, it's better than anything that can be rendered.
Chevybabe: Sheesh, that sounds like the usual around here. Thank you for confirming what the issue was.
Snow, try this: start with a high melanin value to get the black color (don't use the dye layer at all), then set roughness to 0 and azimuthal roughness to 1...az roughness is the reverse of regular roughness. have a look at this promo from my color set to see the roughness effects.
Thank you for the encouragement and interest
it's on the shortlist of future products so watch this space!
Thanks, ah I see! The biggest culprit for that usually is the hair dye weight being too high, but IOR and roughness values will contribute to that as well.
I must have read this way too fast LOL.. for some reason I thought you said decrease :)
*Theres a few of us that have omni shaders in the store *hint hint wink wink*
I will say Canary's are extremely well done,thorough... and have some unique effects though!!
Thank you for the advice, but nothing is working out here. I either get flat dark gray hair with no specularity at all (and melanin has to be to 0 for some reason), or brown hair with specularity that can't be easily reduced. Not a single "black" MAT I have for any strand-based hair gives me true black like you can easily get with transmapped hair, they are all brown. I thought it could be my lighting, but every HDRI I've tried still ends up making the hair brown.
I don't know, maybe I'll figure it out later. Thanks again.
@SnowSultan if you could provide a photo of what you're trying to achieve, I'll do some experimentation and see if I can come up with some settings for you. As you've acknowledged, lighting plays a huge role in rendering hair, as is usually the case for rendering in general.
Which HDRI are you using and are there any other scene lights?
Hello. As a hair creator there are 2 ways I like to achieve black color with the new shader.
1. Set the melanin to a low number, like 0.15. Hair Root and Hair Tip Color is set to black. Then a little bit of Hair Dye Weight overlay is added also with black on the root and tip. This will give you clear black color without any brownish undertone.
2. Second is the same approach but the melanin is set higher. To 0.75+. This will give you black color with a brown undertone.
Hope this helps a bit!
Could you tell me what HDRI you are using to actually get black hair? I might have the same one, and can test it easily then. Thanks.
@SnowSultan I was using 17R from https://www.daz3d.com/pro-studio-hdr-lighting-system
Thank you. I don't have that set, but I tried it with a bunch of other non-photographic HDRs and was finally able to get a decent black texture with limited highlights by adjusting just about everything in tandem, especially IOR (and still with melanin at 0, haha). It's possible, but I still think this sort of hair needs a lot of manual material adjustments depending on the light. Thanks to everyone for the information.
I thought I would see what I have since I haven't run into the problem. I used Feng's FN Ethan, the dForce AK Warrior hair, Canary's Omni shaders, the Pro-Studio HDRis and the hair is true black. There is a slight blue tinge from the HDRI which you can see better in the white shirt but if you look at the hair part, you will see not a trace of brown.
@ainm.sloinneadh and anyone else that may be interested, I've now developed a collection of 28 natural OmniHair shader presets which I'm in the process of doing promos for and will hopefully be submitting today - have attached one of the promos so you can see all the shades