Shag:Hair/Fur

[Dave Black]

Yeah, I had the same problem with the plugin when I fist started using it, but then found that it indeed does have that feature.

1. Make a multi-subobject material

2. Set the first material as your emmiter's material(don't apply it, but this is where the main material for the emmitter will be stored)

3. Set the next materials as length, density, thickness, etc.

4. Apply this material to your emmiter.

In the enviroment dialog box, you will see that underneath each of the main hair controls, such as density, there is a little box where you can specify a sub-object number. Simply set the number to equal the material sub-object number, and that parameter will use that material's setting for the effect.

So if you had a black and white map for where you wanted the hair to grow on a character's head, you would set this bitmap in the diffuse channel of a new map, set the specular highlights, gloss, etc. to zero, and make the map self illuminated. Now just drop this map in any of the open slots(accept slot 1, cause that's you're emmitter's material) in your multi-subobject material, and use that number in the enviroment dialog under density...

Don't forget to apply the material to your emmitter, or this will have no effect.

Whew...

I personally hate how difficult this is to explain, but consult the manual and you will find a short but somewhat helpful tutorial.
It may be in the online help also...

How that made some sort of sense...If you respond with questions, I'll try to clarify...

Good luck!


:D

[Zerflag]

Hey, thanks... I actually figured that much out a short time after I posted my question, although I'm still having a problem. Let's say I have a Sphere, Red. I have another material, which I give a checker map, I set that map's Effect Channel to 1. In Shag:Fur, I set Length to let's say... 20. And I choose SubMat ID 1 (in coincidence with the Effect Channel), this works beautifully in varying the length of the fur, however, the length is never set to 0, but rather .01 or some other very short length (which coincides to black), so I end up with an object covered in fur, but of different lengths. Is there some way other than actual sub-object selections, that I can have no fur at all on a section of a model?

[Dave Black]

The lighting is affecting your materail. The specularr highlights are white, and therefore are causing hair growth. Try making all the materials that effect the hair(not the base emmitter material) to be self illuminated, and reduce their specular and gloss levels to zero.

That should work providing I am making my point clear.

[Zerflag]

Unforunately, no, that doesn't work, either. If I set a material to be 100 percent self illuminating, give it no specularity, gloss, and even set soften to 0.0, I still get very short hair where I would expect hair of a length of 0, ie, no hair. However, someone suggested to me that I could simply use Selection sets to distribute the hair, and then within those sets, as the hair was near the edge of where hair was supposed to be, simply thin it out/shorten it using a bitmap.
But maybe I'm doing something wrong here...
Also, when trying to assign a different color to my base object (to let's say a sphere), the length is no longer controled by the Effects ID # that I set, but instead is controled by the Length Maximum and Random Factors alone, as if the SubMat ID were not assigned. The material for the base object is given a different effects channel than the material controling the length of the fur. I also encounter this issue if I try to use different SubMat IDs for let's say... Length and Color. Sorry to be such a pain, thanks again for your help. :)

[Zerflag]

Hum.. ignore the bit about not being able to get a length of 0... just worked it out... stupid little personal error of having only one tiny bit of absolute black, and then a gradient to white... :hmm:
so of course it would seem like I was starting with really short hairs... Although I have not worked out the other stated issue, so any help on being able to set my emitter object to use some material other than my bitmap to determine length, and also be able to set a map to the fur itself and still control length with another bitmap would be as appreciated as ever:hmm:

[GlasS-]

Hmm, i think really get this..
can you post a pic of what your doing? it would help me alot ;)

thanks

/GlasS

[Dave Black]

Okay, you can set any map you want to the hair object it's self (Such as the object labeled like this SH_Emitter01, that shows the hair in the view ports). This will not effect the length or other parameters of the hair/fur.

What version of Max are you using? Perhaps I could email you a sample of a working setup, so you can see it for yourself. I've allways found this topic very difficult to explain in print...

Let me know if you are interested.

[Zerflag]

Ah... success... thanks to your explanations combined with this website: http://mr2k.3dvf.com I've been able to get everything working to my heart's content. Thanks again.

[Dave Black]

You are quite welcome, and congrats on tackling this somewhat confusing problem. Good luck!

:thumbsup:

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