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View Full Version : Maya Noobie needs Help with Hair :(

GothTropic411
09-21-2006, 04:06 PM
Hey everyone, I actually got the student version of Maya Unlimited! Yay!! Its effects absolutely kick a**, but I am a having a hell of a time with the hair, and the manual doesn't seem to offer any true step-by-step tutorials for what I want to do. For further emphasis, the hair examples don't help either since there's no notes that I know of to tell how they were made.

I have a character I modelled in Blender that I want to put hair on. The way I want to do the hair is as follows: I want to style it with guides, not constraints, or a possible combination of the two. I tried following this one tutorial for using guides, but the person who wrote it was unclear on how to pull the isoparms off the lofted surface between curves.

Could anybody help me get started with some [clear and concise] tutorials online or with your own experience? I have been struggling with hair for 3 days and seriously have gotten nowhere. Thanks in advance!
Pyrokinesis
09-25-2006, 06:33 PM
Hair kicked my but for about a week, until I got the basics down. check out digital tutors they have great beginner dvd's.

The notes in the examples are there, you just need to look for them.

The docs are great once you have a basic foundation down.

Unfortunately thats about it. There are a couple books out there, but resources on hair seems limmited.
yenvalmar
10-12-2006, 03:16 AM
just model nurbs curves positioned and shaped how you want the hair to be and directly convert those to dynamics curve, then use those as the control curves of the hair system. thereby bypass all their "styling" tools, thas an exercise in wasted time. as to modelling the nurbs curves i find a good approach is to make one strand, then duplicate and reposition it as needed. sorry if thats too obvious.

also dont expect one hair system to do an entire hairstyle, you will need different systems for the bangs, back, sides, top etc. if you are going for any kind of realistic results. its a bit picky but then think about barbers in real life ya know, its a skill of its own to style hair :)

once you do all that, maya hair is amazing. the dynamics totally kicks ass. heres a project i did using maya hair composited onto a live actor and it morphs from one hair style to the other, i really find its one of the easier things to get good results with out of maya..

http://www.yenvalmar.com/Projects/durso/durso.htm

another tip is to not use the hair to render but use normal paintfx and just use the dynamic hair curves as the control curves on that, you get more options for the look of normal paintfx stroke if you need hairlike motion but the hair system limited customization of the strokes wont cut it.. like say you need a bunch of seaweed..
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