A:M 10.x hair?

#3

The new hair is VERY cool. I’m asking for a couple of additional controls, but if we get those (and some rendering tweaks) AM’s hair will be on par with anything I’ve ever used - which means it will pretty much kick ass…

Here’s a couple of examples of sheep’s wool:

ftp://ftp.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/Wooly1.jpg
ftp://ftp.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/Wooly2.jpg

If you haven’t messed with the mapping controls, well, I’d suggest you do - it’s pretty friggin’ cool - and puts some of the plug-ins that cost more than AM to shame…

JoeW

#4

Hi Joe

Can you give me an idea on how long it takes to render Wooly?
Are you making a short movie ?
Which CPU and OS please.
Thanks

#5

Originally posted by Polou
[B]Hi Joe

Can you give me an idea on how long it takes to render Wooly?
Are you making a short movie ?
Which CPU and OS please.
Thanks [/B]

Hey Polou

With 4 passes (multi-pass) it’s taking about 12 minutes on a 3GHz Pentium4 under WinXP.

There are 9 lights in that shot, all shadow casting (Shadow Maps).

This is a frame out of the opening cinematic for our upcoming game called “Tak and the Power of Juju” - to be published by THQ and Nickelodeon this fall. I hope to get permission to post the whole movie when it’s finished :slight_smile:

JoeW

#6

Muahaha, that sheep is fantastic Joe! Can you share any of the material settings?

I have it on good authority that the sheep in that picture was modeled after Joe’s very own pet sheep, Martin :stuck_out_tongue:

#7

Hey Joe, that sheep is hilarious. You guys do great work. ANd your renderings are amazing.

#8

Thanks Joe

It takes longer, much longer on my AMD 2000 and XP Pro.
(I’m talking of 2000 MHz so it’s AMD XP 2400+)
Of course it’s difficult to compare but I’ve found " Hair" a bit frustrating… it’s for me, far too long.
I have to find an alternative … a bigger CPU or decal or I don’t know…but something to speed up the process.

#9

Originally posted by JoeW

Here’s a couple of examples of sheep’s wool: …

woooooooooow :love: what the :eek: is that? a:m??? :applause:

#10

Originally posted by Polou
[B]Thanks Joe

It takes longer, much longer on my AMD 2000 and XP Pro.
(I’m talking of 2000 MHz so it’s AMD XP 2400+)
Of course it’s difficult to compare but I’ve found " Hair" a bit frustrating… it’s for me, far too long.
I have to find an alternative … a bigger CPU or decal or I don’t know…but something to speed up the process. [/B]

Odd. 10.5 hair at densities of 20-40 are rendering at roughly between 4-14 minutes with 16 passes on my Athlon Tbird 1Ghz with 256 megs of memory running Win2k. Admitedly many of these these are just hair test at the moment, and not the guide splines. But still compared to older versions where a density of 6 could bog down my system for hours on end the new hair seems very fast and usable. Also the new real time options (bottom property on a hair node) for viewing things like kinkyness and thinkness in adition to color and length realy helps one get a feel for what the hair is going to look like before doing a final render.

The santa hat at this link is an example of the new hair. http://www.anzovin.com/billsmaterials.html

-Bill Y.

#11

Looks fantastic Joe.

I am going to ask a boring questions now (I need all the help I can get).

I am trying to decide on whether to use z-buffer or raytraced shadows. The main reason that I want to stear away from raytraced is that the render times with hair are just un-usable (for me), but z-buffered shadows work MUCH faster. However, I find that with z-buffer shadows, I get luminus areas where the shadow isn’t calculated. I have noticed this in Tak’s nostrils (particularly on the second image). I have been thinking of painting on an occlusion map to fix this. I have made a render of a character in a skylight scene using the new photon mapping thing and am thingking of using that as a reference. The nostrils would be painted almost black. I think that I have seen a similar technique elseware but I am not sure. Would it cause any problems (like the aprearence of blackness painted onto characters) or is it a good idea?

Cheers for any feedback on this one.

#12

Im dying to see thw 2 images Joe posted but every time I go to the site-it just hangs. Can someone download the images and email them to me?
Please! :>
Thanks!!!

#13

Maybe your browser is having trouble with ftp, so try this instead
http://www.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/Wooly1.jpg
http://www.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/Wooly2.jpg

#14

Originally posted by My Fault
[B]Muahaha, that sheep is fantastic Joe! Can you share any of the material settings?

I have it on good authority that the sheep in that picture was modeled after Joe’s very own pet sheep, Martin :stuck_out_tongue: [/B]

Thanks, guys - I hope to be able to post some of the animations when we get them finished - some of the voice talent we have is SO damn funny!

I’ve put the material file up here:

ftp://ftp.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/SheepWool.zip

Keep in mind that this “wool” uses a color map as well as a length map. If you haven’t played with the mapping stuff, I highly recommend it - it’s very cool…

JoeW

#15

Originally posted by My Fault
Maybe your browser is having trouble with ftp, so try this instead
http://www.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/Wooly1.jpg
http://www.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/Wooly2.jpg

Very cool trick, Nicco! I’m going to have to remember that one… :slight_smile:

JoeW

#16

Originally posted by JoeW
[B]Thanks, guys - I hope to be able to post some of the animations when we get them finished - some of the voice talent we have is SO damn funny!

I’ve put the material file up here:

ftp://ftp.hash.com/users/joewllms/CGTalk/SheepWool.zip

Keep in mind that this “wool” uses a color map as well as a length map. If you haven’t played with the mapping stuff, I highly recommend it - it’s very cool…

JoeW [/B]

Oooh, wooly! :beer:

Wow, hair does seem quite a bit faster then before. Not Sasquatch level speed, but nice none the less.

#17

Going back a couple of messaged, a “length map” is mentioned. How does one create a length map?

Also, with color maps, is the color transmitted along the length of the hair?

Thank you.

#18

Originally posted by npcrosby
[B]Going back a couple of messaged, a “length map” is mentioned. How does one create a length map?

Also, with color maps, is the color transmitted along the length of the hair?

Thank you. [/B]

Apply your “length” decal as you would any other decal. Expand the Decal and go to Images. Change your Image Type to “Other” - the words “Properties Driven” will show up directly under the word “Type” in the box. Right-Click the words “Properties Driven” and select “Add Property” and you will get an arrow showing up next to “Properties Driven” and under that, “Properties”. Click on the word “None” and drag down to the property you wish to use. This is also how you would apply color and other factors… It’s simpler than it sounds…

A note here - if you don’t have a Hair material applied to the object or group, nothing will show up under “None”. If you don’t have
“Draw Particles/Hair” turned on under Tools>Options>Rendering tab you won’t see anything. Also note that they’ve been changing the way this works - so keep in mind that I may not be 100% accurate for the version you’re using.

And yes, with color maps the color is transmitted along the length of the hair…

JoeW

#19

Joe…
is there an image type that works best for length? I mean grey-scale, b/w or colour? I’m trying to have hair appear in different parts of a patch but still struggling.

Maybe I should put it this way - I want to go from 0 length to full percentage. Is there a map-type that will do this?

#20

I’ve found it’s best to use a grayscale image. Make sure your black is really black. Do NOT use an alpha channel!! What is black in your decal image will allow no hair to grow, what is white will allow full hair length, and varying shades of gray allow varying lengths of hair. When you apply the image, make sure it covers the entire area that will contain the hair material. Overlap the surrounding patches for good measure.

Jim

#21

I’ve found it’s best to use a grayscale image.

Many thanks for your reply! I’ll give it a go!

Do NOT use an alpha channel!!

:blush: Ooops! That really will make a difference as I think all my targas had alpha channels!
Wonderful information!

#22

So, just curious…how DOES AM’s new hair compare to Sasquatch?

-Brian