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I'm not ticked off, but yes, exclusion from the tools to create custom strand-based hair compatible with Studio is an issue. To those sayng "there are free tools to do this," the response is "no." It is a reminder that there is no free lunch.
I was a Carrara user so have had dynamic-strand based hair for a very long time. I had it in Poser before I used Carrara. Note that Daz3D sells, and I have purchased, dynamic strand-based hair for Carrara. For a hairstyle that I imagine but that Daz3D does not offer for sale, Carrara includes the tools for me to create my own.
I am a Studio user so now supposedly have dynamic strand-based hair in that program. Daz3d is offering to sell me Studio-compatible hair styles (from one of the PAs from whom I purchased dynamic Carrara styles - keep up the great work, PhilW!). However, if I think of a style that PhilW and the other PAs have not brought to market yet, I cannot do it myself and have the result be dynamic-compatible with Studio. It doesn't matter if I am proficient in ZBrush, 3DCoat, Blender, Hexagon, etc., etc., etc.
I am not pissed off. I'm OK with buying hairstyles from PhilW - have done it before. But people asserting that if I don't like the styles offered I can create hairstyles myself are wrong. Simply not true. I contrast this situation with mesh-based conforming hair, which I can model myself in 3DCoat or whatever and then make it conforming in Studio.
Thank you, you seem to have said it best.
When I see a non PA defend this decision I admittedly take more notice
You mean like "Look At My Hair" and the "Garibladi Express Hair system" which is now updated as the Strand based hair editor? Both of these work in Daz Studio. What you lack is the ability to make it dynamic, nothing more.
Yes, because when I see a PA do it I take no notice whatsoever ;) Not to be mean, but of course the ppl that already have it are going to defend the decision.
Laurie
Studio invested development to make meshes capable of conforming with their figures. If they don't offer something you think of for sale, you can model it yourself in Blender, Modo, or whatever and it will still be compatible with Studio. The business model included giving the rigging/posing/conforming software away for free and selling compatible conforming clothes/props even though customers could model their own.
This treatment of compatible dynamic hair is a different business model than the treatment of conforming meshes. I'm not upset about it, but it is not the same.
This makes sense, but again, not every DAZ PA exclusively sells at DAZ. And yet there are no HD morphs sold elsewhere to this day. So it means some sort of a legally binding agreement is enforced saying "you must only distribute this through DAZ".
A similar agreement may be forced on any customer. Like, you buy a plugin and its licence only allows you to use the results in your renders, but distributing the models you make is forbidden.
It is similar to how you can only use certain paid software tiers for personal use and not for profit.
The reason that makes more sense for not letting anyone buy the tool, IMO, is that DAZ allows customers to contact support when they don't know how to use the software. Selling an arguably "advanced" tool might overload DAZ tech support as a result.
Not all of us "complainers" have to "figure out" the static strand hair tool. I have been a Garibaldi user since the beta days. This new tool is an updated Garibaldi. So I don't need to.
yes I have Garibaldi, LAMH, Zbrush, Carrara, Poser and Blender and play with hair in all of them
and I still buy Fibermesh based hairs from the DAZ store
I can model clothes too and still buy it
thats why this arguement makes utterly no sense other than I have to pay for a limited range of stuff to use in DAZ studio as opposed to anywhere else
is like regional codes stopping me buying DVD's from Amazon limiting me to region 4 which is a limited catalogue compared to region 1 USA because I live in Australia, fortunately because that contravenes our fair trade agreements we can buy multi region DVD players just not from big name brands as they won't sell them to us.
by the same token
I can use Carrara, Poser and Blender
you are just adding nothing to DAZ studio for me I didn't already have
Mattymanx - I think we have a couple of cross-posts in which we typed at the same time. I came in this thread on page 26, asked or clarification, and have not tried the function myself. I could easily be confused about the facts. Are you saying that non-PAs do have the tools to make strand-based hair (as opposed to 3d mesh) that is compatible with the new Studio beta dynamic hair function?
I have read several times in this thread that what is being marketed as NEW in the beta is a dynamic strand-based hair that interacts with props/figures, (not a 3d mesh using dforce), but that only PAs have the tools to create new hairstyles compatible with this function. If not true, or if is misleading, please clarify.
The Strands system is an improvement over Garibaldi. For one thing, it works natively in Iray.
The dynamic hair allows simulation of hair in response to wind and gravity and so on. Also, as someone who has experimented with Zbrush fibermesh, for vendors it offers some improvements over the function of just fibermesh.
So the strand hair plugin and the dforce hair are two different things? Like the dforce hair is just the same hairs as what we bought before, and the strand hair are not releated to the dforce hair products at all?
What is curretly being marketed as new in the beta (and now released) are two seperate things: one is strand based hair, which is much like what could be done in LAMH or Garibaldi (I believe it is a recoded updated version of this plugins code) but from inside Daz 4.11 natively without additional plugins.
the other is dForce hair which looks similar in the videos etc and is similar in that it grows out strands based on curves but these curves are simulated in dforce, this dforce hair is not styleable in the strand based hair styler (at least not to us users, no idea about the PA's) and it is not possible to create completely new dforce hair as a user either. The products sold do have a large number of options to customize them other than just physics settings though including length reduction, density adjustment, randomised length, and some clumping options.
Thank you.
With the new plugin you can make and style strand based hair.
The PA's have the option to convert that strand based hair to dForce hair and tweak those settings.
That is the only difference.
With all the editing tools for the strand based hair you can already do so much more than you used to be able to with hair, and make stuff that looks so much better than what was previously available. It really is a very cool tool and set-up. Plus MUCH more stable than LAMH ever was.
I have made 5+ characters already with dForce fur.....and really, more often than not, there really is not much need for simulating it, using it as strand hair is often more then enough for some real cool looking characters.
Waiting for the dancing furry creation like in Daz video:
Once you try the Daz Studio Strand-Based Hair Editor, you will never again think of creating hair with LAMH. Strand-Based hair, although not bug free yet, is so much more stable, as RawArt says. And it is Iray-Ready. There is no need to export to OBJ or fibermesh, and you will never need Catalyzer to render it. Any user or PA can create Strand-Based hair that is ready to render in Iray. I've already created several for myself.
Decided to give some fur on Daz dog 8 (golden lab) a try.
still needs some more work as I was a tad uncontrolled with the clippers and shaved off some rather noticable cuts, also the fur on the ears is going the wrong way which I only noticed post render.
as for some feature requests, options to select which brush settings are affected by pen pressure when using a tablet would be great (unless I'm just missing them)
and if the reverse side and hidden masking of the paint section could be adjusted to try avoid the rather hard jagged edge it creates currently
I'm sure someone has already addressed this but this is a huge thread so... why is my dforce strand based hair product not showing up in the render? I am using a GTX1070. latest update for it so what am I missing? Please be as specific as possible because me so old and stupid. Thank you.
from the previous pages there are a few things, check under tesselation and make sure the options are not set to 0.
set preview pr hairs to on for it to show up in the iray preview window in addition to setting tesselation in viewport to 1 or higher.
other than those two I think there were issues with positioning and shaders but I'd assume those wouldn't be there for a purchased product.
oh also if its dforce hair, make sure generate ps and pr hair are both on under parameters > simulation
Thanks, I just figured out that the hair doesn't show up in the workspace render but it does in the real render. Sorry.
You are already doing great, even on your first try!
oh right yea if its just the iray preview window thats not rendering then you need to set the viewport line tesselation sides to 2 or higher (at least 1 doesn't work for me)
under Parameters > General > Line tesselation
as well as set preview pr hairs to on under Parameters> general > Simulation > Hair > pre render(PR) for the full effect
make sure you have installed the update for dForce Starter Essentials to get the sahders.
You, (meaning any Daz Studio user,) can create any hair style you want, to the extent of your talent/experience/abitlies with the Strand-Based Hair Editor. The Strand-Based Hair may have been extensively recoded to work with Iray but it is based on Garibaldi, so if you've worked with Garibaldi, the interface and function should be familiar. If you've worked with LAMH, as I have, the interface will still be somewhat familiar. It is my understanding the PAs have access to the same Strand-Based Hair Editor, not some souped up version.
However, any PA who has been creating strand based, fiber mesh hair in other programs will more than likely continue to create in the program they are most familiar with. I know I would. Regardless of what software they use to create the hair, they can now apply a dForce modifier developed specifically for hair.
Think about it. Daz didn't have to buy Garibaldi and create a native strand-based hair editor for Daz Studio in order to develop a hair specific dForce modifier. They could have just created the modifier and made it available to the PAs, who would then have used the modifier on the hair they developed in other software. We could have had DS 4.11 a long time ago, if Daz had left out the editor. Along with PA created dForce hair.
It's more like buying a brand new car, and being disappointed it doesn't include the engine, suspension and roll cage of a race car.
Strand-Based Hair can be edited again and again. It is one reason why the store never included Garibaldi based hair products, and why LAMH presets were either part of another product, (like fur on a bear,) given away free, or more recently, sold for a pittance, (for example, the deer presets on the HW3D site.)
If you change the pose, you can open the editor and change the hair. In fact, you have more control over how the hair drapes over body parts, (and around ears,) and with continued use of the editor, will probably be able to make those changes faster and more accurately than simulating dForce hair again and again until you got a look you could live with!
(Just to reiterate, everytime I say "you" in this post, I am referencing any Daz Studio user, not any one person.)
Once the strand based hair is converted to dForce hair, it can no longer be edited in the strand based hair editor. This is true for everyone, PAs included.
@Diomede_Carrara - what skinklizzard said.
Garibaldi didn't work in Iray, did it? I know with LAMH, the hair had to be converted to an obj with the player, (or fiber mesh, if one had the full program,) to be rendered in Iray. I bought Garibaldi a couple months before it became free, but never found the time to use it, so I have no first-hand knowledge of how it worked, (or not,) with Iray.
I envy you your abilities in other 3D software. I have Carrara and Bryce, but have been too intimidated when I open either one to actually do anything. Same thing with Blender. (Don't have Poser.) I have gotten reasonably good at using Hexagon to create morphs, though. Especially since the beta.
Garibaldi Express never worked in Iray. It also could not paint on Genesis 3 or 8 due to the different UV layouts. THat is not longer an issue with the Strand based hair editor
I own zbrush and, as a pa, can convert fibermesh to dynamic hair.
That said? There are a lot of things I like about the on engine strand hair and I’ve started using it way more.
To reiterate, there are two things: strand hair, dynamic hair.
All users got Strand hair totally for free. Completely.
Agreed!
To reiterate, (and in support of the above quoted statement,) Daz could have developed the dForce hair modifier without creating the native strand based hair.
The Strand-Based Hair feature is an awesome gift to users. And a huge step forward in the DS software. I can hardly wait for a decent tutorial, (pdf, not long, frequently off-topic, rambling video,) to be available. I suspect most of us playing with the editor have barely scratched the surface of what this bad boy can do!