DA dForce Mane and Tail - Hair Color Question

MelissaGT

First off, I wanted to say thank you to DesignAnvil for this - https://www.daz3d.com/da-dforce-mane-and-tail-for-horse-2 as it will be an insta-buy for me. I do have one question, however. Will there be, or is there a way to color the mane with multiple colors? A horse's mane is rarely a single color. It can have dark roots and lighter ends, just like people...or dark roots with reddish tips...and so many combinations in-between. It can also have streaks of different colors. I've attached a screenshot of the last piece I did with DH2 and you can see the forelock there ends in blonde tips, as that is the way a grey horse's mane changes with age (it ends up being fully blonde/white in time, just as the horse's coat ends up white with age). Another example is a bay/brown horse...which has a black mane with reddish tips. Is this a possibliity with dForce (SBH) hair? I really haven't done much with it because I don't like it for humans, but I'm willing to try it for the horse mane. Not sure if it could be accomplished with something like Chevybabe's shaders?

*edit* I didn't see a product thread for this, so if one does pop up, please merge this into it!

Asari

I'm not DigitalAnvil nor do I have this product. If it's based off SBH you can use it with hair shaders made for it. The dual lobe hair shader that ships with Studio allow you to define root, tip and transmission color, and shine. On top of that you can use color maps, either your own or from shader packs like chevybabe's pack, to add more variety to hair color - all within the same hair object.

MelissaGT

Asari said:

I'm not DigitalAnvil nor do I have this product. If it's based off SBH you can use it with hair shaders made for it. The dual lobe hair shader that ships with Studio allow you to define root, tip and transmission color, and shine. On top of that you can use color maps, either your own or from shader packs like chevybabe's pack, to add more variety to hair color - all within the same hair object.

I currently have this, which supposedly works on SBH - https://www.daz3d.com/colorwerks-extreme-hair-texture-blending-for-iray-and-dforce-hair

Design Anvil - Razor42

Hi @Melissastjames, 

The hair shader used for both the Mane and Tail is the dual lobe hair shader, so is pretty easier to adapt with a few tweaks to the colors in the root and tip transmission and Root and tip color channels. I would of liked to have include a few more material looks in the pack, but this project kind of just grew and grew and I needed to start to draw a few lines somewhere. Maybe a material pack in the future might be possible if the set does well.

I suspect there shouldn't be any issue with most Dforce hair shader packs, but unfortunately I don't have the one you linked above to test out for you.

I created the hair colors in the image below with only a few slight changes from one of the included materials.

Thanks :)

MelissaGT

Design Anvil - Razor42 said:

Hi @Melissastjames, 

The hair shader used for both the Mane and Tail is the dual lobe hair shader, so is pretty easier to adapt with a few tweaks to the colors in the root and tip transmission and Root and tip color channels. I would of liked to have include a few more material looks in the pack, but this project kind of just grew and grew and I needed to start to draw a few lines somewhere. Maybe a material pack in the future might be possible if the set does well.

I suspect there shouldn't be any issue with most Dforce hair shader packs, but unfortunately I don't have the one you linked above to test out for you.

I created the hair colors in the image below with only a few slight changes from one of the included materials.

Thanks :)

Thank you! I will definitely be playing around with this and will have to post my results! I've been hoping and wishing and hoping for a new mane/tail for DH2 (also some feather aka fuzzy feet). I really know next to nothing about SBH and what sort of tweaks need to be made to get certain looks...and my limit of knowledge on dForce is with the cloth system. Would you be able to recommend some settings that could lend to a scraggly, wet look? Like horse-in-the-rain-mane (lol).

Thanks again!

Design Anvil - Razor42

Getting a wet looking hair may take a bit of experimenting to get the best out of the dual lobe shader, but I had a quick go and found that playing with darkening the colors, turning up the glossiness settings and also turning up the scraggliness settings of the hair and then simulating the hair with 1.5x gravity does get you a bit more towards that kind of look and I suspect with a bit more experimenting a lot more could be done.

I did include some feathering figure addons for my DA Unicorn set (using transmap style hair) https://www.daz3d.com/da-unicorn-for-daz-horse-2, but I would like to create some dforce ones with a bit more flexibility.

Looking forward to seeing what you create!

 

3Ddreamer

I'm just about to work on a scene with a painted pony (pie-bald?) and a Native American, I was even thinking of using Mill Horse until this product appeared today (I'm already using M4 Cheyenne for the clothes on G8M as there is nothing authentic after that) ;-) I generally avoid SBH as it seems too heavy for my system, but I am willing to give this a go. Is there a way to break up the strands so some chunks are white and some black, I can't see that as an option in the screenshot.

Design Anvil - Razor42

There are no direct presets for creating white and black strands of hair within the current set but it's fairly easy to do with a few changes to the existing mats. I created a fairly simple black and white texture and placed in the color texture channels of one of the existing white materials and played around a little with the image editor tiling settings and got the below result. You could use any texture here to achieve a varied look with any color combination.

 

3Ddreamer

Oh Thanks You! that should work great once I play around with it

MelissaGT

Design Anvil - Razor42 said:

There are no direct presets for creating white and black strands of hair within the current set but it's fairly easy to do with a few changes to the existing mats. I created a fairly simple black and white texture and placed in the color texture channels of one of the existing white materials and played around a little with the image editor tiling settings and got the below result. You could use any texture here to achieve a varied look with any color combination.

 

Oh I love it! Thank you!

MelissaGT

Design Anvil - Razor42 said:

Getting a wet looking hair may take a bit of experimenting to get the best out of the dual lobe shader, but I had a quick go and found that playing with darkening the colors, turning up the glossiness settings and also turning up the scraggliness settings of the hair and then simulating the hair with 1.5x gravity does get you a bit more towards that kind of look and I suspect with a bit more experimenting a lot more could be done.

I did include some feathering figure addons for my DA Unicorn set (using transmap style hair) https://www.daz3d.com/da-unicorn-for-daz-horse-2, but I would like to create some dforce ones with a bit more flexibility.

Looking forward to seeing what you create!

 

Thanks again! I'm like a cat chasing a butterfly trying to finish pieces (since I'm just a hobbyist) and it will be hard to finish what I just started last night before jumping into something with a horse!

Design Anvil - Razor42

Lol, I know how you feel sometimes.:D

You're both very welcome, don't hesitate to ask if there are any more questions.

I need to step out for a bit, but I will be back later.

Oso3D

Just as an aside, if you don't care about root/tip variation, you can always stick a regular Iray Uber shader on top; the stuff related to dForce Hair is kept separate from the other shader stuff.

 

thd777

Awesome mane and tail. Just what I was looking for. Here is my first quick attempt. Check the attachment for full size image!

Thanks!

Ciao

TD

L'Adair

I have been begging for years for a product to replace the mane and tail of the DH2. Fiber mesh would have been nice, dForce Hair is even better! Thank you, thank you. Thank You!

Oso3D

First uses my thicket products for the material, second I just plopped in a simple rainbow pattern in color. Very happy with this product.

 

Nath

I love the mane, and am impressed by how fast it simulates.

But... can I make the hair shorter? Not every horse has this luxurious a mane ;-)

MelissaGT

Nath said:

I love the mane, and am impressed by how fast it simulates.

But... can I make the hair shorter? Not every horse has this luxurious a mane ;-)

I think for a short mane, or one that has been roached and is growing back in, I'd check out DA's Foal. I use the mane all the time and it's great on adult horses too!

Nath

melissastjames said:

Nath said:

I love the mane, and am impressed by how fast it simulates.

But... can I make the hair shorter? Not every horse has this luxurious a mane ;-)

I think for a short mane, or one that has been roached and is growing back in, I'd check out DA's Foal. I use the mane all the time and it's great on adult horses too!

And of course I have that, but it's been overlooked... Thanks!

Daventaki

This was an instabuy for me also!! I've been wanting a product like this since I was able to get the DH 2! I did have some trouble getting the hair to drape down with the grazing pose but to be honest I was tired and had already built the scene when the product hit the store so I only spent a little time messing around with it. Will play more, the middle part of the mane was sticking into the horses shoulder and even with the parameter dials couldn't get it to work seemed like they were moving the front and back more than the middle. Anyway still love the product and will pop back into this thread with further results. I am at work on my phone. Edit: Oh and image is uploaded to my gallery in Animals section if anyone wants to take a peek.

Design Anvil - Razor42

Nath said:

I love the mane, and am impressed by how fast it simulates.

But... can I make the hair shorter? Not every horse has this luxurious a mane ;-)

The appearance presets have a few shorter /thinner hair presets. You can also reduce the amount of hairs generated to give a thinner look to the hair or adjust the length more directly in the shader/dforce settings.

Design Anvil - Razor42

Daventaki said:

This was an instabuy for me also!! I've been wanting a product like this since I was able to get the DH 2! I did have some trouble getting the hair to drape down with the grazing pose but to be honest I was tired and had already built the scene when the product hit the store so I only spent a little time messing around with it. Will play more, the middle part of the mane was sticking into the horses shoulder and even with the parameter dials couldn't get it to work seemed like they were moving the front and back more than the middle. Anyway still love the product and will pop back into this thread with further results. I am at work on my phone. Edit: Oh and image is uploaded to my gallery in Animals section if anyone wants to take a peek.

A grazing pose is one of the more difficult for this kind of mane. But I found the best settings to look at for a pose like this is the duration and gravity settings of the simulation. For this render I pushed the stabilisation time up to 15 and reduced gravity to .8.

Design Anvil - Razor42

Here is another simulation for a graze pose this time with the mane appearance set to both sides and the gravity turned up to 1.2.

Design Anvil - Razor42

Oso3D said:

First uses my thicket products for the material, second I just plopped in a simple rainbow pattern in color. Very happy with this product.

These look great, glad your happy with it Oso3D.

 

Design Anvil - Razor42

thd777 said:

Awesome mane and tail. Just what I was looking for. Here is my first quick attempt. Check the attachment for full size image!

Thanks!

Ciao

TD

Great looking render~! Thanks for sharing it here.

Carola O

I really need a new computer, the mane and tail look great and I wish I could use them. But my computer completely freezes when I try to use the house cat that has SBH hair :( so doubt I be able to use this :(

I'm guessing there is no chance for a fibermesh mane and tail? One that like this is a Full mane and goes along all the neck, not one who is shaved

Summerhorse

Absolutely love this product!!! That old mane was an eysore on the Daz horse- and now he\s gorgeous!

Nath

Design Anvil - Razor42 said:

Nath said:

I love the mane, and am impressed by how fast it simulates.

But... can I make the hair shorter? Not every horse has this luxurious a mane ;-)

The appearance presets have a few shorter /thinner hair presets. You can also reduce the amount of hairs generated to give a thinner look to the hair or adjust the length more directly in the shader/dforce settings.

Thanks!

MelissaGT

Summerhorse said:

Absolutely love this product!!! That old mane was an eysore on the Daz horse- and now he\s gorgeous!

I wouldn't say a complete eyesore...though it did take a heck of a lot of work to get looking good. 

But this product is very nice!

Gordig

I'd never done this level of editing on dForce hair before, but between Thicket Shapes and Pixie Dragon, I managed to put feathers on a calf.

Dkgoose

got this with various other products today including the 3 thicket ones, can't wait to try this out