*Released dforce Dark Match* Commercial
chevybabe25
Posts: 1,272
https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-dark-match-hair-for-genesis-8-female
YAY for Strand Based Hair!!!
I'd like to include some general information and helpful tips for you to use my new sets in the store :)
What is the difference between strand based hair and fibermesh?
Strand Based Hair is generated inside Daz Studio. Fibermesh is actual mesh generated within Zbrush. Fibermesh can bring even the nicest computers to a painful crawl once it is imported into Daz Studio. Strand Based Hair is so much lighter!! There are a lot less hairs in your viewport, and the rest are generated during the render. I don't know all the magic behind that part, but its really awesome.
SBH ( Strand Based Hair ) is DYNAMIC! - Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!. As an artist that has been working with Daz Studio and Poser for almost 20 years, this is what I always dreamed of!!!!!! Well I have also dreamed of being a millionaire too, but I'll settle for this 
.
But what if I don't want to run a simulation? With the ones currently in the store, you do not need to run a simulation unless you want to. There are morphs that will move the hairs around like a traditional hair model too! The coolest part is that you can use the morphs before a simulation, without a simulation, and/ or after a simulation.
How do I use it? Select your figure and load the model like you normally would. Make sure that you do not have the geometry editor tool or the awesome Mesh Grabber Tool selected, pose your figure and render.
How do I use the morphs? These SBH hair models are currently in pieces to add more versatility. Selecting it in the scene tab will make the morphs appear in the parameters tab ( They are parented to the head) . Keep in mid that because these hairs are separate pieces they are grouped. So you will have to expand the options in the scene tab to find the individual pieces. Then just play with the sliders to your liking!
How do I simulate the hair? Welll there are several ways to do this, but the easiest way is to click on the simulate tab and click simulate. No extra settings needed. You can also use a timeline animation, or use the settings provided to use just gravity.
There will be so much versatility!! I have added a ton of separate surfaces so you will be able to easily kitbash these. Shut off certain surfaces to combine them with other SBH hairs orrrr maybe even combine them with some of the regular 3d hair models in the store and make a hybrid!
Technical Stuff:
Line Start With & Line End Width - This is how thick your hair is and how it tapers. I kept mine slightly thicker @ .09. and .03 to keep the amount of generated hairs to a minimum. If you want the hair to be thinner or taper more, you can turn this amount down, but oviously you will have to add more hairs.
Root Radius - This is the mode I have chosen to favor. It doesn't require painted maps or interpolation algorithms ( where hairs can go off in crazy directions for almost no good reason) and it is much more predictable for me when I import my hair from outside programs. With that said, there are no options for the cool stuff like frizz. Sorry guys :(
PS Points (per hair) - for those of you that model this is similar to CVS in a curve. It can control how smooth the hair will look. If you do a simulation and the hair just turns to a straight mess, try turning this down. The lower the setting, the more stiff the hair itself will behave and keep it's shape. Too low and you may end up with some jaggy edges. I feel like 20 to 30 is a good start for these stiffer styles.
PS Hairs (Per guide)- This is fairly self explanatory. If you want a fuller look, you can try adding more hairs. More hairs will probably require more computing power. But feel free to play with the setting.
PS Hair Tip Separation - This is a clumping option. Positive direction moves the hair away from the tip. Negative direction forms a clump at the tip.
Bias and Gain - This also has to do with clumping.
Bias is where along the hair shaft the clumping/non clumping starts. The lower the number the higher up the hair shaft the tip separation starts and vice versa.
Gain is how the bias transitions along the hair shaft.
I don't bother messing with these too much, but feel free to play with them.
PS Hairs and PR Hairs - PS hairs are supposed to be more accurate when simming than PR hairs. Also, I have found that PS hairs have a more delicate, natural look to them. PR hairs are great for adding a little extra bulk or frizz depending on how you use it. To get hair more dense looking, you can add PR hairs one or two at a time. I like to think of PR hairs as a multiplier, so you don't need to add a whole lot. If you want to make the hair appear a little more frizzy, you can play with the distribution radius and the tip separation for the PR hairs.
More Technical Questions * This will be added to as questions come up so all info can be placed in one convenient place
I want a certain section of my hair to drape more. Is there a way to do that? Yes! There are a few options you can use to adjust the draping so it suits your particular scene better. You can adjust the PS Points on the surface you select to something higher. The double dutch braids in particular are kept fairly low around 20. This keeps the whole hairstyle fairly stiff. I would start fairly high at maybe 60 and see what results you get and what you are exactly looking for. If it drapes better but its lost too much of your shape you can adjust other options as well.
You can also adjust the Local Shape Constraint Stiffness. Turning this down lower will also make the hair drape more while keeping the shape of the hair more in tact.
You can also adjust the tips of the hair with Local Shape Constraint Tip Stiffness. This will loosen up how the tips drape more. A lower number will spread those tips out more during a simulation.
All of this is a process of trial and error and what exactly you are looking for in an end result.
I want to simulate hair on a figure that is on a floor. When I sim the hair it makes an explosive mess. Help! This wasn't a question posed here yet but I know it's on the way :) You have a few options to handle this situation. If you are on an older computer that doesn't do so well with simulations, try keeping the model's head height as the same level the default figure loads in. I hope that makes sense. When a simulation is going it is essentially pulling those hairs to the end pose. Further away from default equals more pulling.
If you have a decent computer and you don't have an issue with simulations then you can simply change the simulation settings - Pose Transition Time to something higher than 1. The promos I did with Victoria on the floor all had a pose transition time of 3 - but I believe 2 probably would have done just fine.
Now go have some fun and be creative already!
I will be here checking this thread as often as I can to help, should you get stuck, have questions, or just wanna show off pretty pictures :
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Comments
I also want to add that this hair can be heavy on resources. My best advice is to use the clumping options to thicken the hair shaft, (Tails Hair Thicker) and then change the amount of PS Hairs on the tails only to something lower. If it looks too thin after you do that, simply change the PR Hairs on the tails to something higher to fill in.
Im also working on putting together some youtube videos for dhair. There seems to be lots of confusion about what it can and can't do, and just general use. It is taking me awhile to put these together but I promise they are coming. If there is something specific you would like to see, let me know :)
Any render I try with this hair in the scene crashes. Remove it, and the render works. Given how excited I was to use this hair to make my own Alexa Bliss, I'm pretty disappointed. Hopefully an update will fix it?
What are your system specifications?
I have attached a screenshot of my DX Diag. It should be enough to render just about anything, I'd think.
The graphics card is a 2080 Super.
What about your video card?
@rivalsrapture You have me quite curious here. Can we have some more specs of your computer please?
The graphics card is a EVGA GEFORCE XC ULTRA RTX 2080 Super.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/evga-super-xc-ultra-gaming-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-super-8gb-gddr6-pci-express-3-0-graphics-card-black-transparent/6373486.p?irclickid=TJx3zeQ9rxyOTfR0UfQwQyYMUkiWSy3Bwyw-yI0&irgwc=1&ref=198&loc=TradeTracker%20Latam&acampID=0&mpid=1341758&skuId=6373486
Something is not right then. I have a 980 ti and was able to render that with no crashing. I'll look into this today and get back to you.
Thanks so much!
You are very welcome. I just deleted all my old files and did a clean install and had no issues rendering. It did take a smidge longer to have the render show up but it didnt crash. The only thing I can think of is that maybe something is corrupt. Can you simulate or have you been able to simulate the hair?
I can't say I am very familiar with simulations. All I am trying to make is a still image, not a video or animation. So I apply the hair to the model, then after posing, hit render. Is there some extra step I need to take?
That being said, I did run a sim with the hair applied and it did run through the base T-pose to the pose I chose successfully. The hair is without texture during that simulation.
I just figured if there was a bug with the hair itself, it would not simulate. So that eliminates that idea. You don't need to take any extra steps to make the hair render. I'll send a note to tech and see if they have any thoughts on this. What version of studio are you running? The more info I can give them the better. Thanks!
The product page says:
Compatible Software: Daz Studio 4.12, dForce Hair, Daz to Blender Bridge, Daz to Maya Bridge, Daz to 3ds Max Bridge, Daz to C4D Bridge
I thought we were told that strand-based hair was NOT compatible with those bridges. What's the real story?
dforce Strand based hair will not bridge over. You may have success with Blender as that can actually read the lines but will take manipulation inside the program to make it look anything like the product in studio.
4.12.1.118 Pro Edition 64-Bit
Just as a better description, when it crashes, it hasn't drawn anything yet in the render new window. It takes some time like you imagine it would to start a render, and then just about the time you'd expect it to display its first itteration, it crashes.
As an update, the original scene I was trying to render had more figures in it than just the model with the hair. I have since removed all those other models, and have tried rendering just the model with the Dark Match hair, and her clothing, and the render works.
So perhaps the hair in a more complicated render is the issue?
Yeah, this hair is heavy on resources. If it's not an up close and personal, high resolution portrait, try tweaking the settings on the tails where it's the heaviest:
Thicken the hair width, reduce the points, and reduce the amount of ps hairs.
I also can't render this hair - out-of-the-box settings. Geforce 3080 Eagle, AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, Patriot 32GB (4x8GB) 4000MHz CL19 Viper Steel.
I managed to do so with either "Generate PR Hairs" or "Generate PS Hairs" off, but the hair looks kinda bad in those cases. Is there a setting to get sort of a 50/50% blend of PS and PR hairs?
Hey there :)
You can try trading ps hairs for pr hairs to get this to render. . To do this:
Select Dforce Dark Match, expand it, and select the Dforce Dark Match Base.
On the surfaces tab select the left tail and the right tail. The bulk of the hair weight is here. By default the ps hairs (per guide) is 10. I would halve that to 5.
The pr hairs per guide is 5. Add the 5 you subtracted from ps hairs and add them here by changing the total to 10. You can continue to do this until it renders for you.
A little explanation: ps hairs will simulate. pr hairs do not. they are generated after the simulation which makes them a whole lot less accurate.
If you are not simulating the hair at all, you can also try reducing the points on the hair too. Just change the ps points on the left and right tail from 80 to something like 45.
While I would love to add more presets for ease of use, as you can see, it still wouldnt have worked for your particular instance had you not dropped the ps hairs to zero. The hair will render but will probably not look nearly as nice as the promos too. What I suggest, is to figure out how heavy a sbh hair you can render, (14,267,822) and then try to not purchase hairs over that weight. My more recent hairs all have a weight listed in the promos.
As it stands, this hair as is: 34,667,822 vertices. thats a lot for most computers. When I made this hair I had no idea it was that heavy, sorry everyone. With the way you reduced the hairs (in just the tails) to render: 14,267,822 vertices. Thats probably the highest your computer can handle without it going to the dark side.
Hi Chevbabe25, something doesn't add up, you mentioned that you have rendered this hair on lower end graphic card compared to 3080. So the question is what allowed you to acoplished that? Also thanks for the tips above they helped a little bit.
I currently have a 2080 ti, but this hair was created and animated with only a 980 ti installed. I didn't do anything special to get it to render or animate for the promos. But here are the other important specs I have:
64 GB of ram, Intel Xeon CPU E5-1650 v3 @ 3.5ghz. I would guess that the combination of extra memory and processing power is really what enabled me to render that particular hair on a 980ti? I don't know.
Hmmm.. .gotta admit all the comments made me curious if I could render this hair.
Yep. No problem.
Not an actual portrait-level-of-effort render - just a test render, Vicky 8.
DAZ Studio : 4.15.0.30 64 Bit Pro Public Build
FWIW (from Nvidia System Information Report):
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit
DirectX version: 12.0
GPU processor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
Driver version: 471.68
Driver Type: DCH
Direct3D feature level: 12_1
CUDA Cores: 10496
Core clock: 1695 MHz
Total available graphics memory: 57254 MB
Dedicated video memory: 24576 MB GDDR6X
That looks great Gogger :)
This hair appears transparent in the viewport, which makes it really difficult to do morph editing. Any suggestions of how to fix that..?
I have some disappointing news about this. You can not use Mesh Grabber on this as is. Strand-based hair is its own thing and has no polys, only verts.
If you really want to make changes/morphs with Mesh Grabber:
Pose your figure exactly how you will want it, apply your shaders and run any simulation with the hair first. Everything after this will make the hair a static piece.
Select the cap in the scene
Expand the cap and select the piece you want to make changes to. It's been a while but I believe the tails are their own piece.
In the parameters tab, change the viewport line tesselation to 3. Turn PR Hairs to on. (This will take a while depending on your machine, get a drink and a snack)
Shut the visibility of everything else in the scene off.
Export the piece out. This can also take a while.
Import the piece back in. The imported piece will also no longer simulate.
Make your changes with Mesh Grabber.
Render :)
Damn I missed this hair.