When creating hair I need to create an skullcap? What are they used for?

Beat

The hair will be used in one figure only I don't need it to fit everything, I still need to create a haircap?

margrave

It's due to the way particle systems work. You need a base mesh for the hair particles to sprout from, so PAs typically slice off a section of the Genesis figure's scalp. It also has other advantages, such as allowing you to apply a smoothing modifier in Daz that will conform the hair to the Genesis figure's head without affecting the hair strands themselves.

Beat

The hair I'm modeling is based on simple mesh geometry, is still necesary ?

Anime style, basicaly a solid shape

WendyLuvsCatz

I have some hairs in my library without skull caps so certainly not every PA uses them

I think the real reason is to create a shadow blend so the scalp isn't obvious as polygonal or strandbased hairs cannot completely obscure the scalp by themselves, we have millions and millions of actual hairs, 3D modelling that isn't viable.

A new trend now is a geoshell skull cap instead, I personally think Layered Image Editor maps would work well too.

Richard Haseltine

Using a skullcap also allows the hair to be transferred to another figure, which wouldn't be the case if it grew directly from the figure's mesh.

WendyLuvsCatz

The OP is talking about modeling polygonal hair though, not strandbased 

Catherine3678ab

margrave said:

It's due to the way particle systems work. You need a base mesh for the hair particles to sprout from, so PAs typically slice off a section of the Genesis figure's scalp. It also has other advantages, such as allowing you to apply a smoothing modifier in Daz that will conform the hair to the Genesis figure's head without affecting the hair strands themselves.

Um no, they make or use a pre-made skullcap, not by scalping figures! It's not difficult, one can start with a basic sphere and form that to fit the head. 

For a skullcap one may desire to have a good deal more mesh that what the figure's themselves would have. This is so more hair can be generated on the mesh ;-) {the other reasons would be legal}

 

Catherine3678ab

dario19ab said:

The hair I'm modeling is based on simple mesh geometry, is still necesary ?

Anime style, basicaly a solid shape

No, you should be fine. It would not have any of the scalp of the figure showing - a skullcap can be textured to help hide bald spots for example ;-) 

margrave

Catherine3678ab said:

Um no, they make or use a pre-made skullcap, not by scalping figures! It's not difficult, one can start with a basic sphere and form that to fit the head. 

For a skullcap one may desire to have a good deal more mesh that what the figure's themselves would have. This is so more hair can be generated on the mesh ;-) {the other reasons would be legal}

Granted, I gleaned that from watching Blender tutorials, so it may not be accurate (if only for the legal reasons).