dForce Hair surface options missing?

beregar

I decided to finally try my own dForce fur creation and created a sphere primitive to which I applied a dynamic surface. There are various simulation settings but nothing like in the dForce hair items or tutorials? 

Am I missing something here?

Leana

Only PAs can create dForce hair (I mean actual dForce hair, as opposed to polygon hair using dForce cloth engine). What you see when you apply a dynamic surface modifier are the parameters for dForce cloth engine.

For fur you could use strand-based hair though.

beregar

Ah okay. That's a bummer and a bit confusing since there are tutorials floating around which seem to indicate you can in fact apply dForce on any hair (which made me assume it is available for any objects) - but perhaps those items were already dForce compatible.

I'll look into strand based one instead.

Thanks!

Leana

It is indeed a bit confusing, because there are in fact 2 types of "dForce hair" using 2 different features of dForce:

1) Hair which use the "dForce Hair" engine, like this one: https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-redz-kaz-hair-for-genesis-9 (listing"dForce Hair" in compatible software)
These are strand-based hair (created with the system available in DS or any of the various strand hair systems from other software) converted to use dForce Hair engine. Only PAs have the tools to do that conversion.

2) Hair which use the "dForce cloth" engine, like this one: https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-wet-style-curly-hair-for-genesis-8-and-9 (listing"dForce Cloth" in compatible software)
These hairs are "polygon hairs" ie they're made from a bunch of transmapped flat ribbons of polygons representing a bunch of hair strands, and dForce cloth properties have been added to those ribbons so they can be simulated.
You can create that kind of dForce Hair by applying a dForce modifier to any polygon hair. But it won't have the same dForce properties as the first kind of dForce hair.

The tutorials you found were most likely refering to the second kind of dForce hair.

beregar

Ahh okay. Thank you again!

Anyhow. I got pretty interesting results by combining Oso's creature fur with strand based hair and some other stuff. Now I'm just curious if there's anywhere a document reference for what exactly do those dforce hair values do or if someone could clarify if I got anything right below..

What exactly do the PR and PS values do? I mean how exactly do "Pre render" and "Pre Simulation" differ from each other. It seems both affect the final render but no idea how.

Following are assumptions but I have no idea how they relate to PR and PS:

Hair Density: You can add a mask here which determines how dense the hair is in any given area (white = more hair is generated, black = no hair is generated) but what is the difference between PS Hair Density and Additional PR Hairs density?

Hair Seed: I assume this is used to randomize values

Interpolation Segment Lenght: Based on strand based hair this seems to be the length of a segment so a lower value would have more segments and a higher less. I'd guess at a lower value you could get smoother bends.

Interpolation mode: ???

Auto Parting Angle: I assume this makes the hair layer down but how does it determine which way to part the hair? 180 angle is half circle.

Single Guide Strength: I assume this has something to do with how accurately hair follows guide hairs but I don't believe we can edit guide hairs for dForce because of the "available only for PAs reason"?

Clumping Curves Density: I assume this is like with strand based-hair. Value 1 clumps larger segments and value 2 smaller segments. That being said I'm not entirely sure how it reacts to any map. Is it like with density map where white values are affected more and black less with greys controlling how strong the effect is in any given area? I don't understand why it seems to do finer clump if you run higher density here rather than lower density? Then there are the parameters:

• Clumpiness: I assume this determines how much hairs attract each other (that is, how strong the clump is)
• Bias: ???
• Seed: For randomization?

Random Length Amount: Makes some hairs longer, some shorter

Reduce Length Amount: I assume this cuts individual hairs shorter

Random Pitch / Roll / Yaw angle: I have never managed to wrap my head around these angles. I mean which controls upwards/downwards motion which sidesways motion and... what is the third one? What if I want fixed angle instead of random so for example that all hairs bend down and not into random direction?

Scraggle Mode: According to google this means "sparse or ragged growth". Does this mean it makes the individual strand more thinner or thicker or does it add random spots where hair is not generated? Is this meant for creation of bald patches?

What is the *actual* effect for different modes. I get that "before x" means the scraggle mode simulation is run before those other values but how does it actually change appearance of the hair? What does "clumping curves" mode mean. Is it just missing the word "before" or does it scraggle while it clumps?

Again I assume scragliness parameter actually controls how strongly the effect is applied and if you use a map, white areas are again affected more and black not at all. Then the other parameters:

• Frequency: ???
• Frequency Depth: ???
• Frequency Ratio: ???
• Frequency Multiplier: ???

Frizz: According to google this means "mass of tightly curled or unruly hair". I assume this bends individual hair segments in a random manner to give a jagged or frizzy appearance but why is there a separate value for base and tip? 

Generated Hair Scale: I assume this scales individual hairs, making them appear thicker and longer thus gives overall more voluminous appearance withouth the cost of generating a lot of extra hairs? However why is there Minimum generated Hair Scale? Isn't the generated hair scale fixed anyway so if you give value of 300 it would scale all hairs 300%? Why would this need a minimum?

Edit: meant circle, not sphere...

memcneil70

When it came out in 2019, there were a few threads in The Commons that had a lot of activity. I haven't been able to find one of the main ones, but here is a mini-tutorial by 3Diva. But it has been a number of years, so the options may have changed. But she did a great job and is a good starting point.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/335676/strand-based-hair-mini-tutorial/p1