Is Hair Tool better than Blender's new hair tools?
RexRed
Posts: 1,327
I want to learn how to make hair...
I am leaning towards Blender. I have heard that the methods of making strand based hair are easier than Zbrush.
Then there is this article
https://blog.daz3d.com/create-your-own-3d-hair-with-daz-studio-and-blender/
...Extoling the benefits of this product below.
https://bartoszstyperek.gumroad.com/l/hairtool
I don't see any dates on when the Daz Page was created.
I have heard about stand based hair and card-based hair.
It is difficult for me to understand the difference. I have had it explained to me, but it is something not easy to grasp. Maybe once I have tried making the various kinds it will become clear.
Is this “Hair Tool” recommended in the Daz article better than Blender's new hair tools?
I want hair that I can twist, and shape and it is not too processor intensive and something that I can export to Daz Studio and possibly offer it for sale in the Daz Store if it is good enough.
I want it to look realistic I guess cards would do, it does not need to be strand based I guess and, because I want to work mostly with short curly and styled hair, it would not really need dforce.
I am hearing that Blender is much easier to make hair than Zbrush and I don't want to pay so much for Zbrush while I have paid so much already for other programs. i.e. Character Creator 4 and IClone 8.
Getting hair back into Daz after it is made. Zbrush has Goz, how would I get Blender hair back into Daz after it is made? FBX?
Would I need to convert Blender hair into mesh and bake it etc?...
The hair landscape is changing quite a bit now. I would want to exclusively make hair for Gen 9 but if it would work without too much fuss for Gen 8 and 8.1 that would be a plus.
I am looking for Blender hair (strand and card) to Daz, to Gen 9 to Daz Store tutorials but I don't think there are any out there yet.
I just bought a tutorial of Zbrush to Daz and I think it is old and again, I don't really want to shell out the money for Zbrush. 50 bucks a month is outrageous!
Any thoughts or suggestions on this?
Please take up as much space as you like, stating your own point of view on this topic.
If AI hair is coming soon, why try and learn any of this?
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Comments
How is it difficult to understand? one is cards and one is strands. The clue is in the name.
Arguably, hair cards eventually become strand hair if the card gets small enough. A card would be a strip of mesh with fake hair textured on it, whereas a strand hair would be either a very thin mesh or a line where the strand represents a single strand of hair.
My 2 cents: I wouldnt trust anything written on a daz3d blog to be cutting edge, even at the time when it was written, let alone potentially years after it was posted.
I would focus on up-to-date tutorials specific to the programme you are using (in this case Blender). Searching on youtube is a good place to survey the landscape of current tools and workflows since there is an active userbase providing updates on tools.
The problem with making fiber/strand/particle hair - whatever you want to call it - in external applications such as Blender, is that it doesnt necessarily transfer very well back into Daz. On the other hand, hair cards are a lot simpler to transfer between programmes because they are simple geometry.
For example, you can't make a particle system in Blender and then bring that particle system into Daz's SBH system unless you are Daz3d vendor. Daz has an SBH Editor/SBH system which is similar to particle hair, which is like an inferior version of xgen, ornitrix, or Blender's new geometry node based hair. The problem is getting externally made hair into SBH is not really possible unless you have official vendor tools, where you can get the hair converted to SBH. I do not understand the specifics of this hair conversion process because it has only ever been alluded to on the forums.
To bring externally-created hair systems (be that particle system or geometry node system in blender, ornitrix, or xgen) as a non-vendor will mean you have to convert the complex hair to mesh. Converting to mesh necessarily makes the hair system heavy, at least 2-3 times heavier in terms of geometry count, because a strand becomes actual mesh. The benefit of using fiber/particle hair over hair-cards is you are actually seeing the individual strands of hair so it is a better approximation of real hair, while hair cards are faked hair. But if that realistic hair is going to be extremely taxing because of high geometry and render times, does that make it feasible to use? Also, can you feasibly rig thousands of strands of mesh?
This is why you kind of need to use Daz's SBH system if you are going to do a complex non-hair card hair. That way you can simulate it, morph it, etc without worrying too much about geometry or rigging issues.
Obj
Yes - if it's hair cards it is already mesh.
Make hair on hair cap. Easy to transfer haircap between generation with zero effort.
Making hair has hundreds of tutorials across many different software.
Working out the pipeline to bring to Daz depends on how you decide to make the hair and if you are an official daz vendor.
Any software exports obj. just use obj. You dont need complex bridges to bring things to daz.
My suggestion would be, if you are an official Daz3d vendor, figure out how to convert hair to SBH. If you are not a vendor, learn how to make hair cards.
There are many tutorials on making hair cards, since it is still a tool that professionals use for game development etc, and many people sell them 3rd party. After making good hair cards, figure out how to bring into daz.
Otherwise use Daz's SBH Editor, bearing in mind it is pretty bad. There are tutorials here:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/335676/strand-based-hair-mini-tutorial/p5
https://www.deviantart.com/uncannyvalet/journal/Creating-Strand-Based-Hair-Daz-Studio-957594505
I bit the bullet and spent some hours learning Blender's new hair curves system. And it is pretty impressive. I could do pretty good with the old particle system, but the new hair curve system is monstrous. You have a ton of flexibility. You can convert from curves (strands/particles) to mesh ribbons and back again. All of the edits are non-destructive, so if you don't like something, you can mute it / change it / delete it. That was not possible with the particle system. If you want to make hair from scratch, you probably have two options: Maya's tools such as Xgen/Ornatrix or Blender's new hair curves system. I've used both, and I can tell you, for all the hype, Xgen is really difficult to use. I am partial to Blender, but I honestly think their geonodes and the hair curve geonodes are a gamechanger and will be the future.
Please don't spend money on 'hair tools' until you've tried Blender's new hair curves system. I'm pretty sure 'hair tools' is based on the old particle system and will soon be obsolete.
ZBrush can make hair, but that is not what Zbrush is really good at. Zbrush is great for sculpting super high def models with millions of vertices. That is where it really shines. It can make hair, but that is not what Zbrush was made for, nor is it particularly good at it.
AI hair is not a thing yet. Nothing to worry about there. None of us know what's next with AI, but I don't think it will ever entirely replace the human element in artistic creation. Just my 0.02.
WOW WOW WOW, THANK YOU! All of my inquiries answered in a few richly populated gems of posts!
Now, if you could please learn Blender for me. :)
Actually you have given me the best advice, YouTube is a great resource for Blender hair tutorials.
I will go there and try and learn Blender.
And the strand/card thing seems less confusing now.
It all comes down to bridges between software and the card hair I have actually had some really great experiences with assets in Daz. Strand as well.
I can kind of see the difference in Daz mesh view as cards are more course than strands.
I have seen some videos on YouTube for what I would call, "toon hair", where it would use like a tube of mesh that tapers off at the end.
I think of mesh hair, cards as a flat card and not so much a tube of mesh.
Can anyone explain the difference between tubes of mesh, are they guides of cards or something?
I am confused between the concept of many cards with hair images on them versus tubes of hair in Blender.
I'm no expert on tubes, don't know how they are made, all I know is that diffeo can convert them. I attached a picture of tube hair as seen in blender's edit mode. Just like you said, a tube with 4 points that tapers at the end. I think this is a DAZ thing. UE and Blender really only use hair cards (flat plains) and curves/particles.
If you are creating daz hair, one thing I noticed is that longer hair is almost always hair cards and short hair is (recently) all strands. I'm guessing daz struggles with rendering strands so it can only handle short hair. Mesh hair is much easier to render. Unreal will convert strand hair to hair cards as the camera gets farther away. This is great for making games and conserving resources when rendering in real time, so learning how to do both is advantageous.
You gotta post your progress as you go. I must warn you though, this can get very addicting....
I always wondered, which way to go with hair in Blender and hair curves definitely seems to be the best option. I still have to get a better grip on it though.
I just wonder, if there is a way to use Daz hair in Blender in a similar quality.
unless you are a PA you really don't have much of a choice for making your own hair in DAZ studio
Strandbased hair that cannot be simulated
or
Card based, tubes whatever that can be simulated like cloth
if you want dynamic hair strands you create yourself have to render it in something other than DAZ studio, Blender is excellent
but even Poser can do it
yes
look at diffeo: https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Setup/Hair
RexRed should also read that because it explains the different types of daz hair.
@RexRed
Hair Tool is still a great add-on to make various types / styles of hairs, esp. for the case when you wanna bring them back to DS. Starting from Hair Tool 3.0, it supports new hair curves in Blender, latest version is 3.6.2 supporting both 3.x / 4.x. Just check Bartosz Styperek's youtube channel, BTW.
No need to touch SBH for the time being, as other said, unless you're a Daz PA. The user-oriented SBH Editor is limited in functions, as well as low performance. The good hair vendors in the store like OOT, they never touch SBH... Linday, rarely. And, AFAIK, most of the hair makers like them in the store use XGen and/or Ornatrix but that'll cost much. Blender with Hair Tool or 3D Hair Brush should be a good choice. (I'm learning them both). They'll help to bring you good results as well as saving lots of time...
Well, cards or tubes are both mesh hair, just style / topo / UV are different. If I remember correctly, OOT always make hair cards, while Linday mostly make tubes. With Hair Tool, you can easily make both of them by using different Profiles, Flat for cards, Round for tubes. It's up to your preferences.
Thanks for the link. Diffeo can really do so much...
I can recommend https://blendermarket.com/products/blender-addon--3d-hair-brush-v3