How to Make DOPE CG HAIR | XGen Tutorial

[@ondudengrund]

The reason the hair "goes away" sometimes, is because, in the Preview/Output tab in the Xgen menu, the option "Only primitives in view" is turned on meaning it will only draw section of the hair where the roots are visible in the viewport. Its a performance thing but on modern computers you can usually turn this off with no problems.

[@JoHnWxNoW98]

I was about to add this comment, not knowing this made me hate xgen and label it as not working, from when I discovered this I'm enjoying this powerfull tool

[@Intervain]

You're a good teacher J. clear and to the point:)

[@artofjhill]

I appreciate that. Thanks for checking out the video :)

[@bjarmis]

Great video as usual! One tip I can add to using xGen is for your aiStandardHair shader, in the shading group for that material you can middle mouse drag the hairPhysicalShader into "Surface material" and add the aiStandardHair material into "Surface Shader" which is under Arnold. Then when you render it uses the aiStandardHair and in the viewport is has the hairPhysicalShader. It works as well using this method to have a Arnold material for surfaces and then in the viewport a lambert material if you need to paint masks and such since Xgen doesn't allow you to paint maps onto objects with arnold shader on it.

[@artofjhill]

Awesome thank you

[@TriGon_Art]

Nice one. I didn't know about our nested folders not being able to have spaces. That explains why my xgen sometimes break I hope haha

[@brandonchua87]

Man!! Thank you for taking the time to put together such a comprehensive tutorial! Much Appreciated! You've gained one new subscriber! I'm learning so much from every minute of your tutorial. You tutorial is very concise with no "ummm...ahhhh..." pauses. Audio is crisp and video is sharp. Appreciate the quality of your tutorial.

[@artofjhill]

Thank you! I hope it helps. Plenty of umms and uuhhs, I just edit them out ;)

[@JUYAN16]

Dude, seriously, thanks for this. I have been pulling MY hair out for months just trying to figure out Xgen. Just working with clumping alone made me want to scream and quit altogether. Could you make a tutorial on saving your xgen hair as a preset for use with other models?

[@SMAARTIST]

Man. I've already watched this video 3 times and I'm still getting things out of it!

[@artofjhill]

love to hear that. Glad you're finding it useful

[@mrCetus]

You're an absolute legend, its been a struggle trying to do solid hair with no delays. I've managed to finesse it well but now imma officially start incorporating this in my workflow

[@artofjhill]

I hope it helps!

[@seanfenrir]

A few months ago I made a comment bashing XGen due to it crashing/being unusable. Turns out, there was a way to solve my issue, I just had to do a TON of research. If anyone runs into the problem I did where interactive groom cant be used, its possible that your Maya.env file has OpenGL turned off. If you open that file up with notepad, and delete that line, interactive groom will work like a charm. Another issue I had, was the hair going through my mesh. Turns out in the brush setting of interactive groom, you can turn on collision. I really hope someone who is running into the issues I ran into reads my comment before pulling their hair out like I did. GL everyone.

[@amirbabaei7048]

You are the reason I jumped back to 3d modeling. Thank you so much brother.

[@artofjhill]

🙏 happy to hear that. Keep it up and make some dope stuff

[@3dcharacterartist649]

Like that second hairstyle you showed at the end a lot. Good stuff.

[@artofjhill]

Thanks, glad you liked it

[@gabrielmoro3d]

I keep coming back to this for the details. Stunning tutorial, you're the best.

[@artofjhill]

Thank you. I hope it helps

[@Alejandro_8806]

Great teacher, Thank you so much for this! Would be great to see a tutorial about creating hair for videogames. Greetings from Colombia!

[@artofjhill]

Thanks. Making Game Hair sucks though

[@cfroelich83]

Dude, this is one of the best guides I've ever seen. You cover it thoroughly, but as simply as possible. So freaking good! Thank you.

[@aarishkhan2017]

Agreed

[@travisrassel9978]

Great tutorial. It actually MADE SENSE.

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear that! Glhf

[@aarishkhan2017]

Very informative really helped me a lot not everyone is able to teach well 👍👍👍

[@artofjhill]

Thank you, I'm glad it helped!

[@momciloglusica9850]

Exactly what I needed. Thank you so much :D

[@artofjhill]

Glad to hear it

[@MoodSwingZX]

U can plug maya hair shader in SG group and in arnold part of it arnold shader. It will show one in viewport one in rendet

[@themanwhohasnohead]

DAYYYUUUMMM here we gooo!! Thank you J

[@artofjhill]

Enjoy!

[@alisj4]

Hi, Thanks For Your PERFECT TUTORIAL! would you mind making a video about how to get rid of some unwanted hair and how to perfctly avoid hair entering model?

[@thebackdoorhq]

You're good...DAMN

[@artofjhill]

thank you 🙏

[@jestrada-ml2fd]

THANKS A LOT GREAT VID

[@artofjhill]

[@liscarscott]

awesome stuff! I would add that under the output/preview tab there's a toggle for "only show hairs in view" or something like that. Flip that switch to avoid having to zoom out and update the view.

[@artofjhill]

Woot!

[@GralChufy]

Thank you so much! This has been driving me crazy for years and I was sure there was a setting to turn it off, I just couldn't find it!

[@edsonninacama6117]

Thanks for this great tutorial. It helped me a lot to understand xgen. :D

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear that

[@yassineelfidha3903]

i freakin love you bro just thank you .

[@TheSatzy6699]

Excellent content and explanation 👌🏻

[@GZoffc]

Wow! Thank you very much!!!

[@AlexSamUA]

This is AMAZING!

[@artofjhill]

Glad you think so!

[@houmanhr8641]

Awesome Video Thanks!

[@anabeatrizgondim5728]

Amazing tutorial!!

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@darkiedark6218]

How exactly do you get from 36:10 to 36:17? What do curves mean exactly? I've tried adding more guides and rebuilding my guides with a higher CV count. I've also created both maps, nothing I do seems to make the hair follow the guides closer to the head, it's decently out there like in 36:10...what am I missing? Thanks so much for the vid, this has been the best tutorial I've found, will be eternally grateful

[@artofjhill]

All I did there was add more guide curves to wrangle the hair. If you don't have enough then the hairs far away won't be guided. Don't need to add more CVs for that issue. If the hair isn't following guides you may have another problem. Go to the Discord for more assistance if needed

[@rubysnell6755]

I have the same problem, did you end up solving this?!

[@darkiedark6218]

@@rubysnell6755 I did exactly what J Hill recommended, more guides. A lot more, but it did fix it.

[@rubysnell6755]

@@darkiedark6218 Amazing, thank you very much :) just wanted to see if it worked!!

[@light-s6u]

would you release the tutorial of the other xgen hair？❤

[@igorbittencourt]

Thank you for the class. Please, talk about hair cards. ;) How you take this and put into Marmoset.

[@ToxicSkyline00]

Bro that Skillshare ad had me dying haha

[@artofjhill]

:)

[@zedeon6299]

>breaks >breaks >breaks true maya experience

[@organicsludgeqt7037]

I can’t get the paint tool to work, keeps telling me there’s no surface to paint on.

[@vivekgautam295]

Hi, J your tutorials are really the best. I have a doubt guides are selectable while i was making eyelashes and brows as soon as i add description for scalp hairs after placing guide on scalp desc i can't select guides anymore, not even brows and lashes guides are selectable. there is a button beside hide or show guides (turn the selectability of guides on and off) does'nt work. turning off camera based selection does'nt work. please help..

[@vivekgautam295]

Update - Toggle select by components, object type worked for me.

[@dmitrysherstnev]

You are the best, thanks a lot man

[@artofjhill]

for sure, hope it helps

[@Черч-в8о]

How to change hair color?

[@emilytang492]

Hi J, thank you for this great tutorial, can we also animate Xgen hair?

[@DanielA46]

the hairs of my guides come out too far just like at 35:33. I want to get them close to the mesh like at 36:18. how do i do this please?

[@abpplays7061]

Awesome video. can you make a tutorial on how to achieve make up look with textures

[@artofjhill]

Yup. Will do

[@abpplays7061]

@@artofjhill Thanks!

[@toonzdanceparty]

i love u

[@spandanghosh9503]

Hey J, i really liked you tutorial a lot and it was so so much informational and helpful. I just had one doubt. I have recently switched to maya xgen from blender coz of hair grooming but in xgen i find my hair intersecting and going through the mesh a lot while in blender we actually have an option "deflect emitter" to make the hair not go through the mesh while grooming ... So jst wanted to know if there's any such option in xgen as well.. will be really really helpful this can be helped 😊

[@artofjhill]

Hey, glad you liked the video. Yea there is a modifier for mesh collision. You can load in your mesh as an .abc and it should help reduce hairs going through the mesh

[@edgarleguyader5246]

Hey ! Very nice Xgen tuto ! I have a question , What is the typical workflow for the hair creation ? Do you need to do it when the model is done, retopologize, UV done and all the stuff ready ?

[@artofjhill]

Yea hair is usually done toward the end of the process. It’s easier and simpler that way since less things are in flux

[@edgarleguyader5246]

@@artofjhill Ok ! Thank you for the answer ! Your tutos are very useful to understand production workflow, especially for people that never works in studios, like me ! :)

[@wahyusopian9383]

can you make a realtime hair please :D i thing arlembic is to expensif for game

[@LloydAdair]

5018 Laila Plains

[@jamesburnette6982]

Jay if you don't like Maya what are you using for your primary DCC?

[@artofjhill]

Maya is my primary DCC. I wouldn't say I don't like it. I like it fine but it's an old software and not super efficient

[@mauror.6307]

I have a question for you, I rather rendering in Vray of 3D max, I think I can get better results than in Arnold, I know it depend of the knowlegde of each engine, but I know much more 3D Max Vray, so my question is, onece you have all this done in maya, can i export it to make the render in 3D Max? and how, I worried specialy for the material and shader for the hair, I dont know how to do that in vray haha. thanks for sharing your knowledge is really ussefull

[@artofjhill]

Not sure how you’d export the hair for Max but the workflow for that should really be just rendering with VRay in Maya

[@victoriawolinski3662]

14:19

[@Sourav-Kumar_01]

Hey brother how did you exported those curves in marmoset also how did you made the shader for it

[@artofjhill]

Will cover those things in the next videos

[@deepakmandal6005]

I have also same question.?

[@anxhelo7383]

my xgen hair keeps looking dead or dull like not anywhere close to the results u get . any tips :( is it the scale is it the thickness :3 idk

[@artofjhill]

Realistic hair amount and thickness is important and then also I’d say noise and breakup. People tend to make hair too perfect in the beginning

[@anxhelo7383]

@@artofjhill i understand thanks

[@rubysnell6755]

Love this tutorial! I am just struggling with one problem!! My hair density is insanely sparse - even though the model is lifesize. For example, to get the kind of density you have at 100, I have to crank to like, 170,000, haha, any ideas? Thank you!!

[@artofjhill]

Woah. If it’s life sized then that’s weird. The polygon density has to do with it too I think

[@rubysnell6755]

@@artofjhill Oh cool, my mesh is quite dense so that could be why

[@Misspickless]

@@rubysnell6755 make sure ur model is real life size coz ur problem sounds its too big i think

[@rubysnell6755]

@@Misspickless it was lifesize, hence why it's so weird!! it was okay in the end i just rendered it with like 130000 hair density which worked fine somehow

[@marymajure601]

My paintbrush isn’t showing up when I try to make a density mask. My model doesn’t turn black either like it’s supposed to please help

[@marymajure601]

I figured it out I’m just dumb. You have to select the model before you create the density mask

[@buster5661]

What I mean is, where is your second hair tutorial since your patreon is closed?

[@artofjhill]

All of the videos are now available for channel members. Thanks!

[@아융쓰]

Is the renderer Marmoset?

[@artofjhill]

these were rendered with Arnold

[@biriani2855]

Hey for some reason I cannot paint the mask onto the texture and I get some maya error message. How can I prevent this?

[@artofjhill]

Idk but be sure it has a Maya material applied. Not Arnold or anything else

[@biriani2855]

@@artofjhill also. What's the difference between generating an xgen description and creating an interactive groom spline?

[@AncientCreative]

xgen is great but it BREAKS a lot LOL

[@GralChufy]

About the Arnold hair shader not showing in the viewport: you can plug it into the surface slot in the Arnold tab of the physical hair's shading group and then you'll get the arnold one in the render and the physical hair one in the viewport and you don't have to switch back and forth anymore :D

[@cozza358]

Is there any way to adopt this workflow into game-ready models? Just curious before I watch later. 😄

[@randallwhiteis]

Unreal uses this sytem.

[@artofjhill]

no really for hair cards, though it can be used. It's sometimes used to make hair then rendered out as image passes for real time materials in engines like UE. You can export it as curves now and render that in UE which looks great but that's the most expensive and most games can't do that yet

[@fsalad]

This looks super simple and incredibly hard at the same time. But it was really awesome! It's incredible we have access to these industry grade programs

[@rosenormand2059]

Could u make a tutorial about curly\afro hair that would be amazing!! Thank you so much for all the tutorials

[@OkaToka]

Everytime I'm trying to learn XGen I just getting littered with bugs. I really hate this tool and just can't understand why we still doesn't have any alternative really? One of most hated bugs is that this tool hates control+z. This time it happens again. I pressed control+z, it gives me an error and hair stops moving along with splines.

[@artofjhill]

I don’t think I have that issue. It’s finicky but really good

[@xinversive]

You're an absolute legend, its been a struggle trying to do solid hair with no delays. I've managed to finesse it well but now imma officially start incorporating this in my workflow

[@artofjhill]

dope, glad to hear it

[@popperspenguins7916]

22:56 I created Density Mask but mesh doesn't change into black. I can see the brush tool, but I can't paint mesh .. anyone help me plz :(

[@artofjhill]

Idk but be sure it has a Maya material applied not Arnold or anything else

[@vsfs.compendium]

This is truly a great tutorial. Great explanation! I do have two problems though: 1) Tried to create a map (16:00) but it simply won't create it. All the icons like the save icon don't appear. Any ideas why? 2) Also when I re-open the file, the hair doesn't appear. They are listed in the outliner but don't show in the viewport.

[@spirit7500]

I have the same problem with not able to create a map, it shows an error that Maya is unable to locate something in my files but I don't know what it's looking for in the first place lol. Help!! D;

[@akhmadali5064]

Does Xgen need real world scale model to work properly? I try adding guides but it so huge, i changed the width afterward but when moving guides it still show huge indicator that block my view and hard to move around guides too. Thank you!

[@artofjhill]

Yup. Works best at a physical scale. So for human hairs, human sized

[@akhmadali5064]

@@artofjhill ​ I`ve seen you set the density for the brows is 80 and it`s get pretty much, i had to do set up to 500 to get the same result. Is it any wrong with my set up?

[@alpylmaz2087]

My set up become unvisible on viewport,i can render them on Arnold but cant see on the viewport,can someone help me with that?

[@jozseflaszlo7445]

I've been doing grooms since august and this is the nr.1 video I keep coming back to! Thank you so much! Absolute master tutorial! Only love bro!

[@artofjhill]

Love to hear that! Glad you’re finding it helpful. Make some dope hair

[@elvismorellidigitalvisuala6211]

Great tutorial, i-m new to maya, when I create density map, I can paint, but I cant see the black and white color, only grey material of the mesh. Try to change vewport setttings, nothing happend, I miss someting?

[@gpgp4780]

I've been watching binge watching all of your tutorials and all I can say is thank you so much for your tutorials, I've watched your tutorials from zbrush skin textures to substancepainter. As someone who is new to both maya and zbrush (mainly because I use blender only) your tutorials are so easy to understand and its a great help! One question tho, I've been having a hard time with the hair clipping through the ears do i just add more guides? Anywho thank you so much for the tutorials it really is a big help for someone like me who wants to learn more.

[@rayenarielle5296]

Hello, can you please help me? I don't know why I can't paint my region map. Do you have any idea what I might be doing wrong? I did it in Lambert, and my UVs are correct. I don't know what's going on-please help.

[@siberia6646]

Thank you very much for your various videos (Student who tries to specialize in Cfx here) Your pedagogy is perfect!

[@ipatek8292]

Hi! My hairs are going below the mesh just like inside of the head, do you know how to fix it?

[@henrygarrou8372]

04:51 It's actually Pascal Case Camel Case only has Caps in the middle, like the humps of a Camel.

[@artofjhill]

Thank you for that

[@tonydibenedetto8315]

Hi J, Superb video, I make your tutorial, everything is fine except for one thing. The density for hair should be around 200, but for me, I have to put it very high to have the same density as you. The face of my character has the scale of a basic sphere. I put the width at 0.01, if I increase it the hair is not beautiful, I increased the number of guides too but it does not work either. I don’t understand where my mistake came from. If someone has the solution I am interested! Thanks :)

[@paulmartin3173]

Hey J! To solve your problem with the groom sometimes not showing, go to the Preview/Output tab in the Description and uncheck "Only primitives in the view." You gotta do it for every new Description, but it will make it so previews always do ALL the hair. Great and relevant stuff as usual.

[@artofjhill]

Thank you!

[@jayyheyy4734]

Description is in a collection so when you said what you did was wrong it wasnt A collections is a collection of descriptions So ill have a collection named “girl character” Inside that ill have descriptions “Brows” “Eyelashes “ “Hairstyle” ….

[@GmanGavin1]

17:00 I can't see the white/black mask. I just paint on it and hit save for it to update

[@sizlax]

Just a side note for anyone watching this video. When he says Xgen is bad for crashes; it actually goes beyond that. I've been toying with Xgen in Maya on and off for the past few years now, and let's just put it this way; Save often, and do not be afraid to create multiple save files. Because Xgen is bad enough, but Maya will bork entire save files at random. And if you don't have a backup, you could lose your entire work. I am lucky that I learned that some time ago; because just earlier today I nearly lost an entire day of work on my character. I saved it, then went to reload the save, and the character model itself poofed, and everything else in the scene was neon green (all materials gone). But I was able to load a previous save I made just minutes sooner.

[@KarelChytilArt]

We are happy for Houdini grooming. No crash, udims, much better nodes.

[@sizlax]

@@KarelChytilArt I don't do much with nodes tbh. Since I'm self taught, the entire node system seems almost like Japanese to me. At least in contrast to manipulating things thought the UI, and attribute settings. I've done the odd things with material nodes, and followed a couple step by step tutorials otherwise, but outside if that, it just seems a bit complex. Is Houdini worth using if I don't make intricate use of nodes? I'd also be thankful for any other information you'd be willing to share in terms of Xgen style grooming. I made the mistake of having the first character I made be the most Xgen intense use character I could possibly make, and it's been taxing to say the least.

[@Madness-us8fs]

Hi ! I'm following your video which is incredible by the way and I wanted to know if you also created a Density Map for the last hairstyle of the video because you only show the part when you create the red map, thank you in advance !

[@benjuddart]

How do you assign a pre-existing ptx/ Density mask to a description? I made one but the file I made it with won't open without crashing.

[@planetarta]

So fucking good man. Never reallylooked into Xgen before as I'm a Blender user but can really see the control you have here. very enticing...

[@artofjhill]

It is the best. If blender had something like this it would be god tier

[@seanakima50515e]

Do you have any reccomendation on how to keep hair from penetrating the mesh if using a cap? Im so stuck, my model is done, but there are hairs penetrating and the collision modifier doesnt do anything, but make it an afro I have tons of guides. I just dont know how to fix this...

[@cesardavid5925]

Thats such good timing, im right now working in my character hair i'm struguling for it to feel "alive"

[@Kuro-di1dj]

after i add the guide, increase density or add modifiers or create density mask and then add a new or move the guide,all the hair will become no effect even i adjust the density or modifier. what is the problem? i seen your video after masking the eyebrow u add more guides to it.

[@Gichanasa]

Excellent tutorial, thank you. How difficult is it to animate XGen hair? Do you have a lesson on it?

[@tokyobaystorechannel1538]

hello, once I set up the guide, after that I try to bump up the density, but no hairs appear...

[@Kuro-di1dj]

will the pc specs affect the maya xgen to like when can do something then suddenly the attributes not affecting the hair?

[@imydavies3744]

for me 1000 density is only around 20 hairs per guide. is there a fix to this? thanks so much amazing tutorial

[@jayarr15]

Hey Jay, Great tutorial as ever. Just a question though, how did you made the hair's volume so close to the head? When I'm applying xgen hair, the hairs looks like a helmet due to its thickness lol

[@Metarig]

xgen and rigging are two reasons that maya is unbeatable

[@emiliocampana1]

why does it usually happen that there is hair that seems to go through the topology? As if it came from within? I used a part of the head as a base and not the entire topology, could that be the error?

[@stfesteirasstfesteiras7377]

what is your computer configuration? what is the processor and what is the video card? 

[@cferahzade]

Whenever I create hair, many copper-like cylinders are automatically formed on top of the object and are not manipulated and how can i fix that? " file line 1: module 'xgenm' has no attribute 'XGTip'"

[@artofjhill]

Not sure exactly. Double check you have a project set and that you haven’t deleted history since creating the groom. Those are the common mistakes

[@tarunhinduja]

How do you render the turn around? When i try to render (with arnold) the turn around the hair does not move when the caracter is rotated

[@vennyldn4880]

Nice vid bro, if you have time can we have one of afros and short waves on black people?

[@Kuro-di1dj]

after create guide and increase density, add a new guide and ctrl z or delete the new guide will it effect the hair?

[@AnimadeStudio]

Sorry but According to my understanding, I wanna make one correction... Collection is actually a set of multiple descriptions... You can have multiple descriptions within one collection... Thank you...

[@artofjhill]

100%

[@OnePatrix]

Even if you are Maya Artist & Zbrush. Im watching your Videos for my Blender / Houdini journey cause the knowedge that you provide is pretty transferable between others softwares. For example this Groom tutorial helped me a lot to understand basics :D

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear you find them helpful!