Blender how to Animate Hair - Softbody Physics

#Reallusion #CharacterCreator #Blender
In this multi step process, I will show you how to animated a ponytail using softbody physics. There are actually a lot of parts to get it working on a rigged character, so please make sure that you like and subscribe to the channel.
This character is from Reallusion's Character Creator 3
www.Reallusion.com
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[@Markom3D]

Do you think this is something that you would use? Do you have a better way of doing it?

[@Ruddy761]

I am interested how cloth sim would be instead of soft body.. I'll give it a try and let you know.. Nice tutorial!

[@Markom3D]

Ruddy761 I tried the cloth sim but it was just yuck. Wasn’t working properly

[@dzulrashdi6689]

Why not just rig the hair. And use action constraint to animate it. So Everytime we move the head,hair will be animate automatically.

[@Markom3D]

dzul rashdi that is one way, but bones don’t have collisions.

[@maglerdon]

I have used cloth sim to animate very complex hair meshes exported from DAZ Studio. I will admit it’s a painstaking process involving LOTS of tweaking settings and trying out different weight painting, but the end result can actually look very good when done right. Basically I use the UV editor to isolate/hide individual hair cards, making it easier to weight paint each card. I use gradients of 1 to 0 starting from the root and going towards the tips. Set the cloth pin vertex group to that, so the hair cards are all pinned by their roots. Make sure the body mesh is a collision object. Turn down the collision distance in the cloth sim to something small like .01 or .001. Turn down the “thickness outer” of the collision object to something small like .01 or .001. Now it’s a matter of experimenting with the cloth sim shape settings. Tension, stiffness, bending, etc. I try to find a good balance that helps the hair keep it shape while also allowing it to be moved around by movement of the head. Typically you have to use higher tension, bending, shear, etc. values in order to keep the hair from just falling flat. Like I said it’s not perfect and it’s unfortunately a long process, but it’s the best method I’ve found so far when using complex hair meshes like the ones from DAZ Studio. I’d love to find a more efficient, easier method that still gives moderately realistic hair physics!

[@mbarupa]

"and.. it doesn't work!" Thank you for sharing your troubleshooting process with us, it really made my day.

[@Markom3D]

mbarupa the annoying this was that I got it working, then the next day I filmed it and couldn’t remember how I did certain stuff.

[@BlenderUnreal]

@@Markom3D its actually exactly what i like: some troubleshooting examples.

[@Dragoonking17]

Great Tutorial. I really like that you also run into problems during the explanation and then show how to solve them. And you didn't waste half an hour by modeling the character first before coming to the actual topic like many other tutorials.

[@Markom3D]

yeah, I think it is important to keep the stuff in that made me go crazy

[@HARDstone3d]

13:24 LOL! Did you know that you can simply switch off Armature modifier and see mesh without this influence. And of course it's safer for meshes you don't need to touch.

[@Markom3D]

HARD 3D ....... that would of been really helpful lol

[@TheJumpButton]

If you don't need a lot of control over the final motion, a really quick and dirty way to do this is to use the Wiggle Bones add-on to apply physics directly to the bones of a rigged hair mesh. Good for short hair maybe.

[@Markom3D]

I know this method will work for short hair, but yeah, I will do a tutorial on that aswell.

[@MrSaul3d]

Hi, nice tutorial. You dont need to have the collision mesh visible for the collisions to work. Just click hide the "Eye" icon, in the outliner. The "screen" icon is more about the evaluation than visibility. Thanks.

[@Markom3D]

ahhhh im an idiot. Should of checked that. Thank you for pointing that out.

[@HandlebarOrionX]

Since I have a very 90s style model for prerendered sprites, I bet I could just apply soft body to the hair objects I weight painted (which are just cylinders I shaped to look like dredlocks)

[@mibrahim4245]

awesome, sometimes I uncheck the single side box in collisions and it gives better results..

[@Markom3D]

hmm, Ill check that out next time

[@breadman2983]

I didnt come here to learn hair, I came to learn how to animate a prop hanging in a rope and this really helped. thanks Mark!

[@tmale2763]

thank you for including the troubleshooting bits. most youtubers omit those and then those who follow along are screwed wondering why nothing is working

[@EdwinDevey]

I think this maybe just what I am looking for. I just want a little movement in hair drawn with curves so that it is not so rigid. Great tutorial. I'll give it a go tomorrow.

[@donmiko345]

Ah, that suspense when you check if it worked! I loved it :)

[@kingpixel3d128]

thnx 4 not cuting away troubleshooting, Great tootorial :D

[@Markom3D]

cheers mate, appreciate it

[@petermoller4610]

I like your videos, very informative. And you speak native english, for a non native english speaker like me this is important, otherwise i just dont understand well.

[@Markom3D]

Glad to hear that!

[@lioncrud9096]

9:39 : Hopefully it will collide..... it. Did. NOT. xD man i feel your pain...always 1,000 things that can go wrong in blender for the most simple of tasks

[@undead504]

you my friend are a god I mean that I have been stuck at this for weeks ...Man you are my hero

[@Markom3D]

Awesome, Glad I was able to help mate

[@dmigul]

Thanks for sharing your workflow. It would be really dumb to apply simulations on a high polys even on a high spec PCs, let alone less powerful ones.

[@acess091]

Nice tutorial

[@Markom3D]

Cheers mate

[@EDcase1]

Thanks for the tutorial. Would have taken ages to figure all that out. Much as I like Blender, it isn't the most efficient for animating. Hopefully that'll improve with Everything Nodes..

[@Markom3D]

oh crap, animation node... I didnt even thing about that. That is something that I didnt even test.

[@ZoraJones]

hi! i'm stuck at 6:37 - i'm following your next steps but the hair just won't bind tot he softbody, it just gets stuck in mid air. Would be lovely if you could help me out!

[@ZoraJones]

one thing i'm doing different is that my pony tail is not attached to the rest of the hair! but the softbody is encasing it entirely.

[@Markom3D]

Zora Jones did you bind the hair to the soft body?

[@ZoraJones]

@@Markom3D yes i did actually - one other thing that's different is that besides a "head" vertex group i'm also seeing "head:002-008" vertex groups. They seem to belong to the hair (side hair, front hair, also the ponytail I'm trying to attach). If I also remove them from the hair vertices (minute 6:11), the hair is still stuck in mid air. Sorry for the complication, and thanks so much for helping! Your tutorial is great :)

[@ZoraJones]

actually not sure if that matters. whatever i do, the minute I remove the hair softbody from the armature, it just floats mid air, and I can't get it to follow the soft body. the softbody is bound to the softbody hair with a dynamic mesh deformer though.

[@Markom3D]

@@ZoraJones Jump on my discord (link in the description of the video) and ill try and help you out tonight. currently 1pm here

[@HarryClipzFilmz]

There's no head in the vertex groups as i already used rigify so i don't know what to do now

[@FreemanBG]

Can this simulation be transferred on to bones to be used in a game engine? i really want to know how to create realistic cloth animations for games in blender. P.S i love your tutorials! I'm really getting in to blender because of your channel. Thank you.

[@Markom3D]

Hey, yes you can, but remember that if you are using a standard rig with all your animation, then it will need extra work.

[@hsan.1951]

How is it that the vertex group is not assigning to the head in my character? I've imported it from character creator 4 into Blender.

[@jordandoume9813]

It works ! thanks à lot ! wanted to find a ouais for animating dreads, now I got it

[@drawishes]

woah!! I love this problem solving tutorial

[@apocart8426]

love you bro, thanks for this

[@Markom3D]

No worries mate, you are more that welcome

[@David_Kelly_SF]

Thanks. Your videos are always interesting, I think I learn something ever time I see one. Will you be covering character animation (body and facial)-that's something that I'd be very interested in. I did some on my last video but it came out pretty stiff (think Gerry Anderson :-) )

[@Markom3D]

eyah, I am making another short film and live streaming as much as possible.

[@d.animatetv6733]

Oooo another helpful tutorial for me to test out. Much thanks

[@Markom3D]

D. Animate TV no worries mate, you are more than welcome

[@Gekka115]

yeah na yeah nice

[@Markom3D]

cheers mate. Stay Hydrated

[@313usually]

Thanks a lot. You brought me to the first hair animation ;) Cooool

[@taiyihanle]

OMG it actually works.

[@scarcify4420]

With the garage

[@Markom3D]

yep, that is coming

[@michaelwhite4810]

I tried to use particle hair to create the same hair style but the dynamics are bad in the knot area.

[@fnafgamer2469]

Thanks for the tutorial man. Although I have one question, what if the model I’m using has more then one hair and/or cloth mesh’s on the model? Example being Aerith Gainsbourth from FFVII Remake. She has 2 mesh’s for her hair, and idk what to do. (Sorry if I couldn’t be specific, and sorry if my grammar was horrible.)

[@Markom3D]

You can join the mesh, or just have two soft body’s

[@fnafgamer2469]

Markom3D alright. Thanks for the advice. Just now did it and it worked nicely. However I discover that another mesh was applied to Aerith’s hair which was a bow tie or ribbon. It was working with true hair because of the head vertex group removal. Good news is, I was able to fix it. :)

[@Markom3D]

@@fnafgamer2469 well done

[@charlesdoeseverything9716]

What if the hair doesn't have an armature? What steps should I follow? Thanks for the video

[@Markom3D]

how would you animated it?

[@Leismar]

How do you make a hair like that? Curves?

[@Sockpoppet]

For example, if you have a character hair style like Super Saiyan Goku, and I wish for eat hair spike to react individually to movement. Would I need to create a soft-body object to incase each hair spike?🐵

[@Markom3D]

yeah, you would have to, but I would think about rigging the hair with bones

[@Sockpoppet]

@@Markom3D understood, thank you🦴 🥳

[@jasonjohnson7859]

Very nice thanks. I still have some shimmering on the soft body. Any one know how to adjust that?

[@xisue]

this just explains 3D

[@Markom3D]

hopefully it helped then

[@scarcify4420]

Hey can you also do a tutorial with motion blur

[@Markom3D]

Won & Wes motion blur doesn’t work in Eevee

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@Markom3D There is a Vector Blur node you could use in the Compositor to fake it.

[@Markom3D]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 yeah but I dont think it would be anything like cycles

[@chariots8x230]

This seems like a complex process just to animate the hair. What if I want to animate both the hair & clothes at the same time? I have to animate both hair & clothes when doing dynamic/action scenes. What would be the process for animating multiple things in a scene such as a character's hair & clothes? What if it's a windy day and there are multiple characters who are affected by the wind? How can this be depicted?

[@Markom3D]

I tried to use a cloth simulation as the hair, but I was just not able to get nice results.

[@chariots8x230]

@@Markom3D Well it seems complicated, especially since I'm interested in applying these effects to the whole character as well as the scene they're in. There are tutorials that show how to portray wind on a specific areas, such as either the hair or clothes, but I couldn't find anything that considers the entire character and the surrounding environment.

[@zidanesg1]

very good video.. I have to test it myself.. however...what if its a model with a very strange comb.. or for example if I need hair to move down her neck and all that cause she is knelling donwn? wounlt all that plane created around the hair wouldnt allow for this to happen? Ive been trying to use rigidbody bone addon to make hair react to movevment, however, even if they hit an object with collision.. they go past it.. D= need help with this.. D= thanks!

[@Markom3D]

see if you can use the wiggle bone addon - kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5nKhIt6qJd-etU

[@zidanesg1]

@@Markom3D havent seen video yet.. but the wiggle bone makes it move naturally but doesnt add collision effect.. will still go through objects :C gonna check video though.. thanks

[@LitMadHatter]

Using your method, couldn't you duplicate the hair and remove any part of which you don't want animated or just red pin it and use the duplicated mesh as collision object to better wrap it

[@Markom3D]

there are several ways of doing, this is just what I have found works best for me

[@davidcripps3011]

Am I right in guessing that the duplicate collision mesh inherits the armature deforms from the main body mesh when you shift duplicate?

[@Markom3D]

correct

[@davidcripps3011]

@@Markom3D Many thanks. It was very useful to see you problem solve, btw :-)

[@Markom3D]

David Cripps no worries, you are more than welcome

[@mcrksman]

Would parenting the plane directly to the head bone work as well? Or must it be to the armature with empty groups

[@naoremedisonsingh6035]

the tutorial was nice ; could you provide the video link of how you groom the hair

[@zapfsaeule2]

Very useful, thank you!

[@Markom3D]

Awesome, glad I was able to help

[@FelipeGomesRocket]

Can you share a demo scene of it? Just for test.

[@Markom3D]

Unfortunately due to licencing, I cannot give out this character

[@FelipeGomesRocket]

Ok no problem

[@FreakazoidRobots]

It threw me off when you deleted the plane after assigning it to the head vertex group. Is the entire hair cage you made afterward assigned to it as well, or only the one vertex you had left over after deleting the plane?

[@Markom3D]

the whole cage is

[@FreakazoidRobots]

@@Markom3D Thanks for the reply. Can I get a bit more of free tech support from you before I pull the rest of my hair out? I'm having an issue where only the top of the weight painted hair cage is moving, but the bottom (where weight paint = 0) isn't moving at all. I'm not sure if the issue is I didn't parent the cage properly or if I messed up somehow setting up the softbody physics. Can you point me in the right direction? Just for reference, I've assigned all of the hair cage vertexes to head, weight painted the hair cage, parented the hair cage to the head bone with empty groups, and set the hair cage physics to Softbody according to your instructions as best as I could follow them. I'm also a bit confused about having two vertex groups that are the same faces. My understanding is that I'm supposed to weight paint Softbody but not Head. Is that correct?

[@robfrydryck127]

Great tutorial! Please do more with hair on Blender or sculpting people. (Or make a full course on Udemy about sculpting females). I bought from you on Udemy (plug), and now subscribed on here. THANKS!

[@Markom3D]

Awesome, thank you for the support. I really do appreciate it.

[@scarcify4420]

What about the other animation

[@Markom3D]

Well I will be doing this for the garage short film. Like I have said before, some of these tutorials are for myself to remember how the heck to do ti.

[@bardiakenway]

Can't just use Wight map?

[@rrrrr1793]

Will this work with Tie too?

[@Markom3D]

yeah mate.

[@MiDaY_i]

Super Helpful!!!

[@limerence8365]

Will this apply to any movement the avatar makes? Like if they did a back flip and their hair flew around and upside down.

[@Markom3D]

yeah it should if you have physics enabled.

[@limerence8365]

@@Markom3D Great thanks

[@sougatadas2357]

i create the hair .but when i am rigging the character the hair is not moving with the bone or thecharecter modle ...plzzzzzzzz help me on that

[@Markom3D]

Make sure that the softbody is attached to your rig. about 1:00 min in

[@sougatadas2357]

Thank u sir

[@gregorybennings8718]

Can't you do the hair physics in character creator, bake it, then send it to blender?

[@alan112223]

Hey, can you explain how to bake it in iClone?

[@brenokisch]

Its possible to import that physics model to some game?

[@Markom3D]

so there is a way to set the physics in UE4, but that is something that I need to work out. When I do, I will make a tutorial on that. I think it is a just vertex group that you need to enable some how.

[@brenokisch]

​@@Markom3D so, i want to make some fake physics like hair flying but i need to do this without bones, its possible to make it like a mesh moving only on clip?

[@irvinggonzalez3668]

Siempre que voy a aplicar esto busco tu video pero lo utilizo para cabello completo y no utilizo el soft utilizo el Cloth

[@chukirango6013]

it helped me thanks...

[@Markom3D]

no worries

[@taiyihanle]

The hair didn't move with the softbody at all. :( I wonder what went wrong.

[@OmluTerong]

very nice man.1 Question. Can you just add soft body physics directly to the hair mesh? I wonder if we could just do that.

[@HeshamHazem]

Im a little late but say if i do all this then import the character inside unity, will the hair be animated or does it need it's own bones for that? if so do you have a video about it? thanks

[@DevGods]

Can you do a CC3 to blender tutorial I need help and I’m tired of paying for zbrush

[@Markom3D]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z3W4ZaeMf9l6fLM - I already have that video

[@scarcify4420]

Hey markom, can you do a tutorial with the flash lightning

[@Markom3D]

I can look into that one as well. I know That I created something like that with the pod racer beams going between the pods

[@scarcify4420]

Thanks man

[@scarcify4420]

Appreciate it

[@Markom3D]

Won & Wes no worries

[@DustinLeighMattern]

If I animate the hair in blender, does it work in unity too or do I need to add hair physics in unity?

[@Markom3D]

I am not sure how to use physic in unity sorry

[@_damw]

sir help me pls how do you animate the hair at the front of head?

[@Markom3D]

I would do the the same way, but turn the soft body 90 degrees. Have a play

[@kamilamammadova8619]

thank you, it is helpful :)

[@Markom3D]

no worries

[@NEWART_]

NICE

[@Markom3D]

김현우 cheers mate

[@rawarg]

is there a way to export this "mesh deform" properly to a game engine like unity?

[@Markom3D]

I believe there is something in Unity to do something like this, but I dont know Unity sorry

[@scarcify4420]

Is there any other addon like auto rig pro

[@Markom3D]

Rigidly which is free. I do have a video for that aswell

[@scarcify4420]

Ok thanks

[@chukirango6013]

hi mark i got another problem😅 ... could you help me ... when i want to export the hair simulasion .. my computer won't export it what's the problem?

[@Markom3D]

hmmm, how would you export soft body...what are you exporting to?

[@chukirango6013]

I want to export hair simulation to blender, but I can't

[@mieloriginal498]

hi i have a problem ,when i animate an object with particles the particles dont follow the object .does somebody know how to fix it?

[@mieloriginal498]

I mean with an animated armature but i fix it :) the problem is that the particle modifier ist not below the armature modifier but very help full video thx you :)

[@Markom3D]

cool beans, glad you solved that one

[@LuizGamingYT]

Thank you!!!!!

[@Markom3D]

No worries mate

[@acess091]

A tutorial on how to use hair tools blender

[@Markom3D]

Yes, I will be doing this at some point

[@chukirango6013]

Hi teacher, how to export hairs with texture? without save projects, please help me

[@Markom3D]

are we talking about hair cards? there should be an image that you have used. Just export a FBX, and use that texture.

[@chukirango6013]

@@Markom3D sorry if i disturbed you

[@chukirango6013]

can you just export your hair immediately with a texture, without throwing a texture?

[@chukirango6013]

and this is very useful tutorial thanks

[@Markom3D]

@@chukirango6013 not sure what you mean by exporting with a texture, but without throwing it.

[@GodIsADog]

Hello great tutorial, is it even possible to bake the soft body into the hair. I want to export my model with these physics into unreal is that even possible?

[@Markom3D]

This wont really work for that, but you have two options off the top of my head. 1, rig the hair with bones, or two, create shape keys for the hair.

[@GodIsADog]

@@Markom3D i see okay thanks!

[@Markom3D]

@@GodIsADog no worries mate

[@gabrieltarzia5640]

Thank you .. Works on unity too? If i export

[@Markom3D]

Nah, that wouldn't work. I think you would need to use some bones in the hair

[@ate.g.2310]

can i bake a softbody physics animate?.. i want to make looping animation...

[@Markom3D]

I know there is way, but not off the top of my head. Ill try and get something out this week for it.

[@ate.g.2310]

@@Markom3D Thank you. I'm looking forward

[@MiltonFenang]

12:08 thats bad bro. 😃

[@Markom3D]

Yeah, the duplicate mesh looks terrible lol

[@oldsnake93100]

Hi nice tutorial, I’m gonna test it in this days for an animation. Hope that it works

[@Ferisol]

SYPER

[@HolahkuTaigiTWFormosanDiplomat]

0.0

[@monkeyrobotsinc.9875]

I think you and your video rule.

[@Markom3D]

cheers mate. Hopefully I get to grow some more

[@eri7-11]

Would an animation like this be done in Blender and/or Adobe AfterEffects? Is this something that would take many hours for a noob to learn. Kindly thanks sir kzbin.infoOLdQNrTJeJo?si=3HanhsB7vmF2pyPi

[@TaviOcan]

I hate hair so much...

[@Markom3D]

I agree mate