How to Make DOPE CG HAIR | XGen Tutorial

[@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

[@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

[@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

[@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

[@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

[@Intervain]

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

[@artofjhill]

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

[@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

[@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

[@nikhilnair5246]

this has motivated me to do the most feared thing in maya or as a cg artist . Thanks J for the indepth tutorial.

[@artofjhill]

You got this

[@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

[@rosenormand2059]

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

[@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

[@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?

[@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 ;)

[@christiaanpaulsen3974]

I finally have MAYA!! So I'm literally binging your videos on creating hair in maya. Probably the only reason why I got it.

[@nilexh3476]

J, man, really thanking you from my heart, I always felt XGEN pretty hard, but your simple style of teaching just taught me everything about XGEN I wanted to know, didn't find any tutorial this easy, Thank you once again

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear that. Good luck with it and have fun

[@siberia6646]

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

[@kumarvikran7243]

One word it's a 💎 gem

[@cesardavid5925]

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

[@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!

[@AnnieCatDev]

Thank you for putting this tutorial series together! Appreciate your calming voice and knowledge :)

[@artofjhill]

You got it

[@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.

[@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!

[@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

[@TimLinklater]

Awesome tutorial! It was clear, concise, and very well taught. Thank you very much for creating this!

[@artofjhill]

🙏 I’m glad you liked it

[@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

[@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.

[@妙手鸡腿]

I've been watching you for almost two years

[@artofjhill]

Thank you 🙏

[@bythehandofbob]

I usually hate tutorials. Usually, they get to the point slowly, they figure out what they're gonna say on the fly. They screw things up and go back. But this tutorial series is sooo good. You could do a tutorial on anything.

[@artofjhill]

Thank you, really appreciate that and glad you like them

[@juanp.5364]

Solid as always!

[@yannmassard3970]

tbh, one of the best cg hair i ve seen

[@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

[@JoseFuentes-mq6fw]

another solid tut J, helped me understand Xgen a bit better, with more control

[@marcusk9483]

these videos, the information in them is worth 1000 of $USD. Thank you J. You are an excellent teacher. New sub.

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@3dcharacterartist649]

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

[@artofjhill]

Thanks, glad you liked it

[@legindi2816]

This video has all the basics 🙏🏻

[@arifnbd]

Very helpful J Hill. So simply explained all the basic info. Easy to understand. Thank you so much!

[@arifnbd]

Hello, Jason, in this video, you have mentioned there will be more intermediate courses in your patron. But, I did not find it yet. Can you please provide more information about it?

[@sickofthesame2006]

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

[@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

[@MichaelHurdleStudio]

Best Xgen lesson on KZbin as far as I'm concerned.

[@artofjhill]

Appreciate that! Hope it helps out

[@MichaelHurdleStudio]

@@artofjhill Yes it has.

[@AlexisRivera3D]

Thank you Sir to make such a great tutorial about XGen, WE appreciate it a lot!

[@artofjhill]

You got it

[@lovelettar]

2 years later this tutorial still amazing

[@MrSiasman]

Thanks for this. Always found the original Xgen complicated:)

[@renderpeach]

About to hammer this whole class, hoping it all goes smooth in Windows 11!

[@gabrielmoro3d]

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

[@artofjhill]

Thank you. I hope it helps

[@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.

[@momciloglusica9850]

Exactly what I needed. Thank you so much :D

[@artofjhill]

Glad to hear it

[@travisrassel9978]

Great tutorial. It actually MADE SENSE.

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear that! Glhf

[@michellehaywood1062]

Pure gold !!. Great teaching ...

[@seanakima50515e]

I have thought about using Xgen again, But the crashing was a nightmare during school and it literally kept me from finishing a project. Since then I have changed over to Ornatrix and it works virtually the same way. Basically what I'm saying is if you can sculpt hair guides it doesn't matter if you use Xgen, Ornatrix, Yeti, whatever

[@ilSignorLimone]

hi J, awesome video as usual, I have not finished yet, I'm around @14:00 and noticed that problem with the hair disappearing when you are too close. I dunno if you'll eventually aknowledge that later in the video but if you go into the PREVIEW/OUTPUT tab, under PREVIEW you'll find an option flag with something like "only primitives in the view". Uncheck it and xgen hairs will always be dislpayed. It's an optimization to hide the hair not framed by camera at that moment

[@artofjhill]

great tip thank you

[@gabejackson66]

no joke DOPE tutorial

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@NazarNoschenko]

You’re a gem!!

[@artofjhill]

No YOU!

[@НастасьяЦ]

Tnx for tut. Trying with friends from Voicely to repeat. Hope it goes well :3

[@javierrumego9651]

Hey J, this video is gold. Thanks a lot to share your process with us.

[@artofjhill]

For sure. I hope it helps

[@gabrielmoro3d]

This is amazing. Thanks a lot for all the explanation.

[@artofjhill]

For sure. I hope it helps

[@themanwhohasnohead]

DAYYYUUUMMM here we gooo!! Thank you J

[@artofjhill]

Enjoy!

[@aarishkhan2017]

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

[@artofjhill]

Thank you, I'm glad it helped!

[@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?

[@Jeet3D]

At 13:57, the hair disappears and that is because by default if a portion of scalp is not inside the camera frame (inside the resolution gate and not the actual viewport), it turns off that portion of hair that is not in view (optimization reasons, I guess). You can turn this behavior off by going to Preview/Output tab and turning off 'Only primitives in the view' But apart from that it is a solid tutorial for people who want to start out with Xgen. Keep up the good work!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you!

[@danthiry1185]

Thanks for sharing. I learned a lot.

[@zedman68]

You're the KING! Thank you very much!

[@artofjhill]

Ty I hope it helps!

[@RiArt-19]

So sick ❤

[@amirhosein3792]

You are unique in teaching

[@artofjhill]

Cool

[@SideViewMirrorProd]

another great tutorial and just what i needed for my current project

[@artofjhill]

Thank you. Glad you found it useful

[@simoneferrante7875]

This is GOLD, thank you so much

[@artofjhill]

I hope it helps!

[@takoi_kover]

Dear, thank you for your hard work and your creativity, your work is amazing, very inspiring!

[@jesper4576]

Love it - Amazing tutorial as always!

[@white_okami3154]

i really needed this , thanks so much !

[@artofjhill]

Glad it was helpful!

[@mordecai1484]

Xgen crashing is common if you are just messing around with it and trying out new stuff, that you don't understand. If you are experienced and know exactly what are you doing, crashes are very rare. same for Maya. Tnx for quality tutorials BTW.

[@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!

[@dalewyatt230]

Excellent tutorial. Thank you!

[@danielmartinezortega150]

Thank you so much for this great tutorial!

[@artofjhill]

You got it. I hope it helps!

[@jestrada-ml2fd]

THANKS A LOT GREAT VID

[@artofjhill]

[@ragegohard9603]

awseooome ! thank you so much for this i learned alot !

[@edsonninacama6117]

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

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear that

[@小胖头鱼]

thankyou，J!

[@artofjhill]

You got it! I hope it helps

[@GZoffc]

Wow! Thank you very much!!!

[@thebackdoorhq]

You're good...DAMN

[@artofjhill]

thank you 🙏

[@vajaga4624]

Great stuff man. Thanks a lot!

[@artofjhill]

You got it. Hope it helps

[@crecrescio]

thanks dude!

[@artofjhill]

Np! I hope it helps

[@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!!

[@blendercg2175]

Always awesome, thank you

[@artofjhill]

Thank you. Hope it helps

[@The9PointStar]

Your tutos are amazing!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you 🙏

[@yassineelfidha3903]

i freakin love you bro just thank you .

[@LanaDesign-t4c]

thank you so much!

[@TheSatzy6699]

Excellent content and explanation 👌🏻

[@Gichanasa]

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

[@1617pandu]

excellent stuff. Thanks

[@manpreetsingh-jt5vr]

Amazing tutorial thanks for help J

[@artofjhill]

Np I hope it helps

[@妙手鸡腿]

hank you very much for sharing. I am a big fan

[@artofjhill]

You are very welcome

[@sidshoyong]

very nice! simple and keep it up man!

[@artofjhill]

Thanks. Will do

[@vennyldn4880]

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

[@blender3dfrenchy91]

even as a blender user it's very interesting :) thx (ps: i'm really fan , your art is my wallpaper everyday)

[@artofjhill]

Thank you! 🙏

[@Bbentley81]

Quote of the day ... "That is some grown-up sh*t right there" .. made my day.

[@mamathakakarla2031]

such a great tutorial thank you so much J :)

[@artofjhill]

you got it

[@deepakmandal6005]

I m waiting for next part.... Thank you❤

[@AlexSamUA]

This is AMAZING!

[@artofjhill]

Glad you think so!

[@tomomark1991]

Thank you! Awesome and clean tutorial. :)

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@houmanhr8641]

Awesome Video Thanks!