XGen for Game Character Hair (Part 1)

Credit CD Projekt RED for Witcher 3 character & Michael Todd for hair groom
Facebook - / my.oh.maya
Blog - area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr

[@danc42421]

Alrighty, I fired up Maya and thought I'd try xGen for my hair cards this time. Thing is I am super confused how to make those splines in the first place. Should I select the scalp area of the head and generate there? Should I use Splines or Groomable splines? Either way I am lost and don't actually see any splines just some purple intersecting lines. Sorry if that's a silly question but any help would be appreciated, cheers!

[@heminrasul]

I would love to know how to add a colour variations to my hair strands my card hairs (black strands with white for instance) Is possible to do that by using an expression? If yes I would be very grateful to see how it's done. Many Thanks.

[@sunkillersharkny]

can't find curve to ribbons mesh options in the bonus toolkit.

[@Thegaara64]

waiting for part 2 :D

[@crimsonBen]

What is the proper way then to handle uvs with that workflow? I mean do i create the cards and AFTER that i create the textures, so they fit forthese created cards??

[@hamitaksln]

Thanks.

[@brianmarkowitz]

When you assign the material to the hair, how do you set up that shader? are the planes you generated already have UVs that can work with that shader?

[@Kiyamlol]

what viewport shader did you use? I fidn teh blinn, stingray pbs masked and transpareny having issues even with deoth peeling/zfighting

[@niroshanbandara9438]

awsme.waiting for part.02

[@marcelocosta7893]

you are awesome phenomenon

[@JishinimaTidehoshi]

Can I convert xgen primitives to guides so I can do what you do in part 2?

[@KBwake27]

The way he pronounced Geralt smh

[@Leviafilm]

HOW TO CREATE THOSE XGEN HAIRRRRRRR?????????????

[@MachaFBX]

how do you created the material ? and assigned to polygon?

[@sanketvaria9734]

how did you unwrapped UVs of those planes?

[@MG-el9vx]

and he never replied to that...

[@syntaxed2]

Any chance XGEN will not require Archives in the future? 1. Many of us have 10gb+ of library and dont want to convert to archives just to experiment.XGEN should allow for obj import. 2. Also, Xgen preset/exports dont seem to save declared variables/expressions?

[@MyOhMaya]

That's a good question and I'm afraid I don't have the answer and even if I did I couldn't say :) Duly noted though. Technically though the geo could batched to archives although that would take some scripting. As for the presets issue I am not aware of it. Have you logged a case with support about that?

[@indigodoyle]

anyone know how to do this with Maya 2023? Bonus tools doesn't have the Curve to Ribbon Mesh option anymore

[@King-mj2bn]

It's not a bonus tool anymore, it's standard functionality. *Create > Sweep Mesh* is what you're looking for. Use the Sweep Profile: *Line* to get the ribbon.

[@bathorysthroat]

I've got Maya 2017 just for these grooming tools and I can't render in it because Arnold has problems with my CPU. Also GoZ plug-in for Zbrush is very troublesome in this version of Maya. What can I do?? Is there a fix, possibly any way I could get the grooming brushes in Maya 2016? If not is there any way I could import Zbrush Fibermesh curves into Xgen and have them work as Xgen curves?? The reason being is that I need to convert the Xgen hair guides into planes (For use in a game engine). It's extremely important to be able to do this. Can you please help? Thanks

[@MyOhMaya]

Not sure what is going on with Arnold / CPU issue. You can however do everything I show in the vids in Maya 2016 Ext 2 as well so you might want to give that a try.

[@bathorysthroat]

So everything you are doing here works in Maya 2016?

[@tradeandmagicofficial2563]

Use zbrush fibermesh using the cards like on maya, but is easier to do in there because you adjust coverage and so on.

[@jovontowns591]

Maya Bonus Tools 2017? Can you share the link for the updated version

[@ghn5459]

I also can not find Bonus Tools ！！！ you find it ！？？？

[@MyOhMaya]

We will be posting the official 2017 installers soon with some new tools included. But in the meantime if you install the 2016.5 version of BT it should work fine with 2017 (including the new curve to mesh tools)

[@jovontowns591]

Okay I'll try the 2016.5 in the meantime. Thanks

[@TheJasonsbaldwin]

Unfortunately the new modeling tools are not included in the 2017 bonus tools.

[@TheJasonsbaldwin]

I have a fix. I'll post at top of the comments.

[@sizlax]

Hero hairs? Lol. When only those are selected, they look more like hideous freak hairs. Like the kinda hair that would be on leatherface or Jason XD

[@erikm9768]

thats great and everything... except it takes 1 or 2 days.. artists really know how to work inefficiently don't they.

[@MyOhMaya]

I've met with many game studios who spend a lot more than a day or two on a single head of hair. It can often take a full week or more to do a nice, high quality hairdo for a hero character.

[@erikm9768]

that's what i'm saying. i wouldnt hire a guy who needs a week to do just the hair for a game character, unless its the antagonist of some new super HD AAA+ title. that's way too long imho. but i guess artists don't think like programmers when it comes to working efficient.

[@danc42421]

How much do you think it takes to make a 3D Character? 1 day is a lot for hair? Oh boy I got bad news for you.

[@erikm9768]

if its really worth the time, then yes, do it! but ive worked with people who have until recently painted tear on a model by hand in photoshop (because thats what they are used to) and been blown away when i showed them how to do an almost identical job procedurally by just a few nodes in a shaders in Arnold. in a similar way i honestly don't see how drawing a few hundred strands of hair should need to take up to 16 hours unless your workflow is extremely tedious.

[@MyOhMaya]

I should note that the studios I'm referring to are AAA developers so standards are pretty high. And also when I say that it can often take a week or more I'm talking about the entire process. Of course there is the whole 90-10 equation to consider... in that it takes 10% of the time get 90% of the way done and then 90% of the time to finish the last 10% :)

[@anarayramone4395]

Garbage. Hair and Fur always