Making Hair with the Ring Primitive

[cwahl]

Hi

Here's an interesting method to create 3D hair in Zbrush without the need for transparency maps or post render painting.

This method was devised in Zbrush 1.55b, so I'm assuming it'll work in Z2.

It simply uses the Ring primitive-

1. With the ring active, go to the selection menu, mask all and select Row at setting 1.
2. Inflate this selection so you have a ribbed effect. Deselect selection.
3. To vary the thickness of the hairs, select Row 2. Inflate again.
4. Add a material with a fairly high specular to get a shine to the hair.
5. Add whatever texture you want. I used the woodgrain texture rotated once.
6. Save the new Hair Ring tool.(So you can reload it for each new hair mass.)
7. Use the Move tool on a large setting to warp the ring into your desired shape.
8. Use Scale in the Transform menu to get tapered ends.
9. You can also experiment with any of the deform tools to acheive desired results. e.g Twist is good for getting curled hair.

There you go. If I've left out any steps, or if you have any questions, let me know. :)

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083737275tnv.jpg

[Dave71]

what a cool idea.

[JOHNVQ3]

:) never done it this way, great tip :tu: Thanks.

[ron m]

thats a really elegant hair technique cwahl!
thanks for posting it!
looks great!
:tu:

[Frenchy Pilou]

Another great hairdresser :cool:
Pilou

[ron m]

i had to steal one of your wigs cwahl to see what it would look like. thanks again for the tip! http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083767207gfh.jpg

[KingSalami]

cool, thanks

[cwahl]

Hey, nice use of the wig, Ron. :tu:

Here's another hairdo with the above method.
Played with a few shadow settings to see if the forms of the hair behaved themselves.

...and because I like playing with shadows.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083781268xsy.jpg

[boozy floozie]

A lovely tip. Many thanks.

From the image it looks like the ring has been split apart rather than remaining circular - is this the case?

[ron m]

g'day cwahl,
i had the same question as bf, have you used a portion of a ring or a whole one? there doesnt seem to be a loop on the end of your pieces

also - i wasnt able to taper the pieces
using 'size' the way you suggested- the only way i could do it was to make a ring into one of those horn shaped thingy's by reducing its coverage and then scaling the end- just how do you do it?

those new hair shots look ace
cheers

[Fouad B.]

nice characters guys !

[SpaceMan]

cwah :cool: tut.

Newbie question- After looking at the circle with banding in your image tut I think you could also make a 3d model with the DecoBrush tool by filling canvas with a Plane3d and fill with black and select alpha one that is fiberious and create an b/w texture from it use DecoBrush and draw a circle grab with mrgb zgrabber and make 3d then do the deforming you list

[cwahl]

Boozy, Ron- You use the whole ring. Just keep pushing and pulling until it becomes flat.

I'll record a zscript when I get a chance to show you what I mean...

Spaceman- Since I'm still using 1.55b, you'll have to experiment with that theory.

Thanks everyone. :)

[cwahl]

After unsuccessfully trying to put together a zscript workthrough I instead went with a step-by-step guide.

Hope this helps explain the process.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083834585ixw.jpg

[Abyssis]

hey cwahl,
so simple and so perfect :tu: :tu:
You zbrush-guyzz are so inovative and friendly -- thank you for sharing :D

The ZBrush community is the best I ever seen,
I appreciate it very much...

[ron m]

thanks for the further pointers cwahl!
i get it now ! i was trying to use 'size' from the deformation menu for the tips - when its the scale/size button in transformation you were using! its a really neat system- thanks again!! :tu:

[ron m]

cwahl! thanks again! i was trying to use size from the deformation menu - its obviously scale(size) from the transform palette! -doh!
what a very neat system! :tu:
thanks again

oops i posted this twice- didnt realise we were on page two :o

[cwahl]

Hey Ron. Sorry about the Scale/Size error. My mistake...

I'll edit the posts and pics to avoid the confusion for anyone else.

[boozy floozie]

cwahl , many thanks for the reply and the pic update. I thought perhaps at first you'd used a mask to hide geometry from the ring that you didn't want. Now all is clear - many thanks indeed.

Some further questions:
1,Are you also cloning variations of the tool to build up differing hair masses?
2, Do you mark these and polymesh to make a complete wig and re-model/re-shape it over a head shape as a template or are you working intuitively in 2.5D?

Anyone interested in this further technique should check out Bonecradle's - Masking polymesh's for modelling (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=011335) and

Monkeyfarm's - tutorial on editing multi-marker objects. (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=009664)

[cwahl]

Boozy- I usually clone and flip for the symmentry of the hairstyle. I also try reusing pieces wherever possible.

At the moment I haven't polymeshed or markered together any wigs yet. Mostly I just place each individual hair mass in 2.5d mode. But I've definitely considered the possibility of building polymeshed wigs, because eventually I'll get sick of having to build every wig from scratch each time. It would be good to build a basic template wig, which could then be styled whichever way you want.

Anyway here's an attempt at a man's hairdo. The blending at the hairline was done with the smudge tool in Photoshop, but could easily be done in Zbrush.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083849349swy.jpg

[JohnArtbox]

Great technique cwahl. Thanks for sharing.

[ron m]

cwahl, those heads and hairstyles look great!
here's a variation i'm sure you've thought of - a one piece wig -hat thingy that can be styled to suit.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083859039csr.jpg

stevie rae did something similar using alphas to mask a sphere. so this is thanks to you 2 guys!
EDIT: i think i got the axis wrong in the diagramme-
i think its the Y axis to apply gravity to not Z as i've illustrated.

[cwahl]

Ron- Thanks for the contribution with the sphere idea. I'll have to explore that further. :tu:

[DeeVee]

Outstanding and very useful idea, congratulations!

[Curious]

Great tips guys. Can't wait to try this.

[cwahl]

Here's a one piece wig, using a similar approach to Ron's wighat, but again using the Ring Primitive.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083941423xhq.jpg

[TVeyes]

Cool techniques here. Thanks to all involved. The only problem for me is the increased aliasing caused by sharper objects such as these hair pieces. Still very useful tricks here, thanks again.

[bicc39]

Thank you for the suggestion and time spent.
What kind of conditioner did you use?

[ron m]

hey who would have thought being a hairdresser could be this much fun!
that long wig looks great cwahl!
i was messing round with the degree of inflate and you can get some nice long strandy bits to play with
and style. this ones a bit too harsh and sharp looking- itneeds to be softened.

oh and a massive thanks to boozy for that ref to multi marker editing and the joy that is the reposition button- what a revelation!! makes adjusting all these elements a dream.

what fun!!
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200405/user_image-1083946886lao.jpg

[Grub]

Thanks for sharing your technique, looks like a good way of fleshing out the hair volume. :)

[matvara]

Thanks for sharing these tips! :tu:

[jim coe]

I want to make some transparent 3D columns of falling water for use in Adobe Atmosphere (Atmosphere is my main reason for learning ZB).

Looks like these hair techniques could be just the thing for water columns too.

Thanks folks! :p

[Pestopants]

This is a AWSOME modelling trick. Thank you so much! I'll be playing with alot.

p.

[dpvtank]

perfect. Thanks for going further of this technique from this thread: http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=001577

[riggsd]

Would someone be so kind as to give more detailed steps for this? Like how do you set a row to 1 or 2, how do you inflate, how do you mask, etc? I don't use ZBrush enough to fill in the steps.

Maybe a ZScript?

[cwahl]

Riggsd- I'm not Zscript savvy enough to do a Zscript tutorial.

But I'll try answering the questions you've asked-

Firstly you have to have an object selected and in edit mode before these options become active.

Inflate- Goto Tool menu/ Deformation submenu.

Mask all/Row and Select count- Goto Tool menu/Selection submenu.

When using Selections, Mask all first, then choose select count, then Row (and after inflating press 'clear mask'.)

Note- A low polygon object will produce less rows at setting 1, than a high polygon object with the same setting. Keep that in mind and adjust accordingly.

Hope this helps...

[BadHairDay]

GREAT READ.
Thx for sharing :tu:

[Vindicate]

okay.. i understand all steps, but selection option is nowhere to be found in the tool menu..

[BeatKitano]

This tutorial is 5 year old, it was for zbrush 2.0...

Facepalm.jpg

[Moni-Poroni]

It`s old but perhaps it`s still possible...

@Vindicate: Maybe the word "selection" confused you a bit. :)

The author of this tutorial said:
1. With the ring active, go to the selection menu, mask all and select Row at setting 1.

In other words: Select the ring 3D tool, open the Mask-Palette,
click on the "Mask all" button, set the "Sel" slider and the "Grd" slider to 1,
click on the "Row" button (continue with the other steps...)

Hope that`s right.

[Vindicate]

okay.. the sel and row options has been removed from tools>masking. this makes this action quite hard..But i don't beleive that this way of working has been removed, anybody know of a workaround. or has the sel/row been moved to another section, if so, i can't find it...

[Moni-Poroni]

Those buttons and sliders haven`t been removed (please see the screenshot). But as far as I know they`re only available before you click on the "Make Polymesh3D" button. If you want the same mask for your Polymesh3D then, please see here(post no.3):

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=67591&highlight=mask+alpha





row.jpg

[cwahl]

Well, this is a blast from the past. Good to see this technique still has some interest.

[remingt0n]

Hey guys, Well its 2010 now, I believe that thread has been open for more than five years, things cahnged inside Zbrush, I am actually using Zbrush 3.5 and the row option is nowhere to be found ...
Too bad, I would have loved to try out that technique but I already spent hours trying and find this damn option and it seems like it has been removed, so please if anyone has an idea let me know.
Thanks in advance!

R

[aurick]

Moni-Poroni's post shows you exactly where to look. And as she says, those settings are only available for a parametric object. That's any of the models in the Tool palette that end with "3D" in the name (other than Polymesh3D). If you use a polymesh object, those options will no longer be available because they depend upon the mathematical uniformity that only comes with a parametric/primitive object.

[dvida]

imaginative :lol:

[vertigomaniac]

Neat idea. Here is the result i got.
hair render.jpg
hair render2.jpg

[DT CARTAMANIA]

this so cool tutorial, i like your stuff but on thing , i can't find row in zbrush 4 r2 any help will be greate

thnks