Kristinka Hair 3.0 released

[sarah]

Hi guys,
I'm wondering if there is a way to prevent hair strand interpenetration when styling using the curl or advanced curl node. Even when I open the sample models, they all have that problem but from the renders I have seen on here, everything seems fine.

[Mathaeus]

Hello
Unfortunately there's nothing, able to do that automatically. If there is, it will be really really slow to calculate in case of curls or similar. I'd believe the overlaps are just not so noticeable in final render. Note, that strands are displayed in SI viewport with around 1 pixel width, which is much more than you'll be using in render, anytime. Default for 'kh point color' node is no alpha (transparency), because this is a faster to display. By putting some transparency, you'll probably get something closer to final look - but, final reference should be a final render, I think.

[sarah]

Thank you for your answer. If you don't mind I have another problem. I had decided to just go ahead and start shading my hair and testing renders but I get an unexpected result when I switch to 3Delight. Im no expert using the renderer but I did at least up the shading rate and yet I get this.

I tried it with the sample models to see if maybe it was my ice tree that was messed up but it looks the same...
Any ideas on what causes that?

Im using Softimage 2014 with the latest from 3Delight

[Mathaeus]

I had decided to just go ahead and start shading my hair and testing renders but I get an unexpected result when I switch to 3Delight. Im no expert using the renderer but I did at least up the shading rate and yet I get this.

I tried it with the sample models to see if maybe it was my ice tree that was messed up but it looks the same...
Any ideas on what causes that?

Im using Softimage 2014 with the latest from 3Delight

In 3delight and other Renderman complaints, lower value for shading rate = better quality and a little bit more expensive. For hair let's say it's OK to keep the shading rate value around 1 or 2. Also, anti-aliasing to something else than Box filter. For example, Mitchell filter, oversampling to 6, width to 4. Try to keep the strand size to higher than 0.2, for start. Smaller strand size asks for more samples and higher quality settings.
By the way, 3delight automatically takes care about sampling of contours (hair is just contour and nothing else, here), so it should render OK even with high shading rates like 10 or 20 (which is a really low quality), but at this point, it won't be able to draw properly a nice, curved interpolation.

If nothing of that helps, then I missed the point, probably....

[julius]

hello,

I would like to start learning Kh3 with my basic ICE knowledge, but I already have a problem :

- is kH3 compatible with 2015_SP1 version of softimage ? I have a crash when I open any of the sample models provided.
- is there any other detailed tutorial than the area one ?

Thanks for your answer ! ;)

[Mathaeus]

hello,

- is kH3 compatible with 2015_SP1 version of softimage ? I have a crash when I open any of the sample models provided.
- is there any other detailed tutorial than the area one ?

It's based solely on ICE factory nodes, there is no any external code involved, so 'compatibility' should be out of question. However samples were created in XSI 7.01. That I know, last version where it worked, it is first SI 2015. Have no idea what happens - maybe - you can get it to work by exporting models from some just a bit older version than 2015 SP1.

There's tutorial and docs on my site too, but both of them covers only the stuff, specific to kH system. For example, it won't tell anything about getting the hair color from texture map and such tasks, because method is same as with factory particles - strands.

[Tekano]

ah whilst I saw this thread, just wanted to post a wip from a previous job which can be seen here http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/eurom ... %20lottery where the hair was entirely styled with curves in KH3. thanks again Mathaeus

[julius]

thanks for your reply,

I made some tests on a new sphere, and it works well.
I'll try to export some models to see what happen.

ok, I'll have to achieve a character with medium hair lenght and beard. I think it should be ok, but I think the main problem for me will be the dynamic part (yes ! hair and beard will have to react to collisions and wind !)
It should be possible with syflex : https://vimeo.com/20112098
As I'm a beginner with ICE, I may comeback with some questions if I don't bothers you.

Thanks again for all the great work !

Very nice work from glassworks. (rendered with redshift)

[Mathaeus]

ok, I'll have to achieve a character with medium hair lenght and beard. I think it should be ok, but I think the main problem for me will be the dynamic part (yes ! hair and beard will have to react to collisions and wind !)
It should be possible with syflex : https://vimeo.com/20112098
As I'm a beginner with ICE, I may comeback with some questions if I don't bothers you.
(rendered with redshift)

Well this video is really old. While Syflex connection seems to be popular method, unfortunately, everything related to simulation is not really streamlined, at least not as styling part. Kristinka Hair is mainly focused to long hair styling. Generally it is based on old, well known concepts, of using the external geometry as envelope for hair. First time I sow something similar in some old example of Maya Paint Effects.
Around 2010 - 2011, kH system, as something based on visual programming system like ICE, perhaps it was one of strongest refinement of mentioned 'hair enveloping'. 2011 it was a last significant change in structure, by the way.
Today, it seems that 'compact' solutions are more popular, things like Maya Geo to Hair (GMH) , there are some solutions for Blender and Modo, too. Without too much refinement, but also much easier to use than system, completely based on ICE.
There are some experiments with Houdini, here in thread. But, even in v14, I think Houdini is still too weak for direct manipulation and rendering of complex hair. Direct manipulation and rendering = ability to do what is supposed to do, without going into complex, very unpleasant workarounds (and flexibility killers 'by self'), just to get the basic thing to work.
So long story short, if entire target is to create and move some hairs, there are many shortest paths these days, instead kH. Starting form mentioned Maya plugin.

[julius]

thank you for these precisions Mathaeus,

the first thing is that I don't want to use maya. I very don't like the soft and have no money to give to autodesk anymore.

I'm looking into blender tools for some weeks, and it's thrue that some of them are very nice ! But the problem is to export the resulting data into softimage : I would like to model, animate and render my project with softimage and redshift...

[Mathaeus]

thank you for these precisions Mathaeus,

Yeah I went into long stories Mentioned tutorial is actually about Syflex connection. Also, as it is noticeable, I'm frequent poster here , so, if there are questions, I'm waiting...

[julius]

thank you very much ! I'll let you know what's going on !

[julius]

ok, i have my first question :

at the 5th stage : you use an "emit extrusion emitter from polymesh". In my node list, I only have "emit MT extrusion emitter", and the inputs are different : I can't connect my polymesh emitter...

[Mathaeus]

I've checked out the last pack (kristinka_hair_32_02july2014) - and thing with exactly same name is included. Should be under 'stick to mesh' folder, maybe under 'utilities', maybe somewhere else under k Hair 3 master folder (really can't checkout this folder location, just now). About inputs for geometry references, could be light purple input, or dark green one, for appropriate outputs of geometry references ( "value" or "out name", in same colors).

Hope you'll find a way to load and adapt the samples, If you didn't already. With inevitable "I hate to say that", have to say, that in last more than five years, helping through remote instructions in step-by-step style, never worked for more complex setups, like this.

[julius]

ok sorry, I didn't download the latest release

it's ok now for the samples too, thanks !

[sarah]

Just trying my luck to see if anyone had this error pop up in3Delight. "Nan value in geometry of primitive "hair.pointcloud".
I have tried pluging everything off one by one and the only thing that removed this error is swapping the uv of my shaping Nurbs which I dont want to do bc it causes my hair to wrap the wrong way. Render doesnt seem affected at first but seeing as this is supposedly a fatal error Im expecting ill see how these problems are affecting renders at some point.