Maya Hair Plugin - GMH2

[Hirazi Blue]

@FXDude - if you need an alpha- or beta-tester, I am more than willing to volunteer... ;)

[Mathaeus]

Well there are reasons why a mix of these systems should *not* work, flawlessly.

Which is probably why indeed some nodes don't work, so I'll be sure to include a region in the ice tree a bunch of unconnected nodes that do!

It's possible to create "adapters", where value of missing attribute is just replaced by something static, or, to re-calculate something , let's say ''StrandCount'' of factory or Kh nodes. But, if exact value has to be supplied ( for example, most of kH modifiers are relying on pre - calculated orientation vectors), obviously a plain static value won't be enough. At some point, there should be a design decision, which then creates incompatibilities, something works better something else is worse...
kH generally tries to keep everything in one network, it tries to have as much ''light" hair filler, it also tries to avoid any cumulative, no to so fast calculation - there are negative sides of that, like a bit more complicated structure on guides, it's not so easy (or obvious) to figure out what and how can be animated, orientation vectors are derived from external geometry. Next time I think I'll try something different, but, don't know when this is going to happen. Personally I feel a bit tired of all that visual programming things, to say honestly....

[rray]

I looked a little into groomTools. Almost forgot, thanks for putting it to qegood use.

What might work as a workaround until some location caching is implemented is to use "uv distance" - this distance method should be more stable during animation, even if the surface is deforming. It requires that the emitter has UVs, and that the emitter is plugged into the "hair layer" node.

Two other things I discovered that could cause weird shaky behavior are:

---if you dig into the "hair layer" node, then into "interpolate guides", then at the bottom center you'll find a randomize node that has "animated" checked! this is a bug! it needs to be off! ^^

---The other thing is that the "hair emit" node doesn't like to be animated. It randomizes positions when it's called multiple times and the emitter moves. It should be possible to call it only once by adding a simulation stack and putting the "hair layer" nodes into that.

I would be best if could look at a shaky scrambly test scene and see what's going on. So applying for alpha testing too

[FXDude]

Okay, let me do some minimal housekeeping (previous branch versions etc..) and I'll PM you both the scene as it is!