groomtools - hair layering compounds

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GroomtoolsAuthor: Reinhard Claus
A set of compounds for creating hair (ICE strands) by using groups of curves as guides (By using groups, guides can be easily duplicated/removed). The generated strands can themselves be used as guides, which allows to generate a number of effects including clumping.

Hair can be styled using a layered approach, a layer represents a simple 'groom' that can be blended with other layers into more complex shapes. Blending of different layers can be done using a simple weight slider, or parametrically using guide distance, painted weightmaps or distance nulls. Each layer can have its own guide group, also guide groups or individual guides can be shared between layers. The provided sample scenes shows most of the available options.

See the si-community thread for more examples.

Requires: ICE Array Nodes

download: Hair Emit.2.0.xsicompound Hair Layer.2.0.xsicompound Morph To UV.xsicompound groomtools_1.52_demoscenes.zip

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by Hirazi Blue » 09 Feb 2016, 16:53

Scene "Simple_2_Layers_Setup_v_1_4" is the only one that renders
with the following result:
Default_Pass_Main.5.jpg
The other three scenes get aborted:

Code: Select all

# ERROR : One or more framebuffers were invalid. Render aborted.
# ERROR : 21000-REND-RenderPasses - Unspecified failure - [line 258 in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2015 R2-SP2\Addons\RenderManager\Application\Plugins\RenderManager.vbs]
# ERROR : 21000-CUST-RenderCurrentFrame - Unspecified failure
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julius
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by julius » 09 Feb 2016, 17:03

very nice !
thanks for sharing ! :-bd

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by Hirazi Blue » 09 Feb 2016, 17:21

I just exported the contents of the "Curly_1_4" scene into a new scene and it rendered. Took about 11 minutes though... :-?

edit: with all shadows and shadowmaps disabled it renders in 29 seconds...
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rray
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 09 Feb 2016, 17:32

@julius Welcome!

@HB It renders quite slow because of the "fake GI" light setup.. but not that slow... try switching to rasterizer, it could be that I activated this setting only in Viewport B renderregion settings :ymblushing:

These framebuffer messages might me some residual from the arnold plugin, but it shouldn't abort the render, that's weird. I'll make some better sample scenes later.
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by Hirazi Blue » 09 Feb 2016, 18:13

My previous 11 minute result was with scanline as it turns out.
With the rasterizer it took 25 minutes to complete...
(without the lightrig the rasterizer only needed 31 seconds)
:-o
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by FXDude » 09 Feb 2016, 19:50

That's absolutely astonishing work RRay! and looks fairly easy to setup, Kudos!

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Mathaeus
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by Mathaeus » 09 Feb 2016, 21:24

rray wrote:You're welcome!

Credits btw: Uses internally Fabricio Chamons's "Relax Particles" for the even follicle's distribution, Anto Matcovic's "kH3 Hair Length" for the randomized cut off, also Dan Yargici's "Create Strands from Curves" with an update from Guillaume Laforge, which inside is using Julian Johnson's "Array Cumulative Sum"
My surname is Matkovic, not Matcovic :) 'Ch' at the end or 'tc' in middle, belongs to souls who are unable to spell tk or like, being some generation living in far away land, like America, Canada or whatever.
Now seriously, 'kh strand length' actually is based on what is well known in theory as 'Helge's shift' :), subtract of two arrays with removed first member from one array and last member of another array. So mr Mathee (now I believe this is correct spelling) stands as master of everything, as usually.

Great work, gives a warm feeling of good old times !

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rray
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 10 Feb 2016, 09:46

Cheers guys! Very appreciated.
Pardons Anto I'll fix that, it looks like you're the first victim of me trying to get out of the habit of triple checking everything 8-x
Please post pictures here in case you made some with those tools.
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 10 Feb 2016, 14:19

@HB it's using transparent shadows that might make it slow.
But should be some room for optimization in the scenes
(like you could delete most of the light rig lights, lower rasterizer settings to 1/2/1/1/... lower shadowmap resolution, use 3Delight =) )
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 18 Feb 2016, 20:17

updated version 1.5 - this was needed because of a cycle issue which occasionally corrupted the strands (it needs a slightly modified setup - see new usage notes in post #1).

1.5 also uses the dynamic PPG trick shown here
New demo scenes should render a bit faster, too.

hf
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

anhungxadieu
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by anhungxadieu » 19 Feb 2016, 15:42

Hi rray,
Very cool compounds thank for make it available :).
Can i ask some questions?
- i can use with long hair? or if not it can use with a fur (it's mean will need a lot of strand, i open your example i found it quite slow)
- how about simulation?
Thank for your answers!

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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 19 Feb 2016, 17:52

Hi anhungxadieu

>>>>Can i ask some questions?
shoot ;)

>>>>i can use with long hair?
It's possible to create long hair with it but tbh I wouldn't use it for that. The issue with long hair is so it would look realistic, you'd need simulation with self collision, and there's not a lot of hair simulators available today that are capable of that. What seems to me as the best option currently is maya's nhair plus xgen to make it prettier (example image). You can use these compounds to generate the initial curves however.

>>>>or if not it can use with a fur (it's mean will need a lot of strand, i open your example i found it quite slow)
I was using it mostly for hairstyles like the ones shown in the examples (medium length)
For fur it should be ok to use too but the default settings are quite high, you could try lower segment count/number of looked up guides these settings have the biggest impact on speed.
An issue might be that it relies on UV's to get the flow direction (it works without uvs too but you need a higher number of guides in that mode). So what might come up when you're doing fur models is that you have discontinuities on the UV island borders.
(added a demo scene fr fur in post #1)

>> how about simulation?

there's nothing related to simulation inside these compounds. But if you want to work in ICE's simulation stack (like pooby's latest videos) you should be able to do so using the "external guide cloud" guide input in the hair layer compound
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

anhungxadieu
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by anhungxadieu » 20 Feb 2016, 06:15

thanks rray, :ymhug:
It's possible to create long hair with it but tbh I wouldn't use it for that. The issue with long hair is so it would look realistic, you'd need simulation with self collision, and there's not a lot of hair simulators available today that are capable of that. What seems to me as the best option currently is maya's nhair plus xgen to make it prettier (example image). You can use these compounds to generate the initial curves however.
your example look very nice and realistic :x http://www.si-community.com/download/lb ... airzoe.jpg this is only maya's nhair and xgen, right?
regarding collision thing fxhair also provide option for self collision http://www.fxgear.net/en/technology/vfx/fxhair.php but anyway this is a expensive effect.
I was using it mostly for hairstyles like the ones shown in the examples (medium length)
For fur it should be ok to use too but the default settings are quite high, you could try lower segment count/number of looked up guides these settings have the biggest impact on speed.
An issue might be that it relies on UV's to get the flow direction (it works without uvs too but you need a higher number of guides in that mode). So what might come up when you're doing fur models is that you have discontinuities on the UV island borders.
(added a demo scene fr fur in post #1)
i saw you use an uv help, and i checked it's made the strands flow to normal direction of emiter and relaxing also. This is a reason you using that, right?
you can see on my video below when i plug the uv helper in a yellow hair it make some strand flip into another direction. I don't know why it happen (right now i'm not go in deep to you compound yet but quite interesting things happen in there :ymblushing: )
Regarding simulation, i also make a little test by combine with "Malena" and it's also give me interesting result so far. Addition, how i can using "external guide cloud" ( this one i think you mention it's only for simulation ) it's only act like a deformer and not change my hair grooming right?
thank for your attention! :)

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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 20 Feb 2016, 14:45

Looks trippy, nice. Thanks for checking out the tool btw!

>>>this is only maya's nhair and xgen, right?
Yes

>>>regarding collision thing fxhair also provide option for self collision http://www.fxgear.net/en/technology/vfx/fxhair.php but anyway this is a expensive effect.
Wasn't aware of that, results look quite good. I hope this will make it into a commercial product some day ^:)^ .

>>>>i saw you use an uv help, and i checked it's made the strands flow to normal direction of emiter and relaxing also. This is a reason you using that, right?
Yes it works similar to the bendy horse I saw on your vimeo page. This way you need less guides because the interpolated hair follows the surface more closely.

>>>>you can see on my video below when i plug the uv helper in a yellow hair it make some strand flip into another direction.
I noticed that too, posted an update (1.52) to fix that. Never found what caused it but rearranging something in a set data node seems to have done it :-ss

>>>>>Addition, how i can using "external guide cloud" ( this one i think you mention it's only for simulation ) it's only act like a deformer and not change my hair grooming right?
External guide cloud is a guide source, like a curve group. You would simulate the guides and plug it into the "external guide cloud" input. You can then interpolate more stands from the simulated cloud (I added a simulation demo see post#1 plus a little fix so the compound doesn't go red (1.52)

It wouldn't work inside one cloud because you can't emit points anymore after simulation
___
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

anhungxadieu
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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by anhungxadieu » 21 Feb 2016, 06:18

hi rray,
sorry if i asking to much here, if you don't mind :ymblushing:

-What if my emitter is curve or a point cloud it's possible right? but it's not what you compound focus on, i think you more focus on realistic. But what i try to do is make it more flexible grooming tool so that i can use it for stylist hair also (i mean a anime hair maybe ;) ).

-i also saw you are using relax particle to make it's distribute uniform. Is this a fastest way or a only way to blending between random to uniform?

-regarding your simulation scene, is there a way to plug a simulation point cloud only work to deform a groomed point cloud? (well because i saw it work like a guide so that i need to grooming it first and plug to interpolated point cloud)

so i think your compound is flexible in the way you design it.
Thank for your time!

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Re: groomtools - hair layering compounds

Post by rray » 21 Feb 2016, 13:56

Hi
>>>>sorry if i asking to much here, if you don't mind
no worries it's actually helpful, it's mostly small fixes that prevent the compound from doing more things it could do.

>>>>>What if my emitter is curve or a point cloud it's possible right? but it's not what you compound focus on, i think you more focus on realistic.
Shouldn't be a problem to use an existing PC (no emitter) or curve as emitter if you don't use uv mode - I'll have a look into the compounds later if there are some blockages

>>>Is this a fastest way or a only way to blending between random to uniform?
not sure if there is a faster way to get even distribution, I didn't find one - if it's too slow for you to use, usually if the emit is in a separate ICE tree it won't get evaluated again if none of its inputs change. If this doesn't work try rebuilding (copy/paste ICE nodes) into a new pointcloud (sometimes ICE gets confused)

>>> is there a way to plug a simulation point cloud only work to deform a groomed point cloud?
You mean something like a hull/wrap deformer but using strands instead of geometry as the deformer? That's not what it does - this would require a whole new compound
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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