ZBrush FiberMesh to strands compound

[Mathaeus]

So here is setup "from any strand", able to hold some of kH modifiers. Most of them should work, at least on 'guides'. Best chance is for "kH Cut By Geo Volume", "kH Hair Length", "Kh Grouping". "Kh Curls" , "kh Bend", "kH Turbulence local" and so on, will do something relative to re-construction of strand up vector. Anything with "chunk" in name, will do nothing useful.

"Clump" and "locks" are built in hair filler, on second point cloud.

Method for re-creating up vectors is some kind of direction constraint, using strand tangent and emitter's point normal, all that in local orientation, defined by first tangent and point normal. It flips at higher angles ( let's say, strand tangent is out of hemisphere defined by point normal, or like...), it also flips when tangent is parallel to point normal. Some flipping proof solution would be walking through strand, like in mesh extrusion nodes in newer SI versions. But this is still "smooth flip", imho not so usable ( nice words....) for complex styling. For comparison, NURBs surface always provides even visual feedback of "up" and "down".

Hair filler on second point cloud is adaptation of factory one - with additional ability to create hair interpolation groups (similar to ones in XSI hair), but this time based on angle between first tangents on guides. It searching for more than three closest guides, choosing the ones with lowest angle, relative to closest one. Btw I don't know what zBrush is doing about, I think it should have something similar.

For now, nothing smart when it comes to movement of all that. Generally, in some classic ICE "pairs" setup, I'd try to store deltas of second guides and second "faked emitter" in "init hair filler" on guides, then just call and apply them in hair filler. This should prevent searching for closest guides in animation - when emitter is deformed, there's a good chance for different set of closest guides.

good luck

[rray]

Thanks for that. Brilliant. Will need some time to process and hopefully be able to report back with some pics.

[rray]

Works nicely .. although long hair with fibermesh still is quite a pain..

[wayfarer]

i use ice strands as a hair from zbrush fibermesh, but strands thickness increase as it's far away from world origin, what should i do? it's make me crazy and i can't find anything useful, thank you

[neuk]

So here is setup "from any strand", able to hold some of kH modifiers. Most of them should work, at least on 'guides'. Best chance is for "kH Cut By Geo Volume", "kH Hair Length", "Kh Grouping". "Kh Curls" , "kh Bend", "kH Turbulence local" and so on, will do something relative to re-construction of strand up vector. Anything with "chunk" in name, will do nothing useful.

"Clump" and "locks" are built in hair filler, on second point cloud.

Method for re-creating up vectors is some kind of direction constraint, using strand tangent and emitter's point normal, all that in local orientation, defined by first tangent and point normal. It flips at higher angles ( let's say, strand tangent is out of hemisphere defined by point normal, or like...), it also flips when tangent is parallel to point normal. Some flipping proof solution would be walking through strand, like in mesh extrusion nodes in newer SI versions. But this is still "smooth flip", imho not so usable ( nice words....) for complex styling. For comparison, NURBs surface always provides even visual feedback of "up" and "down".

Hair filler on second point cloud is adaptation of factory one - with additional ability to create hair interpolation groups (similar to ones in XSI hair), but this time based on angle between first tangents on guides. It searching for more than three closest guides, choosing the ones with lowest angle, relative to closest one. Btw I don't know what zBrush is doing about, I think it should have something similar.

For now, nothing smart when it comes to movement of all that. Generally, in some classic ICE "pairs" setup, I'd try to store deltas of second guides and second "faked emitter" in "init hair filler" on guides, then just call and apply them in hair filler. This should prevent searching for closest guides in animation - when emitter is deformed, there's a good chance for different set of closest guides.

good luck

wow, my hat goes off to you, just got this in working in a scene i have been having some trouble with for a long time, and it looks like my life is going to get a lot easier now. Seriously great work.