Dog model

[johnzsigo]

I'm working on a Australian Shepherd model and I'm trying to add hair to the model but I'm wondering is there an easy way to control the hair color? The hair lengths isn't right yet either, but that is such a tedious task to adjust so I'm saving that for later.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong or leaving out an option, but I can control the color of the hair either by:

1.) Model Surface patch color.

2.) Surface color of the hair material.

3.) A image in the Hair material.

 

I was hope was that if I decaled the surface with colors I wanted, those colors would translate to the hair color but that doesn't seem to be the case. A bunch of decals with alphas channels to blend would have made it a heck of a lot easier.

 

Currently now I'm using 3 groups for the hair the head, Body and feet. They all have their own shortcut to the same hair material. This was easier for starting on hair length adjustments for me.

 

Any suggestions on techniques used for coloring hair would be welcome. As for the model there are some oppurtunities there as well, but I'm more concerned with the hair coloring. I've included a picture of my dog that I'm using as the model. Getting a method that would allow me to get predictable change in coat color is what I'm after.

 

My WIP:

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/Dog.jpg

 

My Dog I'm modeling the WIP after:

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/SydSide.jpg

 

--jjzsigo

[jamagica]

Looks pretty good so far...looks a bit too puffy though

[higginsdj]

Or a decal on the surface - Yes - in decal you have to choose 'Other' in type. - there is a tute on Colin Freemans site I believe (and I think Yves Poissant may have one to).

 

Australian Sheperd - never heard of it. Looks like a Border Collie cross something but the grey hair colour is throwing me off. But - the model looks very good. Different angles and a wireframe view would be most helpful.

 

Cheers

[NancyGormezano]

You can very definitely use decals to control the color of hair (as well as length):

 

1) apply decal

2) under images section for the decal, where type is defaulted to color, change the type to Other

3) then under properties driven, rt click - select add property

4) choose diffuse color

 

hair on the patches where the decal has been applied will take on the color of the decal

 

Search for my fwuffy in wip - thats how I did it - and I also used decals for length of hair, along with an image for the hair emitter - which gets colored by the decal as well

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...indpost&p=77638

 

How to use hair in the documentation online also discusses this

[cfree68f]

David.. never heard of an Australian Sheppard? Isn't that close to the pot calling..... Oh nevermind. Great dogs. We had one named Sheeba.. one of the smartest sweetest dogs I've ever met.

 

Anyway about that hair.

 

I'd make th hairs much thicker.. to mimic the clumpiness of the Australian sheppards fur. Then Texture the hairs with a map that looks like finer hairs.. you can even use maps with an alpha and it will look like lots of hairs but be clumped up. The you can use a Color map to get the different colors of the fur.

 

Good start though.

 

C

[cfree68f]

I took a stab at it.. heres what I came up with. Could be tweeked allot more.

 

 

heres the project if you want it.

 

http://www.colins-loft.net/free/AustralianSheppard.prj

 

C

[luckbat]

What are you doing? Don't let a tribble in here! They'll fill up the forum within hours!

 

They're born pregnant, you know.

[johnzsigo]

Thanks for the info everyone on how to use the decals to drive the color...

 

Their closet relative is the border collie. Two things that make them a little different: Aussies don't have tails and they aren't as hyper as a border. Their heritige is that of sheep herders but my two only herd the couch. (aka they just sit on the couch all day).

 

I'll include a wireframe after I get back from work tonight...

 

--jjzsigo

[johnzsigo]

I've put a image of the wireframe @

 

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/wireframe.jpg

 

--jjzsigo

[johnzsigo]

cfree68f,

 

could you a post a link or email me the hair.tga from your project you posted above?

 

Thanks alot again for the sample!!

 

--jjzsigo

johnjzsigo@hotmail.com

[cfree68f]

They're born pregnant, you know.

 

lol.. and they eat air.

 

Sorry, John.. I forgot to include that. I'll post it in the folder with the other files.

 

C

[cfree68f]

Here ja go mon!

 

http://www.colins-loft.net/free/hair.tga

 

C

[johnzsigo]

Thanks for the file!!

 

I was checking out your website last night and the Hairbrush paint program looks interesting...

 

--jjzsigo

[cfree68f]

yeah it would still work. But I like the new grooming tools better. I wonder if you could use both. use a direction map to start the hair direction and then groom to get it just right. Might be usefull for stiffer hair.

 

C

[johnzsigo]

Update...

 

I added the color and did some more brushing and length changing, but I still don't like how the hair looks currently. I've tried chaning the thickness, density, length.... But so far I haven't found a mix that seems right.

 

While sort of on the topic of texturing and coloring, this was the first time I used the UV editor... What a time saver.

 

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/AussieWIP2.jpg

 

--jjzsigo

[higginsdj]

Yes - the colouring is nice but it looks like a flat gouache painting - particularly around the head. There's a distinct lack of shadow and sheen to the coat. Not sure how to fix that but it could very well be just the lighting!

 

Cheers

[Zaryin]

Yeah something need to be done with that painting look. Do you have shadows on? Also, try changing the spec size and intensity. Otherwise, it's looking great.

[johnzsigo]

Last update before I take a break from this model...

 

I redid the hair... again. This time most of the length adjustments are done via a image driving the length. Doing all of the length adjustments before by hand with the length tool got a little out of control. I also changed the density and thickness yet again and increased the ambience to around 20%. The ambience I think might be too high now, but I think I can live with it for the time being.

 

Other things I did was adjust the models ear shape since it wasn't right and lessened the size of the rear (too big before).

 

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/dog020705.jpg

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/dogWF.jpg

 

--jjzsigo

[NancyGormezano]

I was using an image emitter so it may be different for you, but I found that the ambience setting & ambience color for my model (or groups with hair) in combination with the brightness property for the emitter would produce that washed out flat & gouache look -

 

Since I don't really understand how they interact but... For an experiment try ambiance color set to black (or intensity to 0), and brightness of the emitter to 100% - The hair color then (in the modeling window) should probably look the closest to what you are using for your decal driving the color - work from there with different combos...

 

I usually always do fakey stuff, so I usually want my fakey hue, saturation, intensity for the hair... shadows will also make it look darker (if you haven't found that out by now)

[NancyGormezano]

One other trick I use - may not be appropriate for you - but since I use an emitter most of the time - I usually shade my emitter from dark to light so that I don't have to use shadows & yet I can get variations of intensity along the length of the hair - sample emitter attached: (purple background is just so you can see shape - and I use a tga file so that I can have a proper alpha).

 

(ooops - just noticed that hair color of puppy is very close to the decal color - Sorry to post this info - if it's not relevant or you already know this)

Edited February 7, 2005 by NancyGormezano

[johnzsigo]

Thanks for the information about the ambience combination from the surface and the emitter. I'll play around with the model again later.

[cfree68f]

Jonhzigo,

 

 

Your renders are coming across very bright.. As if your gamma settings are too high or your monitors brightness is set too low. There isnt much ambient darness in the pictures at all. Not sure how to set it right. Check your monitor settings. What is your light setup like in the chor. Can you post a screen cap of that? The dog is looking great, but without specular hilights and some shadowing.. it does look like a painting.

 

C

[Mr. Jaqe]

Colin, for some reason your avatar is...three/four different avatars, 1 pr post. Odd. Anyways, the dogg looks good, nothing I can see to critizise

[johnzsigo]

Colin I believe you are right about my monitor settings possibly being a little darker than the norm. I think I noticed that before when I was remastering some video footage on my machine. I did a little brightening of the video and when I rendered it to a dvd I found it was a little too bright for my taste of the tv screen.

 

With this AM project I found I had the ambience jacked up to 40% white for the hair on the dog and also 40 for the ground. The main light was pretty bright and very close to the objects in the scene too. The diffuse color falloff was set to 0 which also added to the washed out look.

 

I've included one last render to show the changes I made which include the ambience lowered, diffuse color falloff upped, and lighting. I moved the main light farther away from the models so the edge of the light sphere is just above the them.

 

I'm going to play around with the 3 settings I mentioned above some more.

 

--jjzsigo

 

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~johnjzsigo/Dog/dog020905.jpg

[cfree68f]

there is your problem.

 

No ambience. Only light emitting objects would have ambience.

 

You could use it to do things with the toon renderer that give more shading options. But for a realistic pic.. If its not a light or something glowing.. No ambience.

 

C

[Rodney]

Bump... because Hair in Animation:Master is cool.