To Hair or Not To Hair

[fae_alba]

So I've been working on the main character for my first short, an old man with a long beard. I've been avidly following the recent threads on hair, and have wanted to use hair for this guys beard and mustache. I really wanted the hair quality, but the overhead of experimenting with the hair emitter, and rendering has me questioning if I should use hair or geometry to create the beard. So if using geometry how would I go about creating a beard that at least looks close?

 

Below is a sketch of the target "look" and the current model with a geometry mock-up for the beard.

 

 

The biggest issue is the ability to work the beard in such poses as in the sketch, as well as being able to animate it.

[jason1025]

try the hair for fun. But that looks acceptable.

[John Bigboote]

You could use BOTH! (have short hair emitting from that beard-base and groom it down)

 

If you use solid modeled hair...you could use a dynamic constraint to get secondary motion...however- collision detection with the DC is tough.

Particle hair looks more real, but there IS additional effort with it.

 

IT'S TOTALLY UP TO YOU.

[Hutch]

I think probably the best is some hybrid like Matt suggests. I don't have much experience with hair and what I have done so far has been tedious experimentation. I don't see any good way to put a hair beard into a pose like your drawing shows. But if you keep what you have, add some bones and dynamic constraints you should be able to control it pretty well. Then you could add hair just to get it to look more like a beard.

[fae_alba]

You could use BOTH! (have short hair emitting from that beard-base and groom it down)

 

 

IT'S TOTALLY UP TO YOU.

 

You know I've had that thought..It might just be worth playing with for a few days.

[HomeSlice]

If you end up rigging the beard geometry with Dynamic constraints, there is a way to have a controller at the end of the beard so you can have more control of it. Instruction on how to do that are in this tut.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29914

[fae_alba]

If you end up rigging the beard geometry with Dynamic constraints, there is a way to have a controller at the end of the beard so you can have more control of it. Instruction on how to do that are in this tut.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29914

 

Trust me, I've already studied your tutorial on dynamic constraints (thanks a lot for doing it!) and it was based on the knowledge culled from your tut that put the geometry idea in my tired old brain pan as viable in the first place...so perhaps tonight I rig it up and give it a try...

[arkaos]

First of all, Great looking model ;-).

 

You could also use a flat strip geometry and use a hair decal with transparency map. With a single sided strip, you could easily use cloth dynamics to add some cool realistic motion without taxing your processor too much.

 

Either way, for a pointy beard like that, geometry of some kind is the way to go.

 

I urge you, however, to not be too intimidated of particle hair for other uses, because it is awesome in A:M.

 

Using actual hair can really bog down your system if you do not use it properly, but can yield spectacular results. I love hair.

If you want to go this route, following this workflow usually works great for me:

 

1. set up hair on character and groom and color until desired look is achieved.

2. you can tweak the dynamic settings in a separate proj. file in chor or action

to get the desired amount of motion during anim. Copy dynamic settings for use in main project.

3. In main project, set the dynamic settings, then turn off display for hair/particles. This way A:M

will ignore the hair and not kill your system during your primary keyframing.

4. When you are ready for final render, turn on the hair and solve the dynamics. Turn hair/particles on for final render.

[fae_alba]

If you end up rigging the beard geometry with Dynamic constraints, there is a way to have a controller at the end of the beard so you can have more control of it. Instruction on how to do that are in this tut.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29914

 

So I've rigged poor Thom up with a beard mock up, added dynamics so i get a nice lazy sway side to side. But when Thom gets excited and jumps up and down, the beard stays still. So I'm wondering, does this kind of action require the null as well as the dynamics?

[HomeSlice]

If you want to be able to control the beard and drape it over the shoulder and such, then you will have to animate the control null at the end whenever you want the beard to move.

If you want the beard to bounce and sway on its own whenever you move the character, but not have much control over it, then as far as i know, you can't have a "Target" for the dynamic constraint (The control null).

[fae_alba]

If you want to be able to control the beard and drape it over the shoulder and such, then you will have to animate the control null at the end whenever you want the beard to move.

If you want the beard to bounce and sway on its own whenever you move the character, but not have much control over it, then as far as i know, you can't have a "Target" for the dynamic constraint (The control null).

 

So that begs the question: is it possible to turn the control null constraint on and off with a pose so that a model can enjoy the best of both worlds? Sounds like an experiment is in order.

[fae_alba]

Right, so something aint right. With a new model, I added to on/off poses, one for a dynamic pose, the second with the target null. My thought was that I could turn off the null pose and get the nice dynamic swing action, then if I wanted the beard to do something else (like hang it over the shoulder) turn the dynamic pose off and the target null on. To test I created a chor, dragged the beard into it, turned off the null pose, the other on. Moved the beard around over time, then simulated sprind systems. While the simulation was running the beard danced a merry jig, but when I scrub the chor, no swing or sway happens. Then, if I switch the poses, and try using the null target, nothing happens either, sort of like the end beard bone wasn't targeted to the null.

 

It would seem that these two methods of dynamic poses are mutually exclusive, and to get the best of both worlds I would need to set up two separate beards/models to get the desired effects. Any thoughts?