Best way to render hair?

rodo3d · August 09, 2014, 02:20:07 PM

Hi everybody!
I'm a digital sculptor and I recently discovered Keyshot for rendering my work.

It's amazing!

I was trying to play with various materials and settings in order to render realistic human beard and hair imported from Zbrush.
I've tried nylon, metal and translucent but actually the best results I'm getting from leather!

Do you guys have any tip?
Thanks!

TpwUK · August 09, 2014, 02:34:58 PM

I would go with a smooth shiny plastic base then change the colour map to a procedural colour blend, give it some scale etc and add some roughness to get that sheen right along with gradual tints of hair colour.

Martin

rodo3d · August 09, 2014, 02:42:43 PM

Thanks for the suggestions!

The only thing matter is that even a slightly high roughness will sort of interfere with the "smooth" look of the hair.
It's quite tricky

TpwUK · August 09, 2014, 10:08:13 PM

QuoteThe only thing matter is that even a slightly high roughness will sort of interfere with the "smooth" look of the hair.
It's quite tricky

I have only tried working with 'hair' in one project only, I plan more, but ZBrush has a difficult learning curve for me.

https://grabcad.com/library/alien-snail-1 is my result, there is BIP file there if you want to download it and have a look at the hair settings there.
The roughness of any material is pretty sensitive so a setting of 0.003 will kill that metallic shiny look and give it a realistic sheen and reflect ... Order of the day, play with the settings, you're not going to break with anything.

Martin

rodo3d · August 10, 2014, 08:55:11 AM

Thanks for the suggestion!

rodo3d · August 10, 2014, 09:39:16 AM

This is what I came up with.

Actually I may have to resculpt hair and beard in Zbrush

TpwUK · August 10, 2014, 10:11:46 PM

Looks like Santa, The head hair is looking really good to me, the eye brows and lashes need so more tweaking. The beard hair is too thin and whisky, as a beard wearer myself I can say that my facial hair is thicker and stiffer from my head hair (what i have left). My thinking here is that you will need at least three hair sub tools and then you won't be forced to try and make a one size fits all type of thing.

What you have is looking really good and i for one am looking forward to seeing more of this.

Martin

rodo3d · August 11, 2014, 02:12:31 PM

Thanks buddy.

It's actually 5 subtools of fibermesh beard.
The hair are 4 and the brows are 2.

The problem with the beard is I've used turbulence brush at a certain point which gives a segmented look, not natural.
I experimented long with different thicknesses but I may have to tweak it yes.

This is him without fur