Character Hair Redo
These two pictures below are my hair style references.I believe hair provides immense emotional value throughout the animation, particularly the visual impact created when hair and clothing billow in the wind. This impact effectively conveys both the emotional turmoil within a character and their helplessness and despair in a given situation.
Science I done my Character modeling, I’m not very satisfied with character’s hair style. Because in my FMP, there will be many shot as the wind blows by, so I want my character’s hair to flow in the wind. I wish my character’s hair were in strands, but when I try to give the original one textures, I find it difficult to achieve this effect. The hairstyle i used to have was polygon, there is no openwork effect whatsoever. So I decided to redo the character’s hair using a different method.
I compared several popular hair-making methods.
First is the approach I use: modelling the hair in ZBrush or Maya, then painting individual strands in Substance Painter. While this method is fast, its drawbacks are also quite obvious,The overall style is too cartoonish, which tends to make the animation lean toward humor. However, the content I want to convey has a more somber tone, so this approach doesn’t work for my scenes.
The second method involves using Xgen entirely within Maya to create hair. This approach can generate extremely detailed hair and also allows for interaction with nhair. However, its style leans more toward realism, making it difficult to unify the hair with the character’s facial style.
The third method involves first creating some polygon patches in Maya, then painting individual strands of hair in Substance Painter. Each patch will represent a distinct hair strand, and finally, like planting vegetation, each strand is positioned at different locations on the head. This approach is also the preferred method for most game production teams today. This style perfectly complements my character’s aesthetic, features realistic hair details, and integrates seamlessly with Maya’s nhair for dynamic simulations.
So I decided to use the third method to recreate the character’s hair.
Hair Production Process
- Created some planes in Maya.
2. Search online for some transparent hair materials, import them into Maya, and map each one to a corresponding plane I’ve created. This way, I’ll have several different hair shapes.
3. I wrap the character’s head with large sections of hair to create the innermost layer. This effectively prevents the character’s scalp from being visible through gaps in the hair.
4. Proceed with creating the outer layer of hair by placing each distinct strand onto the head, then making subtle adjustments.
5. Finally, I made adjustments to the hair’s shape and details. While I generally avoid excessive embellishment of a character’s appearance, hair serves as a crucial medium for conveying the overall emotional tone of the animation. Therefore, I applied stylized modifications to the hair, following the same directional adjustments as the character’s skin. Within reasonable limits, I emphasized the character’s helplessness.
Eyes Texturing
Regarding the eye style, I also put some thought into selecting the eye texture that best complements the overall animation style. My reference was Elsa from Frozen.
Final version of character modelling
This is the final version of my character in Unreal.