{"id":3754,"date":"2014-09-09T18:43:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T22:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/?p=3754"},"modified":"2015-03-27T14:25:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T18:25:48","slug":"digital-hair-repurposing-a-procedural-grass-shader-for-a-buzz-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2014\/09\/09\/digital-hair-repurposing-a-procedural-grass-shader-for-a-buzz-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital hair: repurposing a procedural grass shader for a buzz cut"},"content":{"rendered":"

I shave my head about once a month, which means that my fine, straight hair cycles between essentially nonexistent and, at max, an inch long. Much to my irritation, I have not been able to find a digital representation of my even-all-over buzz cut.<\/p>\n

Enter Age of Armour and DimensionTheory’s Grass Shader for Daz Studio,<\/a> a recently released procedural shader. The average shader depends on various maps in jpg or png [transparency, bump, specular, normal, etc.], from which it then generates texture effects on a digital model. By contrast, a procedural shader like the AoA\/DT Grass Shader relies on a scripting language to calculate its effects. Maps may be used optionally to fine-tune the results of a procedural shader, but they are not necessary.<\/p>\n

The Grass Shader works by creating actual 3D grass blades [as opposed to a displacement effect on a flat surface]. Controllable effects include blade thickness, blade length, base color, tip color and clumping. Of course, I read the product description and immediately leapt to the conclusion that the Grass Shader would work equally well as a specialized type of hair shader, specifically for short and spiky ‘dos. At last — a buzz cut maker!<\/p>\n

To replicate my favorite hairstyle in digital, I started with a universal skull cap from PhilC’s Hair Designer. I morphed it and tweaked it until it fit the default G2F model. I planned to use the Grass Shader on the skullcap, so I ensured that it fit G2F’s head closely. I wanted to create a realistic semblance of hair growing directly out of her scalp.<\/p>\n

I then experimented with the shader settings to approximate my actual hair. I had little trouble determining an appropriate blade length, blade thickness and clumping strength, but I spent hours fiddling with diffuse color and translucency. At first I tried making the base colors brown and the tip colors blond, as this is how my hair appears with light shining through it, but I eventually realized that the translucency strength controls this effect, and there’s no need to make the diffuse channel do the work. I ended up making all base and tip colors the same flat brown that my hair appears when it’s lying on the floor after I’ve shaved it, and that achieved a more realistic result.<\/p>\n

I also experienced some difficulty in making the hair cover the model’s head. Yes, I know — a quick glance in the mirror clearly demonstrates that my scalp remains highly visible when my hair is buzzed quite short and, yes, it does look like I’m kind of bald. I wanted the effect of a full head of hair, however, so I made some geoshells of the skullcap and shaded them with the same settings as the original skullcap.
Behold — my digital buzz cut! The first render shows only one layer of shader hair: the skullcap. The second shows the skullcap + a geoshell layer of hair. The third shows the skullcap + 2 geoshell layers of hair.<\/p>\n


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This entry was originally posted at http:\/\/modernwizard.dreamwidth.org\/1677898.html<\/a>. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW<\/a> using OpenID.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shave my head about once a month, which means that my fine, straight hair cycles between essentially nonexistent and, at max, an inch long. Much to my irritation, I have not been able to find a digital representation of my even-all-over buzz cut. Enter Age of Armour and DimensionTheory’s Grass Shader for Daz Studio,… Continue reading Digital hair: repurposing a procedural grass shader for a buzz cut<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[674],"class_list":["post-3754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tutorial-digital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4205,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions\/4205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}