Carrara Hair

Samuel S.

Is it possible to export Hair from Carrara into 'obj' or 'fbx' format?

3DAGE

Carrara hair is a "rendering effect" based on dynamic strands,. which are based on dynamic guide hairs , 

as there's no real mesh geometry,. it's not something which would normally be exportable,.....however,.

Converting the hair information to a mesh ,. is possible,. but it would be a Static,. high poly mesh,. not dynamic, not simulated. which kind of defeats the purpose.

I suppose it would be possible to export a sequence of obj's,. but huge and unworkable.

Hope it helps :)

 

PhilW

Philemo's program which bridges between Carrara and VWD (available on another site) also includes a bonus which converts Carrara hair into an OBJ, with a couple of selectable settings (at least I think that is where it came from). I used it to produce this version of my Paige Hair product, which was converted into an OBJ, loaded into DS, textured and rendered there. I think he said that it was a beta version but you can clearly get workable results from it.

WendyLuvsCatz

well thats news to me

not looked

PhilW

Menu - Edit/Philemo (it's at the bottom of my edit menu list)

Samuel S.

PhilW said:

Philemo's program which bridges between Carrara and VWD (available on another site) also includes a bonus which converts Carrara hair into an OBJ, with a couple of selectable settings (at least I think that is where it came from). I used it to produce this version of my Paige Hair product, which was converted into an OBJ, loaded into DS, textured and rendered there. I think he said that it was a beta version but you can clearly get workable results from it.

Awesome and Much Thanks.

Headwax

PhilW said:

Menu - Edit/Philemo (it's at the bottom of my edit menu list)

thanks PhilW

 

Samuel S.

I also noticed that Digital Carvers Guild's Anything Grows  plugin can also create hair; and modified or deformed object with hair/fur then can be converted into Vertex Model. 

Samuel S.

3DAGE said:

Carrara hair is a "rendering effect" based on dynamic strands,. which are based on dynamic guide hairs , 

as there's no real mesh geometry,. it's not something which would normally be exportable,.....however,.

Converting the hair information to a mesh ,. is possible,. but it would be a Static,. high poly mesh,. not dynamic, not simulated. which kind of defeats the purpose.

I suppose it would be possible to export a sequence of obj's,. but huge and unworkable.

Hope it helps :)

 

Thanks, I noticed same thing with some other expensive 3D packages too. I will try Phil's suggestion as well.

Samuel S.

PhilW said:

Menu - Edit/Philemo (it's at the bottom of my edit menu list)

Do I need to have VWD software to use Philemo's plugin for exporting hair as obj?

Philemo_Carrara

I Samuel said:

PhilW said:

Menu - Edit/Philemo (it's at the bottom of my edit menu list)

Do I need to have VWD software to use Philemo's plugin for exporting hair as obj?

No, you don't have to, but you're missing something :-)

Mind you, it was just a bonus. No sure it's up to commercial quality.

Philemo_Carrara

Don't buy the bridge just for that bonus if you can wait a fortnight.

I'll move the code to the CTS project.

SileneUK

Wow... that could be useful. I am trying to find the direct link... in the CTS project. Can you PM it to me?  I have the Planar thingy already and love it!  Silene

WendyLuvsCatz

thank you Philemo 

(now goes to try it out) 

3DAGE

Thanks, I noticed same thing with some other expensive 3D packages too

Hair systems all use a similar method of generating hairs (at render time), and simulating hair dynamics during animations,. based on a few dynamic guides,. rather than thousands of individual strands.

it makes a lot of sense.

Note:  both of these "features" are lost completely by converting to a static mesh object,. ....which defeats the purpose of using dynamic hair (IMO)

while it is possible to convert dynamic hair to a static mesh,. there are obvious disadvantages.

It's worth noting that VWD does Cloth and Hair.

it can take a static clothing figure,. or a static Hair figure,. and add dynamics to those.

so,. You could make a conforming Hair "model" dynamic,. which doesn't require conversion to a strand based poly model with millions of polys.

that would also seem to be more workable in scenes with anything more than a single figure

Hope it helps :)

Philemo_Carrara

SileneUK said:

Wow... that could be useful. I am trying to find the direct link... in the CTS project. Can you PM it to me?  I have the Planar thingy already and love it!  Silene

Not yet there, in a fortnight at the soonest.

 

PhilW

Just a few notes on this plugin - I seem to have started something here!

- It works from the number of hairs currently displayed, so you want this to be a relatively low percentage (I've been using 2-3% displayed on some recent conversions);

- It produces flat strips of polygons for which you can define the width, one strip for each displayed hair - so by mapping the strips with multiple hair strands, you can get back to the original density of the hair, without needing the huge amount of polys that you would need to model each individual strand;

- It generally seems to work well, but I have had the odd occasion that the model seems to miss parts of the original hair. Also it appears that you can only run it once - if you try again, it produces an empty model, so you need to close the scene and re-open in order to produce multiple models;

- Starting with the same hair model, you can do things such as cut the hair, lengthen it, brush it, etc. and the model that is produced from the modified hair can be used as a morph target for the original hair - this is potentially really useful as you can produce a range of style and movement morphs for a given hair model.

A huge Thank You to Philemo for this addition - it is really useful to have and I can't thank you enough!

WendyLuvsCatz

yes been playing with it, is truely awesome and vertically UV mapped which is always good for hair props

interesting about the morph target info Phil, thats something Poser convered hair amd LAMH hairmesh cannot do though Zbrush hairs can.

3DAGE

Thanks for the explanation Phil :)

looks like i should explore this,. as it sounds more usefull than i originally thought,. .. fibermesh type hair

PhilW

Screenshot of the type of mesh produced. By adjusting the number and width of the strips, you can get a mesh that will meet your needs. Each strip has the usual vertical UV mapping so it is pretty standard to texture it.

WendyLuvsCatz

My first go in DAZ studio rendered with iray

Philemo_Carrara

th3Digit said:

My first go in DAZ studio rendered with iray

Wendy,

I'm always amazed how fast you go from idea to render

Philemo_Carrara

PhilW said:

Just a few notes on this plugin - I seem to have started something here!

- It works from the number of hairs currently displayed, so you want this to be a relatively low percentage (I've been using 2-3% displayed on some recent conversions);

- It produces flat strips of polygons for which you can define the width, one strip for each displayed hair - so by mapping the strips with multiple hair strands, you can get back to the original density of the hair, without needing the huge amount of polys that you would need to model each individual strand;

- It generally seems to work well, but I have had the odd occasion that the model seems to miss parts of the original hair. Also it appears that you can only run it once - if you try again, it produces an empty model, so you need to close the scene and re-open in order to produce multiple models;

- Starting with the same hair model, you can do things such as cut the hair, lengthen it, brush it, etc. and the model that is produced from the modified hair can be used as a morph target for the original hair - this is potentially really useful as you can produce a range of style and movement morphs for a given hair model.

A huge Thank You to Philemo for this addition - it is really useful to have and I can't thank you enough!

Phil,

Thank you for noting that it can produce morphs. I didn't think about it, but it's true it opens new perspectives.

I programmed that plugin because I wanted to animate hair in VWD (that's why it was set as a bonus for the bridge).

But, if you can create morphs, one may actually use it to produce conformable hair, which add new content creator capabilities to Carrara.

I'll have a look at the issues you're stating. I think the fact it can run only one is just because the original hai is hidden and thus has no renderable hair to work with. If you rename the previously generated hair and unhide the dynamic hair, it should work.

PhilW

I'm just glad to have somehting that we can work with, and the issues are minor inconveniences rather than big problems - so only look into them if you really want to - it is a useful and valuable tool as it is!

WendyLuvsCatz

Phil is  now furiously making DAZ studio versions of his hair 

WendyLuvsCatz

the ponytail that comes with the Carrara content in DAZ studio

I made it 0.02 thick as wanted induvidual strands

Philemo_Carrara

th3Digit said:

the ponytail that comes with the Carrara content in DAZ studio

I made it 0.02 thick as wanted induvidual strands

Very nice Wendy. It would be almost perfect if the shader had an alpha map ending the strand in individual hair. There should be something like 5 individual hair in a 0.02 inches strand

 

SileneUK

Darn... will try to be patient till I can have it!  This would be great for doing my clothing so it can be permanently furred!  Silene

PhilW

th3Digit said:

Phil is  now furiously making DAZ studio versions of his hair 

I wouldn't say furiously...

Stezza

in between overs whilst watching Root bat I bet 

 

2 weeks .... mmmm.. I can live with that 

Stezza

SileneUK said:

Darn... will try to be patient till I can have it!  This would be great for doing my clothing so it can be permanently furred!  Silene

was thinking same... but for my wombat