SWAM's New Groove
xyer0
Posts: 5,926
Since October SWAM has released hairs that have been must-buys for me. I've waited for someone else to start a discussion about this, but the closest we've come is questions about the model. What I like about SWAM's new hairs are the hairlines, scalp showing in the part, and body. I don't know what new inspiration occurred with her, but I hope SWAM keeps this groove throughout 2018. I would like a Hairline Height morph, though.
If you're a fan/customer, please let her know.
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Comments
Well, I don't know exactly how many of Swam's products I own, but the first one I bought (in 2006) was https://www.daz3d.com/ishoka-style-hair and I've been a fan ever since.
I own quite a few of SWAM's products - and many are really great. However several of the newer ones have looked too "mirrored", imo (including the one you highlighted).
I'm after as much realism as I can get with my art and the mirrored look can detract from that and break the realism. Maybe most other people don't even notice it, and if that's true, I'm glad (I want SWAM to be really successful and sell a lot of products). I just have to pass on the ones that are a bit too mirrored looking for my taste - which, sadly, are quite a few of the newer ones they've put out.
the problem i see is the quality of the hair does not match the quality of skin and clothing
and the hair i see here does not look good at all
may be for a comic render you could use it
but the face is much to realistic
so its a matter of matching
One of my favourite hairs is Taia; I also like that as a long hair it has bones.
That's my favourite long hair too. I use it so often that I'd even happily buy an updated G8 version.
I've started returning long hair that doesn't have bones too; it improves its usability considerably.
Hairline height morphs are essential! And longer hair needs bones, otherwise it is almost useless. I hate all these preset morphs; they are confusing (what the heck is, e.g., 'upper right what-you-may-call-it'?) and they never really work. AprilYSH is one of the few vendors who make excellent long hair - with bones! Her 'Reyna Hair', just to mention one, is how I like long hair. The late SAV was another one of those rare vendors.
Another thing I don't understand is why many vendors' hair products (like in xyer0's example) are looking so dull. Healthy and clean human hair is shiny, but they seem to do anything to avoid any form of glossiness. Why?
Although I own quite a bit of SWAM's hair products, I own them for the style, not necessarily for the quality. Too often I use this PA's hair in combination with another, but never really on its own, because on its own does not really look nice at all.
I have noticed OutofTouch's recent hair products to have improved considerably in the past year, with the latest, https://www.daz3d.com/linda-ponytail-hair-for-genesis-3-and-8-female-s, looking so much more realistic, still there is room for improvement. My main issue with OOT's hair products, while they are all great styles, is the lack of thickness, especially the back part of the hair, for those that are not worn up.
OOT’s hairs are considerably thicker than mine. I quite appreciate all the hair crafters but in keeping with the thread topic I’m going to give a cheer for SWAM. Danny Hair is one of the few hairs I’ve bought outright (instead of as part of a set).
I concur completely. What I did not mention is I buy Wolfie's textures for most hairs by SWAM, AprilYSH, ali, & Mairy/3Dream.
I have this same problem. Hair should never be exactly mirrored like that.
No wonder no one else said anything. I didn't notice the mirroring until you mentioned it. I have a problem with mirrored irises (which almost all vendors use) and eyebrows (which most vendors use), but I missed the glaring mirrored hair. Oops.
Most of his look OK to me for thickness, and dreamfarmer said so too. With his shader pack on other meshes sometimes it comes out too thin looking. Is that what you mean?
I'm not at all keen on the hairline of the style shown in the first post, but don't all the left and right adjustments help with the mirroring? I know hair isn't naturally symmetrical, but it's not unusual for it to be cut and even styled the same on both sides.
It does, especially if you make sure that the morphs for the different sides aren't identically set. Given that almost everything else except the skin texture is mirrored on the average DAZ figure, though, there's always going to be some unnatural symmetry going on unless you also alter the relative sizes of the arms, legs, breasts, jaw shape, eyes, etc., etc., etc...
As far as the general appearance of the hair goes... I think that's pretty much an "eye of the beholder/where have you got your lights and render settings placed" issue. Most hair that we see in professionally produced photos is much glossier than what we see in real life, and I think most PAs do their best to interpret between what looks natural, what looks like what people expect hair to look like when it's on a computer monitor, and how many different textures need to be loaded at one time. Sometimes the PA's call works out of the box, sometimes it doesn't, so my first solution when it doesn't is to simply have a couple of good hair shaders on hand (OOT, UHT2 and Lustrehair being my favorites) and tweak what the PA has done as much or as little as is needed to suit my eye and lighting. As far as the symmetry issue is concerned, if it really bugs you, you can always just go in and make an alternate version of the texture for the mirrored side using Photoshop and the puppet warp tool.
I don't see the problem with hair being symmetrical in its default shape. The hair always has enough included morphs to alter symmetry however you like. SWAM is usually pretty good about including a variety of morphs to play with. The reason is that you simply do not know the demands of the customers. What if the customer wants symmetry? It is much harder to dial in a shape to get symmetry than it is to take it away. This is not the same as having symmetrical eyebrows or skin, because those are much harder to change.
Besides, now that dforce exists, as does dforce Hair Master, it is possible (please note *possible*) to use dforce to simulate hair. Any previous symmetry will be wiped out.
I like SWAM hair because it usually renders faster. Sometimes much faster than other hairs. I will admit that some of them don't have great textures, but that is easily fixed with a variety of hair shaders that are available.
I do. Sorry you don't. Having sections of hair exactly mirroring each other looks bizarre. No, being able to morph some of them does not help, there are still strands of hair growing exactly out of the same place on the head.
No. The problem is the symmetry of the base hair. Regardless of whether it is morphed, it shows. Symmetrical base humans are fine because we are, actually, bilaterally symmetric. After morphing asymmetrically, there are still generally going to be two eyes, two ears, two mouth corners, two nostrils...you can tell that the base is symmetric, and this is normal.
Similarly, on this hair, even after morphing, you can tell that the base is symmetric, and it is not normal.
Seema hair is my favorite.
I appreciate how sorry you feel for me<.<
To say that humans have two eyes, ears, and so on is massively over simplifying things. While people do have these features, most of the human population is not so perfectly symmetrical. What happens is that many people perceive symmetry when looking at other people, even when they are not symmentrical. Its only when things are far off that people really notice asymmetry. So I find it odd that you give the models a pass on symmetry, but hair apparently really offends you. When it comes to hair, stylists often try to make hair as symmetrical as possible. Given that Daz3D caters to glam more than anything else, it only makes sense that many hairs try to achieve this perfection, just like the models themselves often do. If ultra realisim is your goal, I'm not sure why you are even here, because you simply aren't going to achieve that with Daz3D, not with a long flowing hair. You are talking about hair that is still transmapped much the same way it has been since the turn of the century. By its very nature, it is not going to look real unless there is a radical change in the hair technology itself. I've seen hair in video games that looks superior to Daz3D hair.
Here's a different swam here that is symmetrical at its base. Oh the horror. But it has about a dozen different morphs dedicated to different parts on each side, allowing you to make it more asymmetrical. It is just a quick render and pretty rough, but I think it shows the point.
Then I'm going to ask you to take the time to read my post, which is entirely about why it's good to start symmetric with things that normally start out symmetric (humans), and bad to start symmetric with things that normally don't (hair). A human having a crooked nose is asymmetry on top of a symmetric base. "Asymmetric" humans are still bilaterally symmetric.
And yes, the Selina hair still bugs me. When I tell you that my problem is with the symmetric base, and adding a bit of random morphs does not help, I don't know what you're hoping to accomplish by showing me a symmetric base with a bit of random morphs.
Sadly, I can still see the symmetry and it does bug me and just doesn't look natural - but I'm glad that many people do buy their hair and that it doesn't seem to bug them. I appreciate the PA as an artist and I only wish them lots of success. For me, personally though, I won't buy mirrored hairstyles as it's just too unnatural looking (again, just my opinion).
That's one of the older SWAM hairs that looks like a wig, which is why I prefer the newer hairs that show the scalp in the parting and at least attempt to appear as though they grow out of the scalp. But I seem to be in the minority.