Essential LightWave 3D- P19 pptx

Refining the Beard and Mustache Mustache hair tends to grow out from the philtrum the groove in the center of the upper lip, often leaving the middle without hair at all.. When you’re fi

12 Render this, and see how it looks (You

may want to add shadowing, so you can

see what you’re really getting, if you

intend to use it in the finished render

Fur can look very, very different withand without it.) If you’re reasonablyhappy with the results so far, it’s time

to refine it further

Refining the Beard and Mustache

Mustache hair tends to grow out from the

philtrum (the groove in the center of the

upper lip), often leaving the middle without

hair at all Since you can’t vary the combing

on a surface with SasLite, the only way to

achieve that is to separate the Mustache

surface from the Beard surface, and divide

it into two pieces So we’ll do just that

1 In Modeler, select the polys that form

the mustache and hide the rest (tap the

<=> key) Then select the half on the

positive X axis, and give it a new

sur-face, say lMustache Tap the <">

(<Shift> + <Quote>) key to invert

the selection, and name the other side

rMustache (These correspond to the

model’s right and left side, not yours.)

2 Return to Layout and open the ObjectProperties panel if you’ve closed it.Right-click on the line that says

SasLite Seen on Beard, and choose Copy from the drop-down menu that

appears Right-click again, and choose

Paste That will give you two identical

copies of the displacement

3 Open one of them and change the

Sur-face Name(s) to lMustache Leave

everything else the same, except forthe Comb X value Make it pretty high

(I used 80%, and also lowered the Comb Y value to 5%.)

Figure 20-32: Divide the surface into three — the beard and two halves of the

4 Click OK to close it, and use the copy/

paste trick again to make a copy of it

Change the parameters of the copy so

that it’s applied to the rMustache

sur-face, and put a minus sign in front of

the Combing value (for instance,

–80%) That will send the hairs along

the –X axis, or toward the right cheek,

and away from the center of the face

Render to see what you have now

5 If the break along the philtrum is too

pronounced, go back into Modeler,

select the points on either side of the

center line, and bring them closer to

the center You might also want to split

the mustache so it can conform better

to the shape of the lip (I used the Edge

tools to do that here.)

Figure 20-33: New values for the left half of the mustache.

Figure 20-34: The beard and mustache.

6 Keep refining and making test renders

until you have the beard and mustache

you are looking for Don’t be afraid to

add another couple of surfaces, blend

the density, put in streaks of a different

color, etc You can have up to eight

instances of SasLite in a scene (If you

want more, you can render your scene

in a couple of passes, and put them

together in post.)

7 For this beard, I added a BeardThin

surface on either side of the lower lip

(just a couple of very small polys) and a

BeardWhite surface to give him a

couple of gray streaks If you want to

dissect what I’ve done, you can go

through the SasLiteBeard.lwo file on

the CD in Objects\Chapter20 Each

step listed here corresponds to a layer

in the model

Figure 20-35: Modify the beard geometry further, if need be.

Figure 20-36: Finished beard.

8 When you’re finished, and it’s just what

you want, you can cut the beard polys,

if you desire, and paste them inside the

head (The SasLite displacements will

be on the “Beard” object, not the

“Head” object, so you’ll have to

copy/paste them to the head if you do

this.) The extra polys make it a bit

trickier to animate the head (you’ll

have to include them in your

endo-morphs), but if you can’t afford the full

version of Sasquatch, they will let you

add believable hair, beards, mustaches,

fur, etc., to your models

You can use the same principles anytime

you want to vary the length of SasLite

fibers If you want grass to grow higher onthe bank of a river, if you want a werewolf’sfur to bristle along his back, if you want tomodel a soldier with a crewcut — all youneed to do is make sub-surface polys, andpull them back for shorter fibers or pushthem toward the surface for longer ones.(Or, really, just get the full version, and do itthe easy way with maps and effectors.)You can do the same thing for eyebrows,eyelashes, and the hair on a character’shead, but there’s another way to accomplishthese effects that we have yet to explore.Instead of using subsurface fur patches, wecan use long hair guides, which are alsosupported, in a limited fashion, in SasLite

Creating Hair with Long Hair Guides

Long hair guides are two-point poly chains

(two-point polys that share a point with

another two-point poly) that direct the flow

of the fibers To work in SasLite (or

Sasquatch, for that matter), it’s necessary

for the point on the “root” end to have a

dif-ferent surface than the rest of the chain

(That’s how the plug-in determines which

end is which.) They are usually named

“Hair” and “Root” to keep things simple

SasLite will generate a lock of hair that

follows the general direction of the guide

The number of hairs in that lock, their

length, and how closely they follow the

guide is determined by the number and

placement of polys in the chain and the

set-tings in SasLite

Let’s start with the hair on his head

There are several methods to do this, the

“point” of all of them being to spend less

time creating the guides than it would take

to actually grow the hair

Making hair guides can be grueling, but

it doesn’t have to be The more control youwant or the more complex the hairstyle, themore guides you’ll need The process I’mabout to show you isn’t the easiest, but itwill show you a way to make a whole lot ofguides reasonably quickly, without usingany third-party plug-ins You won’t normallyneed quite this many, but just in case you

do, here’s a good way to get them

1 Begin by lassoing all the polys thatcould have hair growing from them

Then tap the <}> (right curly bracket)

key to Select Connected and get thenext ones, too (Because of the waythat subpatches work, the curvechanges when polys are abruptlyremoved By grabbing the polys next tothe ones that you actually want, youcan ensure that doesn’t affect the polysyou need.)

2 Paste those polys into a new layer For

this particular method, we’re going to

use a lot of points to grow hair guides

from, so tap <Ctrl> + <d> (or go to

Construct | Convert: Freeze) and

freeze the polys, which will make faces

from the “virtual” polys in the

subpatches Tap the <Tab> key to

subpatch those polys, and freeze again.(If you don’t think you need as manyguides, then you might want to freezeonly once, or change the Subpatch level(in either direction) before freezing.)

Figure 20-37: Select the scalp polys and the ones next to them.

3 We don’t need the polys, just the

points So tap <k> (or go to

Con-struct | Reduce: Remove | Remove

Polygons) to “kill” the polys That will

leave you with a bunch of points that

aren’t connected to anything Copy the

whole bunch and paste them into

another layer Now begin to lasso and

remove sections to form the actual

hairline As always, it helps if you have

a reference If you accidentally get too

many, you can grab them from the

pre-vious layer, and paste them in here

Just tap <m> to merge the points, so

you won’t have to worry about multiple

overlapping point problems Keep

going until you are happy with it

4 When you’re satisfied, tap <m> to

merge points (Even if you haven’t

cop-ied points from another layer it’s good

to do this just to be safe.) Then reduce

the size of the wig slightly so it fits

inside the scalp <H>, tap <J> (or Modify | Transform: Jitter), and jit-

ter the points a tiny bit so it looks morelike hair roots and less like transplants

Name this layer Roots (You can name

layers in the Layers window foundunder the Windows menu.) You candelete the points from the previouslayer now, if you feel so inclined, orsave them “just in case.”

5 We’re going to rail extrude thetwo-point polys, but right now, we’veonly got points Rail Extrude doesn’twork on points Therefore, we mustconvert our points into polygons Go to

the Create tab and click on Polygons: Points to Polys Give them the sur- face Root (<q>), copy the whole

thing, paste it into another layer, and

call it Hair Building Tap <q> again, and change the surface to Hair.

Figure 20-39: Trim the extra points away from the hairline (Original points shown in

background for clarity.)

6 Select the one-point polys around the

hairline, including a good portion of the

front, and place them into an empty

layer called Hairline We’re going to

style them more carefully in a few

minutes, but it’s easier if the bulk ofthe hair is done first (Depending onthe style of the hair, these points could

be along a part, just in the front, on theside, or wherever the scalp shows.)

Figure 20-40: The Roots layer, all ready to grow hair!

Figure 20-41: Put the Hairline in another layer for more careful treatment.

7 Open an empty layer, and put the Head

and Hair Building layers in the

back-ground Beginning at the center, or

where the part is, start to make a

series of spline curves (you can use

whichever of the Curve tools you are

most comfortable with)

8 We are going to use Rail Extrude to

extrude the one-point polys, which will

automatically make two-point poly

chains from them The spline curves

we just created are the rails the polys

will be extruded along

In SasLite, the actual hairs may appear to

be a little shorter than the hair guides, so

keep that in mind while you are making

them

9 Work from the hairline at the collar to

the front, so you can make each curve

slightly overlap the one below it This

will keep the hair falling naturally,

instead of having fibers diving under

the ones below

10 Make two to five curves, and thenbegin to copy/paste them, and movethem around the head, rotating so thatthey will follow the line you want thehair to have The more curves you use,the smoother the hair will be, but beaware that there are limits to howmany splines Rail Extrude can handlebefore it simply tells you there are toomany (If you reach those limits, youcan divide your hair into smaller sec-tions to extrude, of course.)

11 When you have enough to describe thebasic shape of the hair, somewherebetween 5 and 20 or so, depending onthe hairstyle, put the curves in thebackground, and the Hair Building

layer in the foreground Tap <Ctrl> +

<r> (or Multiply | Extend: Rail Extrude) to open the Rail Extrude:

Multiple panel

Figure 20-42: Begin to make curves to describe the bulk of the hair.

12 Choose to make Segments according to

Length, make them Uniform, and

choose around 5 or 6 segments (There

are limits to how many vertices

SasLite allows, and they add up

quickly.) Leave the Strength at 2, and disable both Oriented and Scaling.

13 Click OK, and you’ll have a bunch of

two-point poly hair guides! Name the

Figure 20-43: The head, with enough rails to describe the main hair mass.

Figure 20-44: The Rail Extrude: Multiple panel.

layer Wig We’ll be collecting the hair

here as we build it

Now, of course, there are things that can go

a little weird at this step

14 The most common problems are the

guides swirling in odd directions, piling

up in ridges, and/or leaving bald spots

when viewed against the head Most of

these are caused by the same thing —

not enough curves for the number of

one-point polys being extruded (I’ve

found that sometimes, for some reason,

you can also fix the swirling problem by

undoing and deleting the last point on

the curve So if you’re pretty sure

there are enough, you might want to

try that.)

To fix them, of course, either add some

curves, or extrude a fewer number of

one-point polys at once

15 If a lot of the hair is below the surface,

then your splines might be too close to

the head Undo, select all the points on

the spline except the endpoints, and

use the Size tool <H> to make it all

larger

16 Now, if you want to shape it as you go,which is easier from my point of view(but also requires more steps), cut thehair (That sounds like barber talk, but I

really mean to cut using the <Ctrl> +

<w>) and tap the <]> key (or go to View | Select: Select Connected) to

get the roots, as well Cut again, and

paste back into the Wig layer Now you

can tweak the hair to your heart’sdesire, without any fear of the guidesbecoming disassociated from theirroots Go ahead and do that, shaping ituntil you are happy with it The Magnettool works well for this, but of courseyou can use any tool you are comfort-able with

Figure 20-45: The bulk of the hair guides, made in a snap!

C h a p t e r 2 0 · · · ·

Figure 20-46: Ridges leaving bald spots, corrected by adding four curves.

Figure 20-47: If the splines are too close to the head, the guides will be inside it, not

outside.

18 Once you are happy with that part of

the hair, it’s time to work on the front

and the hairline This is done the same

way, except that you work on only a

small section at a time, which gives you

much better control and allows you to

style the hair with (relative) ease

By small, I mean small The trick is to keep

the sections to 20 or 30 of the one-point

polys at a time

If the portion of the hairstyle you’re

working on is symmetrical, select a group

from the Hairline layer in one of the Side

viewports (Right or Left) so you get bothsides, cut it, and paste it into an emptylayer Then make two or three splines, as ifyou were modeling the outermost hairs(and perhaps a middle hair) from that group.Mirror those splines across the X axis, andtweak the mirrored ones a tiny bit so it’snot too symmetrical (I use the Drag tool

(<Ctrl> + <t>) for that, because I’m a

control freak, but you might want to useJitter.)

19 Then Rail Extrude the points, usingmore segments if you can afford it Ifthey haven’t gone wonky (that’s a tech-nical term), put the guides and the head

in a foreground layer, and take a look Ifthey don’t penetrate anything theyshouldn’t (like the ears), and if they arestanding out from the scalp, move on tothe next step You don’t have to beexact, since you can style the sectionwith the Modify tools But the closeryou are, the easier that will be Justdon’t make yourself crazy with it

Figure 20-48: Styling the hair with the Magnet

tool.

Figure 20-49: Symmetrical groups of one-point polys and rails.

20 If the style isn’t symmetrical, it will

take a little longer, because you’ll have

to grab the one-point polys one group

at a time You might find, though, that

it’s still easier to copy the curves and

tweak them from group to group than it

is to build a whole new set of curves

Once again, I find it’s easiest to work from

back to front, with the finished hair piece

and the roots you are currently working

with in the background

Note

If you want to have the best, thickest hair you can have, then make sure you have more points at the tip than you do at the root, and extrude by knot, not length.

SasLite uses the placement of points on the guide when it determines how to “grow” the hair The more the points are concentrated

at the tip, the thicker and longer the hair will grow.

21 As you finish each section, if you areusing the style-as-you-go method, cut

it and paste it into the Roots layer, merge the points, select the Hair sur- face, Select Connected, and paste it back into the Hair Building layer.

Then, with that layer in the foregroundand the Wig in the background, tweakthe hair until you are satisfied with theshape (Don’t forget to add Minoxidil tomake the hair healthy and strong.*)Once it looks good, cut it again, andpaste it into the Wig layer As I men-tioned before, this method has moresteps, and may take more time, but for

me, it gives much better results (with alot less stress)

(* Don’t go looking for the Minoxidil ton It’s a joke! If you didn’t get it, take abreak, right now.)

Figure 20-50: Extruded guides, viewed against the head.

Figure 20-51: Making the rails for another section of

hair.

While you are styling, remember that

these are hair guides, not hairs Every one

of them will turn into multiple hairs when

it’s rendered with SasLite Complete

cover-age isn’t necessary, or even particularly

desirable It’s better to make hairs that are a

little offset, with an even amount of room

between them

22 If you aren’t using the style-as-you-go

method, then just cut each section as

you finish it, and paste it into the Wig

layer

23 Once a section is pasted into the Wig,

open the Hairline layer, cut the next section of roots, paste it into the Hair Building layer, and make curves for it.

(You might want to save all the curves,

or you might want to delete them It’s

up to you.)

Figure 20-52: Tweaking a section, working into the wig.

When you’re in the Wig layer, keep an eye

on the number of points you have

Remem-ber that SasLite will only allow 25,001 points

per object that has SasLite applied If you

exceed that number, you’re going to have to

break the wig into different layers Since

SasLite also allows only eight instances of the

plug-in per scene, you’ll need to keep the

total below that number unless you want to

render in multiple passes Think about how

many instances of SasLite you’re using for

eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, beard, mustache,

etc., when deciding if you can afford to run

over on the guides.

Figure 20-53: As each section is finished, select the next group of one-point polys.

Figure 20-54: Keep an eye on this number in the Wig layer, so you don’t exceed SasLite’s limit of 25,001.