What's the deal with Daz3D hair?

[tanstaafl]

Started going through the learning process for Daz Studio and I just keep being reminded how funky Daz3D hair is compared to other engines. I'm almost forced to use pony tails for all female characters or their hair just seems...huge.

Any advice?

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I think posting a screenshot could help a bit.

 

[Alboe Interactive]

Having just gone through the process of swapping out a character's hair, I agree that Daz doesn't make things easier. First you have to somehow determine if the hair is high quality. On the Daz store this is nearly impossible because photoshop is allowed in promo pictures. So if you are interested in a hair asset but unsure how to evaluate before you buy... *cough*.

Some tips:

• Hair can be separated out into multiple pieces. The listing may not show up once added to the character (you have to click on the horizontal arrows to expand). Commonly, there is the hair model itself and a base layer or scalp. The scalp layer is what you need to adjust to fit the head if there is skin poking through on shorter hair styles. Otherwise all your length and coloring adjustments will done to the hair model itself. Additionally, some hair assets can come with a separate model with a few additional strands.
• Some hairs come with support for length, style, real colors, dyed colors, and highlights by default. Read the store description carefully to understand what you're getting.
• There are hair shaders out there if you want to change a hair model to a color it didn't have by default. You can change the color manually in the surfaces tab, but results will vary.
• Some hair models react funky with lighting. Usually the scene should be bright enough to avoid this but I haven't found a way to get rid of it entirely.
• If you want to make your own hair model there is a strand based hair editor in Daz. You'll need to watch a lot of tutorials and it will take some time to learn. This is why in a lot of Daz based VN's you see on this site will have the same hair styles popping up over and over again.
• If a hair supports dforce, that means you can use Daz's simulation engine to let the hair fall naturally onto the character or props. It's a pain in the ass to work with but it can give good results. As an alternative, some hair models come with several posing options to simulate the look of wind or gravity without dforce.

 

[Rich]

Some hairs come with support for length, style, real colors, dyed colors, and highlights by default. Read the store description carefully to understand what you're getting.

I happen to like many of "Outoftouch's" hairs. They tend to be fairly adjustable, but, in addition, he tends to repeat the same colors over and over. This means that you can have a character change hairstyle, but keep the same color. That can come in handy. In addition, OOT hairs just seem to be good quality, overall.

There are hair shaders out there if you want to change a hair model to a color it didn't have by default. You can change the color manually in the surfaces tab, but results will vary.

These can be REALLY hit or miss, because the shader has to make assumptions on the way the hair is constructed.

Some hair models react funky with lighting. Usually the scene should be bright enough to avoid this but I haven't found a way to get rid of it entirely.

Also, some hair models GREATLY increase rendering time, because they use lots of layers with transparency.

If you want to make your own hair model there is a strand based hair editor in Daz. You'll need to watch a lot of tutorials and it will take some time to learn. This is why in a lot of Daz based VN's you see on this site will have the same hair styles popping up over and over again.

This is definitely doable, but the issues are that there are very, very few good tutorials, plus then you have the problem of getting the hair to "re-lay" when the character rotates or bends their head. The vast majority of the people who make hairs for DS don't use this. Eyebrows, yes. Hairs, not so much.

The other problem with strand-based hair is that it generates a LOT of geometry, which increases rendering size and complexity.

If a hair supports dforce, that means you can use Daz's simulation engine to let the hair fall naturally onto the character or props. It's a pain in the ass to work with but it can give good results.

Main problem, in my experience, is that dForce hair HAS to be posed with dForce, which means several trial-and-error simulation passes on each individual image. So, if you're just looking to put out a couple of stills, yes, it can give some VERY realistic-looking results. But if you're banging out hundreds of images for a VN, you want to avoid dForce hair.

As an alternative, some hair models come with several posing options to simulate the look of wind or gravity without dforce.

Most of the better ones do. Again, OOT does a good job with this. There are a few other PA's that are pretty good in this respect as well.


One of the things you have to recognize is that hair is HARD! That's why so many animated movies don't use realistic hair. (Monster's Inc. was a real breakthru in CG hair - Sully's hair rippling in the wind was amazing, but took an entire team of people and some SERIOUS computing power just for that effect.) Things have come a long way, but it's still one of those Great Challenges of CG.