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Help please - hair transparency driving me crazy in Superfly

AfroditeOhki

Member
Contributing Artist
I'm working on a hairstyle for Dawn, made entirely of one-sided polygon hair strips. It has a Hair material that's the bulk of the hair, and a HairThin material that's thinner strands over it all, and a Scalp material.



The thing is that the Hair material refuses to be transparent in Superfly.
I'm trying to make the textures, and got the Scalp done, so I was trying to make all the hair fully transparent to test the scalp, and this is what happens...

Now granted, I'm using a PoserSurface root on Superfly, but it's correctly transmapping the Scalp and rendering the HairThin completely transparent.

If I try making a Cycles shader instead, it renders the scalp correctly (Mix shader controlled by my alpha map, transparentBsdf on first Closure, diffuseBsdf on second Closure), and the ThinHair (just a transparentBsdf connected to the Surface in the CyclesRoot), but the Hair (same shader as the ThinHair) gets so black.


What am I seeing here? Is Superfly just rendering all the shadows as if the materials weren't transparent? Is there a way to force it to only render the shadows of the parts that should be visible?
 

phdubrov

Noteworthy
Contributing Artist
1. can I see the shader?
2. can I see the Render Settings? (may bee too low Transparent Bounces? )
 

Glitterati3D

Dances with Bees
Do you have EZSkin3? That will give you a good start to get your hair shaders set up to your liking for Superfly.

First, apply your Firefly materials like normal.

Then load up EZSkin3 with the hair selected, go into the editor mode.
HairEZSkin3-1.jpg


Select the hair parts and change them from ignore to hair (I don't do preview or a cap) Click Apply, then OK
HairEZSkin3-2.jpg


And the final step you need to apply the EZSkin shaders to the hair
HairEZSkin3-3.jpg


Now your hair and trans maps have been converted in the material room so you can see how to set them up properly.
 

AfroditeOhki

Member
Contributing Artist
1. can I see the shader?
2. can I see the Render Settings? (may bee too low Transparent Bounces? )
I didn't save them D: I can try to build them again, but I think I'll try the EZskin method suggested first, thank you! :3
Here's Fashionista Hair with EZSkin3 shaders in P11 Superfly.

(I didn't let it render long)
View attachment 24050
HOW did I not notice EZSkin has presets for hair now? :O Are they free to use commercially? This will be a product, so.
 

Glitterati3D

Dances with Bees
I didn't save them D: I can try to build them again, but I think I'll try the EZskin method suggested first, thank you! :3

HOW did I not notice EZSkin has presets for hair now? :O Are they free to use commercially? This will be a product, so.

Yes, EZSkin3 is a merchant resource, free to add to your commerical products.

If it was me, I'd load up EZS3, save the material settings and call it Superfly.

I love EZS3 hair!
 

AfroditeOhki

Member
Contributing Artist
I'll try that as soon as I'm done with these textures (remaking them all. Was not happy with their lack of realism.)! Thank you!

(Also I'll check the Transparency Bounces in the render settings, as suggested by Phdubrov. I hadn't even noticed there was that option, dang)
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Oh yes, it does, though so far I've only used it on one hair. I may have to use it on several others while I'm at it.
 

AfroditeOhki

Member
Contributing Artist
Okay so I actually gasped when I saw the top of this. My new textures with the superfly hair preset from EZskin... this looks SO GOOD.


BUT... black blotches all across the tips at the bottom. :cry:

Render settings: (I leave pixel samples at super high and leave the render baking in the background and cancel when I'm happy with it)
 

Rae134

Renowned
CV-BEE
Contributing Artist
The transparency on the fringe (bangs) at the front look good, maybe the trans map is not the same on the rest?
 

AfroditeOhki

Member
Contributing Artist
It's not the transmap - it renders well in Firefly.

I'm trying the 16/32 transparency bounces right now (it's rendering as I post). I didn't think so many would be required! If it doesn't solve it, I'll post the material room settings.
 
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