Redistributing Poser Dynamic Hair without the base figure - a solution

[Cliff Bowman]

I really WANT to work on this. Truly I do - mostly because it's fun. It's the same old song - "work gets in the way".

Yesterday I pushed too hard and made some faux pas when editing the code "between jobs" and not quite managing to keep up with myself, or keep testing in time with feature changes. So I got in a mess and ended up having to "bug hunt" to sort things out. I got some nasty little buffers last night, and caught up with myself this morning. Now I'm back to testing as I go through writing the documentation in what I hope is a reasonable facsimile of "English".

This should look reasonably familiar to you by now - length is uniform across the whole figure making the eyes hard to see and so forth.
I have occasionally "banged on" about figure compatibility I suspect. So - here's my first test of loading this simple House Cat fur onto the Big Cat.

Ouch! What's wrong? What's wrong is the "styling" data that tells Poser where to put the hairs - and the mesh of the Big Cat is in the wrong place! So let's turn off the "style" data and just load up the hair groups and the hair:

Oh that's a MUCH better starting point for the Big Cat! Obviously although the "styling" data has been omitted, the "Length" and "Density" and other parameters are included, so if I had put more work in to the House Cat hair at this stage that would all have carried across.

I haven't tried loading JUST the hair groups yet - but that's the next feature to document so I will hopefully be testing it soon! Right now I might take a break though - lunch was insufficient. I need to go do the "hunter/gatherer" thing.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Cliff Bowman]

Obviously, if we turn off hair growth completely then the function just loads the Hair Groups and sets the various parameters, without actually growing any hair. Possibly an even better starting place for designing hair for a related figure as the hairs don't get in your way if they are not there!

Cheers,

Cliff (no snacks in the house, might have to actually go.... OUTSIDE!)

 

[Cliff Bowman]

If we render that House Cat file we get this:

Which is not exactly wonderful yet. However, I'm documenting the "!MAT_AllDynHair" function at the moment, which applies a simple fur texture that turns the above render into this instead:

We still can't see the eyes or mouth - because all the hair is still evenly spread and the same length across the whole figure - but it's getting there... even so, please remember that this is a set of tools to help one design/distribute Dynamic Hair by reducing the heavy lifting. It doesn't in and of itself claim to be able to produce a wonderful fur set for every possible figure automatically!

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[CWRW]

LOL that sure is one funny looking cat but I am so excited for this product! It really will speed things up immensely!

 

[Cliff Bowman]

It actually kinda reminds me more of certain dog breeds at the moment, with the excessive facial hair, but I'm not really a dog person so I'm much happier using cats and mice to document the scripts

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[NapalmArsenal]

It's the Shaggy CA!! =) However, anything to speed things up is always welcome!! =)

 

[Cliff Bowman]

That length of fur doesn't look so bad on the full size Big Cat

(this is the same TrueHair preset with the same materials).

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Looking great Cliff! This is going to make hair/fur SOOO much easier to work with.

 

[CWRW]

Cool, Cliff!!!!!

 

[Miss B]

OW, you're really coming up with some amazing fur/hair there Cliff. Keep up the good work.

 

[Cliff Bowman]

Thanks all - and I certainly plan on keeping it up! One of the main things here is that Poser Dynamic Hair can be really amazing. I'm no hair stylist (see my House Cat / Schnauzer crossbreed above for proof of this) so anything good looking here is pure Poser - it's just the existing interface makes dragging these features out a pain (Much like getting the original Genesis to work decently in Poser was originally a challenge). I REALLY hope to see a lot more Dynamic Hair in the future - because it's had distinct but often unrealised potential since Poser 5!

While I'm running through documenting and testing, I'm also tweaking so that there's more flexibility "under the hood" of TrueHair without bloating the whole thing. For example - I want to document "Save" today (probably the biggest sole feature to write and document) but if I can I want to add a "Grow" feature for when all we have is the Hair Groups and no hairs, and have finished tinkering with the Groups. I might also contemplate some kind of "Shave" function to remove the hair but leave the groups in place if it looks like that will make editing Hair Groups significantly easier (right now you could save, delete hair, and reload the groups - but that's too much faff). The Thumbnail that I have in mind for "Grow" (and maybe "Shave) may mean I need to work on/improve the thumbnails for the other features, for consistency and increased clarity. Hrm. Things to think on while I'm doing my day job, finalising the documentation of "!MAT_AlldynHair", checking my capitalisation on one of the functions (Oops, have done that while typing this post) and writing up "Save". Fingers crossed that I get a lot of free time today!

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Glitterati3D]

Hey, Cliff! Great stuff here.

Just wanted to post a note if you would like a rigged coat for Dawn to turn into a fur, just let me know and I'll get right on it for you.

I don't know how much you want to work on non-animal stuff, but I bet we're all willing to send you stuff you can use/experiment with.

I'm so excited about this fur!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait.

 

[Cliff Bowman]

Hey, Cliff! Great stuff here.

Just wanted to post a note if you would like a rigged coat for Dawn to turn into a fur, just let me know and I'll get right on it for you.

That would be just great - and I'd be happy for everyone to chip in with ideas of what to use when it comes time to do promos too. Because I forgot to think of that before you mentioned a fur coat...

I don't know how much you want to work on non-animal stuff, but I bet we're all willing to send you stuff you can use/experiment with.

I'm so excited about this fur!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait.

Humans are not my favourite, but they need to be included. People will want to put hair on humaniforms. I had been considering one of the Mil4 characters with a Creature Creator character applied but, to be honest, a rigged coat is more my thing.

I have been pondering trying to attempt at least a partial hairdo to illustrate some of the aspects - possibly to improve the documentation of SAVE and LOAD but more towards promotional renders - so I've been wondering about what human figure to use. I should have an old dynamic beard around here somewhere that might make sense, if I can find it... but does anyone have an opinion on what human model to use in the documentation? Dawn? A standard figure that comes with Poser 9 and up (so that everyone who gets these tools has the same figure to work on)?

Suggestions are welcome (even though I'll probably go right ahead and choose something else at the end of the day!)

Sadly, I haven't even opened Poser or Word yet today - I can see my hoped-for progress slipping away from me with every bit of non-TrueHair work I do

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Cliff Bowman]

So now I've opened PaintShop Pro at least so can show the kind of direction I'm thinking of going with the Thumbnails. To date they look good but they pretty much only work in pairs - you can see what Length+ does by comparing it to Length-. What I'm thinking of is splitting each thumbnail into a left and right half, showing "before" and "after", like this:

and here it is at 91 x 91

The idea being that each individual thumbnail/icon should stand on it's own, informing the user of what it does regardless of the other thumbnails around it.
Thoughts, anyone?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I like the idea of a left/right thumbnail

 

[Glitterati3D]

Since you're not a fan of humans (and yeah, hair on a human head would be kinda boring after all this work) why not try Sparky's human/animal morphs: Amducias M4 - A Sparky Creation for promos?

That would be interesting and fun!

 

[Cliff Bowman]

Well, I may not have got much more TrueHair work done today - but at least I redid the pretty ickle pictures!

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[eclark1894]

I might need your utility, Cliff. I made a fur hat for Dawn, but, well...

 

[Cliff Bowman]

That has got to be the most unappetising cake ever! Or possibly someone should warn me to read the text before looking at the pictures all bleary-eyed

You're probably quite close - just some increased density and maybe longer hair in multiple material zones pulled around the hat?

Cheers,
PS of course you need my utility. Everyone does!
Cliff

 

[Willowisp]

That's actually a fairly convincing cheese..