Hair Designer - Dynamic hair & fur tool

Does it support HDRP and URP?

 

yes, the package includes addon for HDRP and URP

 

Can't wait for the update. I just not sure that new animation system work on URP and HDRP.
It looks cool! I wonder if I can use it with fur, or use that hair as a fur.

 

Yes, the new animation system works with all the render pipelines, but it's only available for the long hair system.
You have to use the motion zones for the short hair and the fur.

I'll create a new kind of layer based on the new motion system.
You could also animate any bone system using the API.

 

@kalagaan
Once again. I'm happy to say that this is an awesome tool. I've had great success so far with the fur and short hair.

For the long hair. I'm trying to create a full set of long hair. Aside from adding hair one layer at a time, or duplicating and moving around duplicated layers, is there an easier way? Eg: a prefab that I can use or script to create a full set up of long hair as a starting base that can then be tweaked and customized?

* Edit
I'm able to use the long hair from the demo scene but only on the sample mesh. I can't seem to copy the sample long hair onto my character mesh. thanks in advance.

 

Each layer is based on the character geometry, so you can't copy/past a layer from a character to another.
I'll try to create a way to export a layer as a template, but it's no yet possible.

 

I wonder if hair designer can do something like this? The developer said on his twitter that he use hair cards with DrawProcedural and a compute buffer. I'm not sure about short hair method in hair designer right now. Does it is capable to draw massive amount of cards?

 

You can create a lot of hair cards using the short hair layer.
It will generate a new mesh based on the character skinning and blendshapes.

You can use the advanced fur for creating DX11 fur with tesselation, it generates the hair cards at runtime.
This tech is limited to windows computers and works only with thie built-in RP.




I'm working on a new generator type based on drawprocedural, compute buffers and compute shaders for the animation. So it looks like the same kind of tech than in the video.
I've still some work to do on the tool, so I don't know when it will be available.

Here a sample,
each strand is generated in the shader itself, based on animated nodes.

 

While it was finicky and quite a bit of effort, I did exactly that and I am pretty happy with the result overall.
I used short hair to have it support blendshapes.

Anyway, visually they look pretty great and with the texture generator you can get a lot out of variation (length, density, clumpiness, straightness) out of it with just one set of painted short hair




The generated blendshapes could be a bit better though as the movement is sometimes a bit off. For example I would expect the hair to move as a whole with the root, but sometimes the tip of the hair tries to stay in place while the root moves away.

 

Wow, really nice work!

I'll check the blendshapes generation, the hair card should follow the face orientation.

 

Hi,
the main reason for me using this tool is to create "simple" long hair added to a character Mesh.

But I can't figure out how to do that. Is there a tutorial for that somewhere or do you mind giving me just a quick guideline how to practically accomplish that?

I can use the small hair section, make the hair longer, but can't figure out how to make them just fall down with gravity. When changing the gravity parameter in the design or material tab nothing happens.

Thank you very much!!

 

Hello,

You have to use the long hair layer.
You'll be able to create geometry from curves, and the system will generates the bones and the animation system.

I've just updated the package to the version 1.10.0, it should be available soon on the assetstore.

This new version includes a specific demo for the long hair generator.
The curve generator has been improved with new functions and options for optimizing the rendering while editing the curves.
The new animation system (V3) is based on compute shader and it looks much better.

 

Wow I'm perfectly on time for the new version
Also thank you for your quick and comprehensive reply!

Have to bother one more time though:
All of a sudden I can't use the long & short hair Designer anymore with the mesh I'm using. Flur still works but when I try adding long/short hair, nothing happens. A few hours ago it worked with the exact same mesh.
Maybe you've encountered something like that before and have a quick idea?
Thanks again!

 

That's weird
Could you send me the mesh ? (contact@kalagaan.com)
I could try by my side.

 

I just made a new project, reimportet everything and it works fine. (restart before wasn't enough)

Wonderful tool btw, so much fun Can't wait for the new version.

Cheers!

 

Here some tests of the strand based tech.

 

This new update is available on the assetstore.. does it work with HDRP ? Because right now the long hair demo is using standard materials so in my HDRP project is all pink.

How i can fix that? Wich material shoud i use to replace the standard one?

Thanks

 

Yes, the new animation system works with all the render pipelines.
The demo is only available for the built-in render pipeline now, but I'll add a package for HDRP and URP.

You have to change the material to 'HD_HDRP_Atlas', 'unlock' and 'Lock' the layer in the design tab.
You can add the same hair textures than the built-in shader.

If you need a version before the assetstore update, please send me an email with your invoice number
( contact@kalagaan.com ).

 

Hi,

The documentation and example videos are way out of date.



I have attached the Hair Designer component to the head gameobject. I do not see any UI for placing long hair polygons. Is there an up-to-date walkthrough video?

For reference, I am using URP11, Unity 2021.1.3f1

 

Hello,
I'll create a new video for the long hair layer.
In the latest versions of unity, you have to enable the 'Gizmos' button in the scene view to enable the scene UI.

 

I finally found a way to render really thin strands without too much aliasing

 

I've added a braid mode

 

Alien thing ^^

 

Sounds good, I will wait for a video demonstrating best practices for long hair. Very curious about your recommendations of where to place the curves and where not to place for more believable hair.

 

WIP Better realtime subdivisions

 

Any update on this, or are you working on the next asset update and I should wait for that first?

 

I'll record the tutorial tomorrow

 

I found a bug on Unity 2020.3 while recording the video, I need to fix it
It prevent the long hair layer tools to work properly on 2020.3 and 2021.
I'm focus on this and I'll finish the tutorial asap!

 

I'm trying UMA addon.
1) When I set HairDesignerUMALoader to multiple long hairstyles, I get an error because the Head bone has already been added in the GenerateLayers function at runtime.
Am I making a mistake when I want to use multiple hairstyles with HairDesignerUMALoader?

2) I'm sorry if I missed the document.
Is there an API to change the hairstyle in a script at runtime?

 

Here a modification of the loader :

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using Kalagaan.HairDesignerExtension;
5.  
6. public class HairDesignerUMALoader : MonoBehaviour {
7.  
8.     public List<HairDesignerRuntimeLayer> m_runtimeLayers = new List<HairDesignerRuntimeLayer>();
9.     [HideInInspector]
10.     public HairDesigner m_hairDesigner = null;
11.  
12.     public int m_haircutID = 0;
13.  
14.     public void Awake()
15.     {
16.                
17.         UMA.UMAAvatarBase avatar = GetComponent<UMA.UMAAvatarBase>();
18.         if (avatar != null)
19.             avatar.CharacterCreated.AddListener(GenerateLayers);
20.        
21.     }
22.  
23.  
24.  
25.     void GenerateLayers(UMA.UMAData data)
26.     {
27.         m_hairDesigner = data.GetRenderer(0).gameObject.AddComponent<HairDesigner>();
28.         HairDesignerRuntimeLayer.m_boneNameTotransform.Clear();
29.  
30.         for (int l = 0; l < m_runtimeLayers.Count; ++l)
31.         {
32.             HairDesignerRuntimeLayer rtl = m_runtimeLayers[l];
33. HairDesignerRuntimeLayer.m_boneNameTotransform.Clear();
34.  
35.             if (rtl == null)
36.                 continue;
37.  
38.             for (int i = 0; i < rtl.m_requiredBones.Count; ++i)
39.             {
40.                 GameObject bone = data.GetBoneGameObject(rtl.m_requiredBones[i]);
41.                 if (bone != null && !HairDesignerRuntimeLayer.m_boneNameTotransform.ContainsKey(rtl.m_requiredBones[i]) )
42.                     HairDesignerRuntimeLayer.m_boneNameTotransform.Add(rtl.m_requiredBones[i], bone.transform);
43.             }
44.  
45.            
46.             rtl.GenerateLayers(m_hairDesigner);          
47.         }
48.  
49.         HairDesignerRuntimeLayer.m_boneNameTotransform.Clear();
50.  
51.     }
52.  
53.  
54.     void Update()
55.     {
56.         if (m_hairDesigner == null)
57.             return;
58.         Debug.Log("test");
59.         for(int i=0; i<m_hairDesigner.m_generators.Count; ++i )
60.         {
61.             m_hairDesigner.m_generators[i].SetActive(m_haircutID == i);
62.         }
63.     }
64.  
65. }
66.  

It fixes the bones to be registered twice, and provide a way to change the Haircut id at runtime.

 

I was able to change my hairstyle. Thank you.

 

Any update on this?

 

The error has been fixed and the latest version has been uploaded on the assetstore
It was a weird bug mixing editor code and runtime code.

Now I'm working on the tutorial

 

Where do you post the tutorial videos I don't see any recent ones on youtube or the site? Also will URP be getting the advanced fur eventually?

 

I'll post the new one on youtube.
The advanced fur requires DX11 for generating each strand on the mesh, so it's not compatible with URP.
I'm woking on a new procedural fur that will be compatible with all the render pipeline.
It will be easier to generate LOD and it will use the same motion system than the long hair layer (motion system V3).

 

Which systems are compatible with blend shapes? (and which aren't?)

 

Only the long hair layer is not compatible with blendshapes because it rely on its own bone system, not on the character mesh.

 

can the long hair be instantiated on similar geometry? Like, if I made a wigcap with consistent vertex order?

 

yes, you can load a runtimelayer made with the same reference mesh.

 

Hello!

I'm using Hair Designer since over a year now.
It's great fun, but I have real problems producing good hair.

Could you perhaps have a look here?

Would it be possible to make Hair Desinger more like this?

Well, I just read that the blender hair tool already does almost the same: https://gumroad.com/l/hairtool

But I had already asked you about it like 1 year ago, if I remember correctly.

Edit2:
Hmmmm, I always get stuck at some point with Hair Designer.
I will give it yet another try and see if I can get it this time.

What would be so great would be a good preview. I will check it anything has changed, but in the previous versions, the Unity hair always looked unnatural, so it didn't motivate me to dig deeper into it. And the Blender video looks sooooo realistic. Totally motivating.
Can we get the same with Hair Designer in Unity perhaps?

Thank you for your reply!

 

I am using Unity 2020.3.3f1 with URP 10.4.0.

I have imported HairDesigner_URP_2019.3 from the Addon folder.

Then I click HairCutDemo_proceduralV1(legacy), or HairCutDemo_AtlasShader.

This is what I see:


What am doing wrong?
Is it not possible to perhaps write a script and add it to the gameobject which will tell your users what goes wrong in such a case and how to resolve it? Or it might even help you to figure out which fixes have to be automatically applied / suggested to make it work?

Or is all this so complex that we have no other way than to ask for help here?

 

After playing with it in a 3D template, I can tell again why I dislike Hair Designer and don't use it for production:

The hair creation is just crappy, sorry.
You can just spray hair cards on the mesh, nothing else.
This is not enough to create realistic hair.

And unfortunately it's still the same after 3 years where you said you would change it.

I was so fascinated when I bought it 5 years ago, but even after 5 years, it can't be used for real hair unfortunately.
Fur however seems to work fine.
Perhaps rename it to Fur Designer only and not Hair to be more honest. :-(
Sorry, I wanted to write more encouraging, but after 5 years of wainting and seeing no change for hair designing, I'm simply disappointed.

 

The short hair layer sprays hair cards, this is usefull for fur, but with the long hair system you can generate more accurate haircuts using curves, and the new GPU motion system is much better than the previous version.

The final result depends on geometry, material settings and texture generation, HairDesigner provides the tools for each step. The base of the tech is almost the same than in the video, but I can't recreate Blender inside Unity...
If you can create hair in a 3D software you'll have much more tools than any unity addon will ever provide. But you'll have to create the skinning and use an addon in Unity for the animation.
HairDesigner generates all the bones, the animation system automatically, and you can add hair colliders.

The shading system is also really different in Blender, so I don't think that you'll have the same result if you import the model in Unity, and you'll have to use HDRP if you want the best result.

I'm currently working on a strand based system that will look better, it will be another layer type that will generate the hair strands at runtime.
Maybe it will be more suitable with your needs, I hope so.

 

Well, maybe we can establish where it goes wrong.
I use Unity 3D template.
I use Long Hair with your standard material settings.
This is what I get:



How do I get something realistic as shown in the Blender video, please?



Because that is what I would need to keep me motivated, and I guess most other people, too.

Thank you.

 

First you should use HDRP if you want to get the better results.
You have to create the hair textures using the Texture generator (use the button in the material tab)

In the strand edition, you should set the 'strand count' parameter to 10, and set some values in 'start offset' and 'end offset' for creating a volume.

I'll post the tutorial about this asap
I had so many work these days that I'm super late for finishing the video

Here a sample :


A curve setting


The texture generator looks like this

 

Thank you, but it doesn't look like hair.
With HDRP, I expect photorealistic results.
What is missing for that in your workflow, please?

 

The shader is based on the HDRP Hair master node provided by unity.
I won't try to create a custom rendering system, because the HDRP is a big black box...

Maybe you should use the Unreal engine, meta human is the most realistic avatar system.

 

No, there are good hair shaders available, like Lux URP Essentials.
Its hair shader is based on the HDRP hair shader, but is for URP.

Is requires the following maps:

albedo + alpha
normal
shift
occlusion
smoothness

So I can simply switch the shader while I create the hair, right?
Or would that require you to integrate a connection to Lux URP Essentials?

 

HairDesigner shaders use the same maps, you can generate them in the texture generator.
here the same character with different parameters


You can use any material, you have to drag & drop it in the material tab.

 

Hi there,

When I add hair, it starts out about 50m from the head


After some time I manage to bring the hair back to the head by dragging&dropping the points on the line.
That's fine I guess, just want to make sure if this is normal or am I missing something?


And another quick question please:

Is there a way to not let the hair getting through meshes (like the head and cloth) or do I have to be very precise here editing?
EDIT: I found the colliders. Works great, great stuff

Thanks a lot for helping out!