Graphics [RELEASED] Hair Composer (nVidia HairWorks)

Hi Alexander,
First way it's a good idea,But I think maybe the collision is a trouble, Do you have any good ideas?

 

I think my expression is not clear, our hair and model the first step is completed in 3DMAX inside (including bones and collision) .Kinect is the head model, can draw out, but the problem is not used in the initial model, the rotation maybe it's wrong, there is no collision then, through the hair will look very scary face, ha ha

 

Hello zhangxinghao,

I did quick review of how Kinect works. It seems very similar to what is going on in the 3D world and the good thing it has a depth.

You need to do four important things:

1. To scan user's head. This will give you a very accurate head measurements
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. To conform HairWorks grow mesh and collision objects to the scanned data. This require morphing, which is not implemented yet by nVidia
3. To track user's movements
   
   
   
   
   
4. When rendering final image it needs to compare depth values from both Kinect and Unity, so hairs will overlap the head when it's necessary.

Very interesting project you have, it's challenging and promising
PS. I am sorry for YouTube videos. I know you may have troubles to view these, but those are good examples

 

Hi Alexander,
Yes, these are really difficult for me, my current temporary solution is through several attempts to find the more appropriate model size, and then for the big face and little face to do another two sizes, which some like to buy shoes, The same style has a different shoe number.It's a stupid method, but it's probably the best way to do it now

 

Yes this solution will work too.

 

Any news Simod?

 

Not at the moment. Still waiting for reply.

 

Hello all,

NVIDIA denied royalty-free license for the plugin. Hence we won't make any further effort in this direction and will switch to another projects.

 

Well, damn.

 

I‘m so sorry to this, But alos thanks for your endeavor.
Now ,we try work on UE4.
Thanks a lot!!!!

 

Hello Simod,

Thank you for your reply!
We really hope you could continue to develop this great plugin.
We are happy to purchase your Hair Composer, in this case, we will have to buy Nvidia License first? Am I understanding correctly?

We really hope you can consider to keep developing Hair Composer Plugin, at this moment, artists are expecting to realize real hair and fur effect in Unity, your great plugin is the very best solution for us. If you stop at this stage, we would be feeling so sad.

There some images we created some weeks in your Hair Composer.


Best Regards,

John.

 

Hello Simod,

We still troubled in some place, example, hair self-shadows, Could you please improve the accuracy of hair self-shadow textures or support self-shadow blur.
Others, hairstyle of braid, hair pins replace to mesh.

Best Regards,

John.

 

Hello John,

These are gorgeous works!
Speaking of shadows - this is a very complex request. In order to make it more accurate we have to create a technique similar to Deep Shadows.

And again: as long as NVIDIA owns HairWorks we can not modify it's sources. Generally speaking NVIDIA is only who can legally work on new features and integration into Unity.

I strongly suggest to contact NVIDIA and speak about this licencing obstacle.
There is another option and use UE4 with integrated HairWorks.

 

Maybe you can sell your expertise instead of the plug in? are dev allow to use it in their commercial game anyway?

 

Hello neoshaman,

Yes, according to EULA and official answer from NVIDIA, this product can be used under royalty-free terms only if distributed as an "Application".

We will work as contractor to anyone who needs HairWorks in Unity project. Indeed it seems the only way. Should you guys get interested in this "inconvenient" way - please let us know.

 

So we can charge u? if yes i want.

 

Sure. Before we start it's necessary to know your requirements for the game project. For productivity I would suggest keep in touch by phone or Skype. And in addition we can sign NDA.

Let's continue by PM

 

Hello Simod,
I'm so glad completed a demo with your Hair Composer, It looks amazing more than I expected.
And here is the URL

 

so, you worked on plugin and now all work just... gone?

 

This is amazing work. Thank you for sharing

Hi zelmund,

It's not that simple
Due to aggressive licensing, small market and the product complexity it's not commercially reasonable (to small company) making any efforts in this direction, until one of these obstacles get completely removed.

Hence our current work is making it available through contracted work to game studios and privates.
There is another option to transfer exclusive ownership to a big legal entities (such as Unity, NVIDIA, etc) who may continue working on it.

 

Hello Simod,
Thanks to your Hair Composer, It's my honor for sharing your forum.

 

Unity needs to buy this IP! IT looks amazing.

 

GUYS HOW TO IS IT FOR SALE? WHERE IS THE LINK

IS IT FOR FREE ? STILL Where is the link and how to implement ^_^

 

Hi MTDues,

Currently it is ownership transfer, so the buyer will be able to develop it further and distribute

 

this plugin looks amazing. We are interested in it. How can we buy it? Do you guys offer license for testing?

 

Hi @DM2016_ZJH,

Just in case, we offer only exclusive ownership transfer (EOT). Once you have it - it's only yours and nobody else.
The project is not dead and can be distributed in Asset Store, but NVIDIA wants a share, which you have to negotiate directly with them.

After buying we can arrange an intensive (six months long) free support for at least:
- project setup and compilation
- teach of specifics of the code
- teach of specifics of the hair assets
- advise with implementation of a new features
- advise with performance improvements

The plugin is ready for distribution but please check features currently implemented, as well as videos from the same thread. All new features require (at least) knowledge of C++, C#, Direct3D and Unity at advanced level.

The EOT price is just to cover our expenses (salaries, tax, etc) during a year of development of the project, no more than that.

So if you are interested in the project which you can start selling instantly, please ping me in PM. I will give you more details to move the process further.

 

i hope to see this soon :]

 

this looks amazing. good job

 

Hi Simod,

I sent you a PM to ask about more details. I hope you can answer it soon.

Regards

 

Hi artgarcia,

Sorry missed your messages. Will answer right away.

 

I did E-Mail Nvidia, but does a reader/dev here know if it is legal to use Nvidia Hairworks royalty free for a Steam release (Unity, Windows PC)? Be it through Hairworks or another Unity-Hairworks integration?

 

Hello wolfride,

The short answer is: YES

According to GameWorks Binary SDK EULA (royalty-free) you may use Hairworks in "software application designed for use and fully compatible with the NVIDIA Graphics processor products, including but not limited to, a video game, visual simulation, movie, or other product". In other words: you may use Binary EULA and publish a final product (game, movie, simulation, etc) with a Hairworks as a part of your application.

Although you may NOT use royalty-free EULA to sell plugins, addons, etc, as these fall into GameWorks Source SDK EULA.

Before starting your project with Gameworks technologies I would highly suggest read both Binary and Source EULA, no matter which one you plan to use and get a NVIDIA confirmation in written form which says you actually "can" use royalty-free license. That will lower your risks at the start of developing.

 

Wow, this looks great! My team could definitely use something like this for our characters. Please finish this soon, lol

 

I got a reply to my message and wanted to include a screenshot here for others with the same question. I actually copied section 2A (your quote) in my message as I just didn't understand that part, but now it is clear. Answer: Yes, you can use Hairworks intergrations for games royalty free.


Also I loved the idea of Hair Composer so much, and even saw it around the day it got added to the forums. That Youtube 'teaser' blew my mind, and I seriously wish all the best for your company.

 

Thank you wolfride.

Hi evamariah,
It's actually finished. You may find all features at the first page of this topic. It just needs a license for mass distribution

 

Shame you don't throw out some finished work - say some UMA hairs - hint hint - To bolster up interest...

 

Hey Simod,
i really liked the idea of Hair Composer. And its a shame that nVidia denied the destribution.
Is there any way to get a Hand on the Plugin? And if so, how much will it cost.

Thanks.

 

Hi LostTemptation,

My apology for long delay.

This is a tricky case. Our team still possess the plugin sources and reserved all rights. But we can not distribute two important parts:

1. compiled version of the plugin, as it has NVIDIA code inside (headers, basic functions, parts of shaders); and
2. compiled NVIDIA code (DLLs), which we simply do not own

Internally we analyzed several options, and found three least risky:

1. Simply (but enormously pricey, we are speaking of tens thousands EURO, as it meant to cover year development expenses) all rights transfer. In that case our customer will possess all rights exclusively. And during a half year (or if agreed otherwise) we give a full customer support.
   
   That would be ideal for anyone who build own business model around the plugin. For example: will get NVIDIA source SDK license and work with that. Or may be re-sell plugin sources like the next two options.
   
   
2. Give a non-exclusive license to a source code. This will allow modifications, adaptation, improvements, and etc. This would be times less expensive obviously
3. Give a non-exclusive license strictly for compilation and debugging (no modifications). For a price which a small studio could afford.

Currently we offer only the first option. For full details (what is included) please send us request

The rest two are still under our review. Here a few subjects:

1. It's not easy task to give a source code and leave a customer with that. For convenience he needs a set of automatic tools. These tools should assist in installation and compilation process (at least). Then give extra options like updates, documentation and etc.
   
   
2. Creating extra features, bug fixes and transfer to a newer Unity/Hairworks version, consumes a ton of time. Please keep in mind we are talking about two black boxes! To make some features to work we had to spend months !!! to figure out how Unity and Hairworks are working internally without knowing a code (especially Unity)
   This require a dedicated team of code engineers and researchers which don't know what is rest and family
   
   Our development experience showed us how we were naive about initial business model. This simply would not compensate salaries, will not create a profit for more hires, and etc. That actually one of the reason why we stopped development.
   Our current task is to understand what would be best of two worlds: make it profitable without keeping our engineers in slavery chains, give best customer support (no excuses), and keep a price as low and affordable as possible

In conclusion.

The two last options (source licenses from above) are very REALISTIC. The deployment tool is easy to create. No doubt.
To keep a price low (for a sources) we are inclined to make an access through subscription, like Unity did some time ago. The main question is what price would our customer ready to pay, and at which terms. Obviously (also to keep price low) we can not trade this on Asset store, but there are other options like Patreon, wire transfer or less convenient PayPal

Your thoughts guys?

 

I would like to use the plugin in my project, i think patreon and a Paypal option is good, but what's the price? compiled version of the plugin and the dll cannot be provided without assets store? i mean i think dll can be donwloaded from nvidia maybe the compiled plugin can be donwloaded from another link? if yes, you only need to do is to make a package without these and provide the links in readme file and you can sold it in the asset store

 

The readme file idea sounds simple, but can be easily argued with a fact that readme is a part of a paid package, and not publicly available, hence the private links are also the part of the deal.
This is the reason why automatic sources compilation is a must on a customer's side. This completely protects against claims such as parts of third party intellectual property are used in our sources - we simply remove those parts.

The main problem of the Asset Store - it does not support subscription model. It suits perfectly for such products as 3D models, textures, or a small scripts, which follow a rule "create and forget". Another way to survive on Asset Store is to make lots of sells. The large "heavy scripted" tools like Playmaker is a good example to that.

Hairworks on the other hand has a very limited demand. And here is why:

1. It runs only on Windows 7, 8, 10 (not sure of consoles though) and uses DirectX 11 and 12
2. It's a computationally hungry technology. Not many end-user PCs got a high-end hardware. Sure game developers understand that and will not hurry for implementation.

Gluing Hairworks and Unity is not a easy task. The plugin in subject has a lot of moving parts. It's a constant research, bug fixing and development process - it's not a "create and forget" product. This product simply won't survive on Asset Store without a constant funding.

Unity 3D is a good example to what I am saying. It's a complex solution. But buying a lifetime license would kill the project very soon.

There is no decision yet. Which subscription price would work best in your case?

 

I think subscription is a no-go. I get you want a constant revenue stream, but realistically for most developers, it's not feasible. I mean once a developer has the source code, they will likely never need anything from you again, so what is the point of a subscription?

 

Thank you ceebeee,

Source code legal protection is an important subject we are currently discussing internally. For instance it could be similar to NVIDIA's source SDK EULA, which allows anyone to download and review the code, and make changes (on NVIDIA's terms of course) if such necessity exists.

Speaking of "disclosing the sources", we got some technical ideas how to NOT disclose all of it, but only a small part necessary for the compilation with NVIDIA headers. We clearly understand in most cases our customers don't care what's inside and how it works. It should "just work", be stable and performant.

If such idea won't be implemented and there won't be any legal protection, the code leakage would be good for community modification and improvement, which I think is fine. Making a copy paste product though (similar to Hair Composer) and pushing this to the market (free or paid) would be a no-no response from a global society. I think Unreal Engine and UE based projects is a good example.

So the point of the subscription remains the same as discussed above. And that move seems logical unless we find together a drawback.

 

Hi Simod,

This is a very interesting project you have. I would be someone who is interested in purchasing the plugin (ownership transfer) as well. As long as there was enough documentation and perhaps some help in getting it set up, I think it would be a great asset. I don't need any "new features", just hair that works during runtime (i.e. normal hairworks operation).

It would also be great if the hair could work on several "animals" without too much performance drops, for my game (the more the better). But just a suggestion.

I am a solo developer though, so I'm not sure how affordable you could make it for a non-studio? I don't expect year long support or anything like that.....just some help if I had any questions getting the hair working in-game, that would be it.

Thanks, and great work! It's too bad you cannot sell it on the asset store.

 

Hello Velo,

The good news: we are actively working on the publishing issue. The project is not dead, but due EULA restrictions we had to develop extra techniques and tools to be legally compliant.

We hope to launch public tests at the end of the 2018. Though please don't be attuned to this date too much, as there is still a lot to do. So beginning of the next year is when all exciting stuff will happen.

In addition, there is 50/50 chance we will share sources on github. This, though, is still under heavy discussion here.

PS. Yes the offer "ownership transfer" is still open. Nobody claimed it yet.

 

best new of the year xD

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress, I am excited to see when this is available for use.

 

Can't wait

 

Thank you guys for believing in us. Here a few updates:

We are finishing porting (fixing bugs) from 2017.1 to 2018.2 and then will instantly switch to 2018.3 after that. All features will stay as is, plus two experimental (please read below) options which the plugin will support some time later.

Another big step is Unit Tests implementation in C++. There is lot's of code and it is so complex (due to multithreaded pipeline) that is costly to catch a bug. Hopefully this "investment" will help in future development. Speaking of automatic visual tests in the Unity - this part is on a paper



Two new features: HDRP and Unity Shader support. We already got a working prototype with a custom hair shader compiled directly in Unity. If you are a shaders developer this will give you almost endless possibilities in hair shading. Should I mention Directional Light shadows support too?

We are working on a special tool which will allow you to download, compile and build Unity Package. This is "a few clicks" solution, which require minimal to non knowledge on C++ and the building pipeline. The overall process will look like this:

1. Start packager UI
2. Select Hair Composer version
3. Select Hairworks distributive (.zip) for compilation
4. Hit Compile button and wait
5. Grab Unity Package and use in your project

 

Nice I would love to know more about this. Costs and everything. ( Not interested in any Sub models.) So if its only subscription only I would have to decline, but would love to know more about this. ( Not interested in selling assets or anything. ( Looking to buy for a small company for games,future games. Thanks. Please PM me if interested. Also does this work with Unity 2018 +? I assume so since it works with the new rendering.


Also does this work with XBOX one and PS4 ?

 

Hello recon0303,

I think others would be interested in this information too, so I will answer here.

Perpetual license with a free updates for a year (idea similar to WallabyJS). Support on Github for a lifetime of the product. Similar to Unity Asset Store, once purchased you may use it in as many projects as you need.

We don't have a pricing known yet. The old price which mentioned some time ago is void as it was for Asset Store and the previous state of the project. We likely offer a several options which will suit a different needs. Say "Personal (named)" and "Organization". Even "Academic" licenses.

Will always support the latest Unity version. Though due to limited resources we won't offer backports (yet!), like it does Unity team. You may need to make a bit of planning of updates, and can always skip an update and download it later. The Packager tool (mentioned above) will show all updates for a selected license. You may select any version which suits to your needs.

Let's speak of assets. In that case we have two types of assets:

1. Unity Asset. Like with any assets in Asset Store we would prefer if you won't include Hair Composer in your packages and sell on a stores. In fact it is also forbidden by nVidia's Binary EULA.
2. Hair Asset. APEX files in *.apx format, both text and binary. It is obvious if you create a hair style, you are the only author, and you may do with that whatever you want. Like any other format (jpeg, gif, max. etc) you may sell, resell, to rent - you name it.
   For instance you can create a set of hair styles and sell these files in Unity Asset Store or UE4 Marketplace.

NVIDIA's Binary EULA does not allow systems other than Windows. Hence XBOX ONE and PS4 are not in priority list. We are very sorry for that - nothing we can do in this case.

If you have more questions please ask. Always happy to help. I think we will collect all questions asked before and copy these into big FAQ on first page. Stay tuned