Hello,
Hair & Fur Designer (HAFD) is a powerful but simple tool to help 3D character modellers add Hair & Fur to their characters. This tool is our attempt to solve a problem we had with a hair textured model of a Bear, we bought for an AR app. The flat 2D Fur texture on the Bear looked bad when seen in AR on the iPad. That’s when we realised that a simple Fur tool could do the job better.
Another problem that 3D character modelling artist face is that the Fur/Hair texture on their 3D model is 2D. When these artists did use 3D mesh planes & hair maps with alpha, we found the technique to be tedious & long drawn demanding considerable amount of effort & time. So we decided to develop a tool that could solve both these problems- To make Fur look 3D & be able to do it in quick time.
HAFD is designed to give 3d artists a higher level of control when creating Hair & Fur for human & animal characters. HAFD has a set of Brushes & Texture Map features that artists can combine to work fast & stay creative . HAFD features were designed to be simple & intuitive for any artist who uses it.
The tool was tested with artists with varying skills & each was able to give a good result . Most importantly the HAFD allows the artist to work fast & efficiently. This is what they had to say:
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Easy to paint Fur/Hair on any object.
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Easy to manage flow of the Fur/Hair .
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Dynamic range controls for size, density.
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Mobile ready.
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Open controls (Loading alpha texture)
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Easy to colour Fur/Hair and get the same results as the diffuse map.
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Can be used on smooth angles.
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No need to use unity controls
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A human head full of hair with beard & moustache might take no more than 20 minutes to quickly prototype.
This is what another Artist tester had to say about the feature he liked best:
“This tools has two good features. Comb brush this feature allows user to set direction flow of the fur. This feature feels genuine and gives effective results. Scale brush, allows users to control the size of the hair dynamically. I am able to blend the fur much better.”
Another Artist says, “This tool will be useful to any digital artist from beginners to professionals. This tool has standard controls for brushes and can be used on any scale model.”
With HAFD Artists only has to focus on creating the right texture maps & alpha channels to use with the tool. Each feature has the exact parameter every artist needs to get the desired results. Any 3D artist with a the basic understanding of how the texture maps and alpha channel works should be able to use HAFD effectively.
The Programmer of HAFD thinks that the ‘Texture Maps’ feature is the most powerful one, he says:
“The texture map feature can be used to automize Fur/Hair generation. So to begin with instead of using brushes to create Fur/Hair , get even distribution of Fur/Hair over the entire model with a click of a button. By default, this would generate Fur/Hair that has uniform size and density. In order to have deeper control on the size and density of Fur/Hair on different regions of the base mesh, two textures can be assigned - Scale and density textures. These are grey scale textures that are UV mapped (same way as the colour textures are mapped to the mesh in materials). This enables the user to generate 1st iteration/coat of Fur/Hair within seconds and then use brushes to style & blend it .”
One of the main features is that this tool can also be used to paint the fur on Animated objects.
We will soon post the videos captured in real time made by different artists to understand how intuitive & easy it is to work with the tool.