Graft Grooms
Graft grooming places a complete, procedural groom onto a chosen area of an existing surface. Instead of replacing an object's whole groom, a graft adds a self-contained patch of hair - a tuft of fur, a distinct region, an eyebrow - that lives on top of the surface and can be edited independently.
Grafting a groom
To graft, choose the Graft command and place the groom onto the target surface. The grafted groom is positioned on the surface and follows it, so it stays attached as the object moves or deforms.
While the fit is being dragged the groom's hair is not drawn, so placing a dense groom or preset stays responsive. The hair returns as soon as the fit ends. Turn off Hide Hair While Fitting in the tool's Fitting properties to watch the hair follow the graft surface as it is dragged instead. The option changes only what the viewport draws during the drag - the fitted groom, and what a render produces, are the same either way.
Editing and saving a graft
A grafted groom remains editable after it is placed:
- Use Edit Graft Groom to open the graft and adjust its operators and parameters.
- Use Save Graft Groom to write the graft out as a groom file you can reuse on other surfaces.
Because a graft is a normal procedural groom, everything you can do in the The Operator Stack applies to it.
Refreshing the graft library
The graft tool builds the list of surface templates and grooms it offers, together with their thumbnails, from the graft groom files on disk and keeps that list cached for speed. If you add, remove or re-save graft groom files outside the app while the tool is open, press Refresh in the Graft Surface panel to rebuild the cache from disk: the surface template and groom pickers, their thumbnails and the currently grafted groom are all regenerated so they reflect the latest files.
Grafts and the groom operator
A graft is encapsulated as a self-contained groom within your scene, much like a Groom Operator. This is what lets it carry its own operator network and parameters while sitting on a host surface.
When to use grafts
Reach for a graft when you want distinct hair on part of a surface without complicating the main groom - for example adding patches of differently styled fur, or dropping a reusable eyebrow or beard groom onto a character. For applying a whole groom to an entire object instead, see Adding Hair to Objects and Grooms Browser.