Rendering with Redshift
Ornatrix hair is natively supported by Redshift. To render Ornatrix hair, simply set Redshift as the renderer and click Render. Both bucket rendering and IPR are supported.
Viewport vs. Render Hair Count
Some Ornatrix operators (such as Hair from Guides, Strand Multiplier, Merge, Hair from Mesh Strips, and others) are generators that may output a reduced number of strands as a preview to improve viewport performance.
For example, Hair from Guides includes a Render Count parameter that defines the number of strands used in a bucket render, and a Viewport Count Fraction parameter, which specifies the percentage of the Render Count to display in the viewport.
During a bucket render, these operators automatically switch to generating the full strand count. However, in IPR mode, Redshift uses the preview strand counts defined in these operators. You can force all operators with viewport vs. render-time settings to evaluate the full strand amount (as in a bucket render) by enabling the Render-Mode Evaluation option found in the Hair Shape node settings.
These settings also affect the output when exporting a Redshift proxy. Be sure to enabled Render-Mode Evaluation when exporting a proxy.
Hair Min Pixel Width
The Min Pixel Width option helps reduce aliasing by slightly thickening hair strands and adding transparency at render time, resulting in cleaner-looking hair.
This parameter can be found in the Render Settings -> Advance -> Globals tab, under the Hair section.
For more information about this parameter please go to Redshift Documentation
Exporting as Proxy
Exporting Ornatrix hair as a Redshift proxy is very simple:
- Select the hair shape node of the groom. This is the top node in the operator stack:
- In the Attribute Editor, enable Render-Mode Evaluation. See Viewport vs Render Hair count for an explanation about this parameter.
- In the main menu, go to Redshift > Proxy > Export.
- Type a file name and click Export Selection.
Texturing and Shading
Texture Coordinates
The hair and any assigned textures or shaders are translated for Redshift at render time.
By default, the hair inherits the UVs of the distribution mesh set in Guides from Mesh or Ground Strands.
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| Distribution Mesh with a checker texture | Hair with the same material as the Distribution Mesh |
Per-Strand Color
In addition to UVs, Ornatrix also exports Curve IDs to all supported renderers. This enables advanced shading techniques by allowing you to add color or texture variation across individual hair strands.
One useful tool for this is the Hair Random Color utility. It uses the Curve ID data provided by Ornatrix to randomize a color for each hair strand.
In the following example, we use the Hair Random Color node to randomize the diffuse colors of the checker texture. Play with the Hue, Saturation and Value amount until you get the desired effect:
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| Hair Random Color connected to the diffuse color of the hair shader | Checker texture randomized using the Hair Random Color |
Click here to learn more about the Hair Random Color utility.
Color Along the Strands
The Redshift Hair Position node outputs the position along the strand of the hair. In the following example we use it to color the hair strands with a gradient from root to tip:
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| The Hair Position node is connected to the UV Coord input of the Ramp Texture node | The gradient colors flows from root to tip along the strand |
Click here to learn more about the Hair Position node.
Strand Channels
Strand channels can be used in the shading graph by exporting them as render attributes.
In the following example, we use Redshift's Color User Data node to bring strand channel data from our groom into the shading graph.
The strand channel data is then used to mask out the gradient color in the shader. First create a strand channel.
Click here to learn more about Strand Channels and how to create them. You can also generate procedural strand channels using the Generate Strand Data operator.
Now that we have our strand channel, we can paint our color mask on the strands.
Painting Strand Channels
This example is using a per-strand channel where all the strands to the left of the groom are masked out:
Now we can reference this attribute using Redshift's Color User Data node.
Exporting Strand Channels as render attributes
- In the material editor, add the Color User Data node.
- In the Attribute Name field of this node, type the name of the exported attribute.
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| Exported attribute referenced in the Color User Data node | Strand Channel used as a color mask in the hair shader |
Video Tutorials
| Painting Ornatrix Hair | Ornatrix Hair Shading in Redshift |