Ornatrix 3dsmax: New to Ornatrix - Setting up short horse fur

Hi everyone! I'm quite new to the world of fur in general and I watched a lot of video tutorials on ornatrix, the official ones. Now I am currently creating a horse and need to make short, smooth realistic horse fur. I know all the basics, at least I think so but I wanted to ask the more experienced users: What are common pitfalls, problems and the like I should avoid when doing very short fur. Any pointers? Also what are some key characteristics I should look out for? cheers, Karl
17 October 2017 #14060
Karl	To elaborate: It is gonna be a black horse, like the following:
17 October 2017 #14061
Jeordanis Figuereo	Hi Karl, To get more opinions of experienced artists you might want to post in our Facebook group "Ornatrix 3dsmax User Group" and "Ornatrix MayaUser Group". My suggestions: For the short fur you would want to use a bunch of guides to control the flow and a Length modifer and maybe a texture map to control the length in different areas, SurfaceComb modifier can help you to set the initial flow of the fur. For the long hair I would use GuidesFromShape to create the hair from Splines, then with GroundStrand you can ground the hair to a separate distribution mesh so you have individual hair objects for the fur and the hair (Head, Lengs, Tail). There are different ways to do this, I think this is try and error until you find what is best. However, you can probably find more experienced grooming artists in our Facebook groups. Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.) LinkedIn Discord
18 October 2017 #14063
Karl	Thank you, I will have a look into the FB group!
18 October 2017 #14064
Karl	Can you explain to me the 100% correct and more or less failsave way of adding hair to a skinned mesh? I tried with the toolbar quick groom and it works initially but when I reload max the hair looks all wierd. I found a solution that this is because of the behaviour of TS in max. So I changed my workflow to duplicating my skinned mesh by hand (with the skin modifier turned off), baking in the TS, then applying a SkinWrap modifier to make it follow the skinned mesh. Is that the correct way to apply fur to skinned/animated meshes?
18 October 2017 #14068
Jeordanis Figuereo	I don't think there is a 100% correct way to do this, it vary in a case by case scenario. Some studios extract some parts of the mesh to use as Scalp mesh/Distribution mesh, then use a SkinWrap so it follows the main character, others create the fur on top o the actual character. I tried with the toolbar quick groom and it works initially but when I reload max the hair looks all wierd. Can you give me more details about this? maybe this is a bug that we need to fix. Which version of Ornatrix are you using? Also, if you are using a distribution mask in GuidesFromSurface you should turn ON Remember Roots Positions, otherwise any change in the topology of the distribution mesh will cause the guides to be reinterpolated, destroying the fur. Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.) LinkedIn Discord

Posted by:		Karl
Data created:	17 October 2017