Multiple Hair Systems (Stacks) for One Mesh Object

 
 
 
Posted by:bollella@icloud.com
Data created:2 August 2021

How can I create two separate hair systems or stacks for one object? I have an animal which will eventually be rigged and animated and would like to have different colored fur in different places. Colors range from White to Black to Brown. I am using Redshift to render. Painting will not, apparently, work with Redshift (significant omissions IMHO). So, I can use the create brush to create guides in the various places and assign different RedshiftHair shaders to them. I have tried multiple ways but cannot seem to get separate hair systems. If I create a furball on a subset of the faces I cna create two and more systems HOWEVER, nothing works then. I cannot even change the length using the EditGuides node on the stack.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,
Greg

Hi Greg,

There is no special procedure to add multiple hair objects to a single polygon mesh. I this test I added two different hair objects to two groups of polygons:

I just selected some polygons in Face mode and used Add Hair to Selection. I'm not sure how you are doing it but as you can see it works as expected. 

 

I can also change the strand length either using a brush or the Length parameter in GuidesFromMesh:

 

What doesn't work with Redshift is Per-Vertex Strand Channels. This is up to them really. This have to be implemented on Redshift side. Maybe you can post a feature request on their forums.

Do you want to color vertices on a strand or the whole strand? If you want to color the whole strand, Redshift does support Per-Strand channels

 

Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.)

If you still have this issue after following my instructions, please try to reproduce it on a sphere and post the scene here for debugging. Thanks. 

Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.)

Oh, and this page explaining Ornatrix hair shading on Redshift can be useful. 

Jeordanis Figuereo (Product Designer. EPHERE Inc.)

Thanks, I can successfully get multiple hair stacks on a mesh. I had been trying to change the length in the EditGuides node but realised I should do that in the GuidesFromMesh node.

I am able to assign colors via RedshiftHair shaders to strands as well as multiple colors along the strand using the hair position node. What I cannot seem to get working is to be able to paint strainds in the same hair system/stack different colors. It would be easiest for me to have a single hair system for the whole body and the selectively color groups of strands according to the pattern on the real-life animal.

 

Is it poissible to, similar to your example above, to create the two fur balls on sets of faces that overlap? I.e. have both hair systems on some faces? Seems like we could get a nice graduation of color change this way without having to increase the poly count.

 

Thanks,

Greg