Hair and Cloth Tutorials

The following tutorials explain how to correctly use Hair and Cloth on your models to accomplish specific results. The Hair tutorials refer to applying different types of hair and fur, while the Cloth tutorials demonstrate the basic workflow to create pieces of clothing, and then tailor them to your model.

Features Covered in This Section

• Adding the Hair and Fur modifier
• Using a sub-object level to control hair placement
• Modifying hair settings, including material properties
• Rendering hair
• Using the Garment Maker
• Applying the Cloth modifier
• Locking points on the cloth
• Adding space warps and collision objects to the cloth
• Running a Cloth simulation
• Adjusting fabric properties

Files for This Section

All the files necessary for this tutorial are provided on the program disc in the \tutorials directory. Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder from the disc to your local program installation.

Tutorials in this Section

Creating a Centurion Helmet (three parts)

Grooming a Dog

Styling Hair with a Spline Emitter

Working with Hair Presets

Working with Instance Objects

Working with Surface Lock

Copying Hair: Transplants, Wigs, and Toupees

Creating a Billowing Flag

Designing a Shirt (in three parts)

Tailoring and Fine-Tuning

Using Cloth with Bipeds

Creating Pleats

Creating a Centurion Helmet

Add the Hair And Fur modifier to the helmet:

1. Open helmet_hair_start.max from your \tutorials\hair folder. This scene contains two mesh objects named Head and Helmet.
2. Select the Helmet object, and then go to the Modify panel and apply the Hair And Fur modifier. Hair And Fur is a world-space modifier (WSM).
   
   

   Hair emanates from the entire helmet.
3. The hair should grow only on selected portions of the helmet, so on the Selection rollout, click Polygon to go to the Polygon sub-object level.
4. Turn on Ignore Backfacing.
5. Select the polygons in the groove at the top of the helmet.
   This is easiest to do in the Top viewport: use Arc Rotate to make sure you've selected all these polygons. When the selection is complete, press Shift+Z to restore the original Top view. (You might have to press Shift+Z more than once.)
   
   

   Selecting the crest polygons
   Tip: You can use Ctrl+click (or drag) to add or remove polygons from the selection, and Alt+click (or drag) to remove them.
6. On the Selection rollout, click Update Selection.
   The hairs now emanate only from the selected polygons.
   
   

   Hairs growing from the crest only

Modify the Hair general parameters:

1. Scroll down to the General Parameters rollout.
2. Change the hair count to 10000.
3. Reduce Hair Segments to 4. This value is the number of segments created along the length of each hair. Shorter hair needs fewer segments; longer hair needs more segments. Lowering the number of segments also reduces the amount of time it takes to render the scene.
4. Change the Rand(om) Scale value to 0.0.
   For this example, the helmet hair is all the same length, without any random scaling.
5. Set the Root Thick and Tip Thick values both to 2.0 so that the hairs are the same thickness along their entire length.
   Next you'll change the frizz and material properties of the hair.

Modify the Frizz and Material Properties of the helmet crest:

1. Open the Frizz Parameters rollout.
2. Set the Frizz Root and Frizz Tip values to 10.0.
3. Open the Material Parameters rollout.
4. Select a bright, saturated red for the Tip Color and black for the Root color.
5. Reduce both Hue Variation and Value Variation to 5.0.
   Because this is dyed hair, its color and texture are more uniform than natural hair. We want to add a bit of variety, but not much.
6. Leave the Mutant % value at 0.0.
   Mutant hairs are randomly selected and receive the color assigned. Mutant hairs are present in natural hair; as we age, we have more and more mutant gray or white hairs. However, the foot solder's helmet plume will not age (they used dyed horsehair), so you'll leave the mutant hairs out for now.

Render your scene to view the hair:

The Hair And Fur modifier requires at least one spotlight in the scene to render shadows.

1. From the right-click quad menu, choose Unhide All to unhide the lights in the scene.
   Two omni lights for general lighting and one spotlight for the Hair And Fur modifier appear. The spotlight is set to render shadows.
   A Hair And Fur render effect is necessary to render hair, but this is added automatically when you first apply the Hair And Fur modifier to an object in the scene. Also, by default the render effect is set to automatically use all spotlights in the scene to illuminate the hair, so no don't need to take further action to adjust the lighting.
   You can now render your scene.
2. With the Perspective viewport active, render your scene (press F9).
   Note: You can render hair only in a Perspective or Camera viewport.
   
   
   Your centurion helmet should look something like this:
   
   

   Rendered image of the helmet

Next

Recombing the Helmet Crest of Hair

Recombing the Helmet Crest of Hair

In this lesson you'll learn how to style the hair using the Recomb From Splines tool.

1. Continue from the previous lesson or open recomb_helmet.max.
2. Before you begin to draw the splines, turn on the Snaps Toggle (press S) so that the start of the splines begin at the roots of the hair. Also, right-click the Snaps Toggle button to open the Grid And Snaps Settings dialog, and on the Snaps panel, turn off Grid Points and turn on Face. Close the dialog with the X button in the upper-right corner.
3. Starting at the front of the helmet, draw Line splines away from the head as illustrated below. Hair requires that all the splines are part of the same object, so after you draw the first spline, turn off the Start New Shape check box on the Object Type rollout.
   
   

   Spline object to use for recombing
   
   
4. Select the Line object to make sure all the splines are part of the same object. If they are not, select the first line, go to the Modify panel, and at the Spline sub-object level, use Attach to attach the other lines.
5. Select the Helmet object, and on the Tools rollout, click Recomb From Splines. In a viewport, click the spline object.
   
   

   The hair now follows the shape of the splines.

• Render the Perspective viewport to view the new hair.
  
  

  Hair recombed by splines

Next

Adding Facial Hair to the Centurion

Adding Facial Hair to the Centurion

Now that you have the helmet ready to go, you'll add hair to the centurion’s face.

1. Continue from the previous lesson, or open the file recomb_helmet_splines.max.
2. Apply the Hair And Fur modifier to the head.
3. Go to the Polygon sub-object level. Make sure Ignore Backfacing is turned on, and select the polygons at the base of the chin.
   As with the helmet, Arc Rotate can help you locate the polygons you need, and once you've made the sub-object selection, Shift+Z will undo the viewport changes.
4. Click Update Selection.
   
   

   Hair as a goatee, with chin polygons selected

Use preset hair values:

1. On the Tools rollout, click Load in the Presets group.
   The Hair And Fur Presets dialog appears.
2. Double-click the “clumpy-wet-brown” preset to apply it to the polygons.
3. Adjust the Perspective viewport so it shows a better view of the chin, and then render it.
   You now have fine, spiky hair growing from the chin.
   
   

   The goatee before styling

Style the goatee:

1. Open the Styling rollout and click Style Hair to turn it on.
   A green brush gizmo appears in viewports. In the active viewport, the brush appears as a circle, but it is actually a cylindrical region, as you can see in inactive viewports.
   Orange guide hairs also appear in the viewports, among the actual hairs. When you style hair, you are styling the guides. There are fewer guides than hairs, so this method saves performance time.
   Tip: The Guides can be easier to see in viewports if you turn off Toggle Hair in the Styling rollout's Utilities group.
2. Make sure the brush is large enough to encompass the goatee. If you need to change its size, you can use the slider in the Styling group (below the Ignore Back Hairs toggle), or you can hold down Shift+Ctrl and drag the mouse.
3. Click the Translate button to turn it on, position it over the goatee, and drag to straighten the hairs so they point away from the chin.
   The Front and Left viewports are the easiest to use for this adjustment.
   
   

   Goatee translated downward and away from the chin
4. Click the Clump button to turn it on. In the Front viewport, place the brush over the goatee and then drag toward the right to move the guide hairs together until they come to a point (see the illustration below).
5. You might want to repeat the two preceding steps until you get a result you like.
6. When you are happy with the results, render the Perspective viewport.
   
   

   The goatee after translating and clumping
   The hair still frizzes out a bit too much at the tips.

Fix the frizz value:

• Go back and change the Frizz Tip value to 0.0. Render the scene again to view the changes.
  
  

  The goatee with tip frizz removed

Next

Grooming a Dog

Grooming a Dog

In this tutorial you'll use Hair to add fur to a dog model, and then groom the fur. The tutorial also covers preparing the model for automatically growing fur of different lengths by adjusting polygon sizes.

Set up the lesson:

• Load the file dog_groom_start.max. This is located in the \tutorials\hair\ folder.
  This scene contains a cartoon dog model. The dog was created using the box-modeling method, and was then mesh-smoothed. This automatically creates smaller polygons where the hair should be shorter, such as on the legs.

Apply Hair and Fur and choose a preset:

1. Select the dog model, and then go to the Modify panel.
2. From the Modifier List drop-down > World-Space Modifiers category, choose Hair And Fur (WSM).
   The hairs appear as brown lines emanating from the dog model.

Begin grooming the fur:

1. Open the Styling rollout, and click Style Hair to turn it on.
   A large number of orange hair guides appear in the viewports. By default, all the guides are standing perpendicular to the mesh surface, and are all the same length.
   
   

   At the start, all the guides stick straight out.
2. In the Utilities group, click the Attenuate button.
   
   

   Attenuated guides
   Attenuate makes the length of hair guides proportional to the size of the polygons they grow from. Attenuate is a useful tool in this case, because most dogs have shorter hair in areas with higher detail, such as the head and legs.

Use the Translate tool to brush the fur:

1. Activate the Left viewport, and press Alt+W to maximize it.
   When you turn on Style Hair, the Hair Brush and Translate tools are on by default. You'll use these to begin grooming the dog.
2. Increase the size of the brush until it is about a third the size of the dog. This is about two-thirds to the right on the Brush size slider (just below the Ignore Back Hairs toggle).
3. In the Selection group, click the Select Hair By Ends button to turn it on.
   The tip vertices of the hair guides appear in the viewport.
   This selection option moves hairs by the end only. The effect is softer than Select Whole Guide, which is the default.
4. Position the brush over an area you want to groom, and drag the mouse to groom the fur in the general direction it should flow, away from the dog's face.
   Note: Don't worry if hair appears to penetrate the surface of the dog. You will fix this in a later step.
   
   

   The dog after a first brushing
   Because this is a big soft brush, you can get a fairly smooth transition from one direction to another. As you continue to groom, make the brush smaller for fine-tuning the fur.
5. In the Utilities group, click Recomb.
   The Recomb tool snaps all the hair that you've just brushed to the surface's tangent, but it preserves the hair's length and overall direction.
   
   

   Recombing “tames” the guides.
6. Repeat the two previous steps until you're happy with the general flow of the fur.
   
   

   The dog after further grooming and recombing

Scale the fur to adjust its length:

1. In the Styling group, click the Scale tool to turn it on. Reduce the size of the brush, and then go around the dog, manually adjusting the guide lengths. Dragging to the right increases hair length, and dragging to the left decreases it.
   The hair on the ears and legs should be a bit shorter, and you might want to grow the hair on the snout and tail out a bit.
   
   

   Scale the guides in places where the fur should be shorter.
2. Click Recomb again.
3. Repeat the previous two steps until you like the result.

Use the Stand tool to make the hair stand out from the body:

1. In the Selection group, click Select Whole Strand to turn this selection mode on once again. Then in the Styling group, click the Stand tool to turn it on. Position the brush over areas of the dog, and drag to the right a bit to puff the hair away from the body.
   Using Stand with the brush pushes the hair away from the skin.
   
   

   Use the Stand tool to make the guides stick out more.
   Natural fur usually stands out at about 60 degrees from the surface; you can also use the Translate brush at a side angle to do this. For this tutorial, you're modeling a stuffed animal, so you can stand the hair out a bit more than might be natural.
2. When you're satisfied with the grooming, click Finish Styling to turn this button off.
3. Press Alt+W again to restore the four viewports.

Adjust the material settings:

This is a toy dog, so you can use unreal coloring to enhance the effect.

1. Open the Material Parameters rollout..
   The scene already contains two spot lights, both set to cast shadows in the form of shadow maps. Because the Hair and Fur render effect uses these by default, the spot lights will automatically cast shadows from the hair.
2. Set Tip Color to a medium green: R=95, G=157, B=45.
3. Set Root Color to a slightly darker green: R=61, G=145, B=45.
4. Set Occluded Amb. to 96.4 and Hue Variation to 40.0. The fur shouldn't be too shiny, so set Specular to 8.365 and Glossiness to 71.28.

Adjust other settings to make the hair like fur:

1. Open the General Parameters rollout. Set Hair Count to 329000, Hair Passes to 3, and Tip Thick to 1.0.
   Note: These settings make the dog quite furry. It will take a long time to render, but the results are good.
2. Open the Frizz Parameters rollout. Set Frizz Tip to 20.0, and Frizz X/Y/Z Freq. (all three) to 64.0.

Render the dog:

Warning: This step takes a long time, so you might want to skip it. If you do render your version of the dog, plan on a long break.

• Activate the Perspective viewport, and then press F9 to render the scene.
  
  

  The dog in all its furry glory

Next

Styling Hair with a Spline Emitter

Styling Hair with a Spline Emitter

Some hairstyles, particularly longer ones, lend themselves more naturally to spline interpolation than surface growth. Spline-based hair basically gives you explicit control inside 3ds Max over a finite set of guide hairs. When you create hair with a spline object as the growth source, Hair creates a guide from each spline in the object. It then uses these guides as cross-sections to create hair growth. Essentially, you're creating a three-dimensional “sheet” of hair in the shape of the spline cross-sections.

For success with spline-based hair, keep these important requirements in mind:

• Hair growth is interpolated between each pair of successively numbered splines. The best way to ensure this is to create the splines that serve as the hair outline as separate objects, and then attach them all together in the correct order.
• Interpolation between pairs of splines is linear, so use as many splines necessary to create a rounded look for your hair.
• The first vertex in each spline serves as the hair root, so when you create the splines, start at the base of each hair.

In this tutorial, you'll create two different spline objects, both comprising a number of Line splines, to create a woman's hairdo. The hairdo will have bangs in the front, with a flip on the sides and long, straight hair in the back.

Set up the tutorial:

1. Open the file spline_emitter_start.max.
   The scene consists of a simple head mesh and three shadow-casting spot lights that are hidden at this time. Instead of using the mesh as a hair emitter, you'll create a spline-based outline for the hair.
2. Select the head in the scene and right-click it. From the quad menu that appears, choose Freeze Selection.
3. On the main toolbar, right-click the Snaps Toggle button to open the Grid And Snap Settings dialog.
4. The only snaps option that should be on is Face. As necessary, turn off any other options and turn on Face.
5. In the Grid And Snap Settings > Options panel, turn on Snap To Frozen Objects.
6. Click the close button in the upper-right corner to exit the dialog, and then left-click the Snaps Toggle button to turn on snapping to faces.

Create the spline cage for the hair:

In this section you'll create the splines for the hair. In that respect, you have to consider the design of the hairdo and the parting of the hair. The red line in the following illustration shows where the hair part will be. You will use it as a base line for the hair splines as they flow on either side of the head.

The hair part line

1. Go to the Create panel and choose Splines > Line. Make sure Initial Type and Drag Type are both set to Smooth.
2. In the Perspective viewport, position the mouse at the front of the parting line seen above, and then click to start the spline. Move the mouse partway down the left side of the head and click again. Move it farther down and slightly back, click again, and then move it down and closer to the front to create a nice flowing curve. Right-click to end.
   The four-vertex spline is not smooth enough to follow the contours of the head. You will make the necessary adjustments later but for now, press F3 to view the scene in wireframe mode..
3. Continue adding splines. Start the next one a little further back from the first. Likewise for the third and fourth. Continue around the back, always placing the spline base points along the parting line of the hair. use the following image as a reference.

Adjust the spline cage

1. Go to the Display panel. In the Hide rollout, turn on Hide Frozen Objects. This hides the head object from the scene.
2. Select the first spline you created: Line01, and then go to the Modify panel.
3. From the Geometry rollout, click the Attach button.
4. Attach the splines sequentially, moving clockwise around the head. The sequential numbering of splines in the spline cage is very important for the hair modifier to work properly.
5. Go back to the Display panel and turn off Hide Frozen Objects.
6. With the spline cage selected, go to the Modify panel and rename the object Hair.
7. Go to the Vertex sub-object level. Looking at the top of the head, select all the first vertices representing the hair roots.
8. Press Ctrl+I to invert the selection.
9. From the main toolbar, choose the Scale tool and set the scale pivot to Use Selection Center
10. Scale the selection up so that the splines flow more naturally around the head.
11. Adjust the individual vertices so they fit the shape of the head nicely, floating just above the mesh. Make the necessary adjustments to follow the design of the hairdo you have set yourself to achieve. If necessary, refine the splines to add vertex control to shape the spline cage with more detail.

Generate the hair:

1. Continue working on your file or open the file spline_emitter_hair.max
2. With the Hair object selected, apply a Hair And Fur (WSM) modifier.
   
   

   Hair And Fur modifier applied to splines

Adjust the hair settings:

The settings described in the following steps were arrived at through experimentation. You might find other settings that work better for your hair, so feel free to experiment yourself, and revise the suggested values.

1. Open the General Parameters rollout and set these values:
   • Hair Count =1200
   • Hair Segments =25
   • Hair Passes =4
   • Root Thick =6.0
   • Tip Thick =4.0
   These settings control the number of hairs, their curvature, and their size.
2. Open the Material Parameters rollout and set these values:
   • Occluded Amb. =0.0
   • Tip Color = dark brownRGB (34,28,13)
   • Tip Color = dark brownRGB (29,24,11)
   • Hue Variation =15
   These settings control the material properties of the hair, such as color and shininess.
3. Open the Frizz Parameters rollout and set this value:
   • Frizz Root =80
   
   
   This setting adds a certain amount of noise to the root of the hair, making it look denser and more natural.
4. Open the Multi Strand Parameters rollout and set these values:
   • Count =5
   • Root Splay =0.85
   • Randomize =15
   These parameters add a certain amount of clumping to the rendered hair.

Render the hair:

• Render the hair in the Perspective viewport.
  
  

  The final result
  If you have time, try rendering the hair from various angles.
  
  

  The same hair, rendered in a partial profile
  
  

  The same hair, rendered nearly from the back
  To see our final results, open the scene spline_emitter_final.max. Your results might differ significantly; there are many variables in projects like this.
  Also if you have time, try adjusting spline vertices to further style the hair. Notice that as you adjust the splines, the display hairs in the viewports are updated interactively.

Next

Working with Hair Presets

Working with Hair Presets

Presets let you save or load the various hair settings.

Set up the scene:

• Continue working on your file or open the file spline_emitter_final.max.

Save your work:

Now that you have adjusted the hair parameters, you will save a hair preset for later recall.

1. With the Hair object selected, go to the Modify panel and expand the Tools rollout.
2. In the Presets group, click the Save button.
3. In the dialog that appears, name the preset Brown_Hair and then click OK.

Load a new preset:

1. In the Tools rollout > Presets group, click the Load button.
   The Hair And Fur Presets dialog appears. The preset you just saved is displayed in a thumbnail called Brown_Hair.shp.
2. Double-click the platnumBlond.shp thumbnail to load that Preset.
3. Render the Perspective view to see the results. The character now has light blond hair, but the parameters need adjustment.
   
   

   Platinum blond hair: default preset settings
   Presets are a good way to load hair settings, but often you need to adjust the preset parameters to get the effect you are aiming for. In this case, it looks like the hair ought to be finer and straighter than the default settings show.

Adjust the preset settings:

1. Change the hair settings as follows:
   • General Parameters > Hair Segments =30
   • General Parameters > Root Thick =4.0
   • General Parameters > Tip Thick =3.0
   • Frizz Parameters > Frizz Root =50
   • Frizz Parameters > Frizz Tip =0
   • Multi Strand Parameters > Multi Strand Count =4
   • Multi Strand Parameters > Root Splay =0.2
2. To test the results, render the Perspective view again.
   
   

   Blond hair after adjusting the preset settings
   Feel free to experiment with other settings.

Next

Working with Instance Objects

Working with Instance Objects

Organic growths such as feathers, leaves, flowers, and scales have properties similar to hair, and present similar challenges for modeling. The Hair And Fur modifier lets you model these objects by growing instances of an object.

When you work with instances, please keep the following points in mind:

• You’re creating geometry, even if it is only at render time, so memory is a limitation on hair count. For this reason, use an object with a low polygon count, and a comparitively low Hair Count.
• The material applied to your growth is inherited from the growth object, not the instance itself; only UVs come from the instance.
• The root of the instance, where the 3ds Max pivot is, will be at the root of where the hair would otherwise be.
• The shape or grown instances, including their size, bend, and so on, result directly from the hair settings, including styling.
• Despite the expression “instance,” objects created with Hair's Instance Node tool are not true 3ds Max instances of the original object: they do not automatically reflect subsequent changes to the original. To updated instanced hairs, you must click the button in the Instance Node group after you edit the source object.

Set up the tutorial:

1. 1. Open the file instancing_start.max.
   The scene consists of a dog model with Hair applied, and a plane mapped with a leaf image.
   Both the dog model and the leaf have already been textured with the same material.
2. Render the Perspective view.
   
   

   Dog and leaf both share the same material

Check the leaf object's pivot point:

• Select the leaf object.
  Check that the leaf object's pivot is at its base, where it will connect with the dog's skin.
  If the pivot weren't at the leaf's base, you'd need to go to the Hierarchy panel > Adjust Pivot rollout, turn on Affect Pivot Only, and then move the pivot to the proper location.

Choose the leaf to use as an instanced hair:

1. Select the dog object and open the Tools rollout.
2. In the Instance Node group, click the pick button (if there is no instance, its label shows “None”), and then in a viewport, click the leaf object.

Render the result:

• Render the Perspective view once more.

Leaf applied as an instanced hair

Working with Surface Lock

One of the useful tools Hair offers is the ability to lock hairs to a surface. This feature allows you to create features such as a braid as easily as you can model one. In this tutorial you'll use the surface lock feature to create a twist of hair.

Set up the tutorial:

1. Open morph_braid_start.max.
   This scene contains three cylinders combined into a single object named Braid surface, which morphs into a braid. This braid geometry is not renderable: its only purpose is to deform the hair.
2. Select Braid surface and note the hair settings.
   When locking hair to a surface, you are actually locking the guides to the surface, so it’s a good idea to use low values for the parameters that spread hair away from the guides; for example, Random Scale and Frizz. For realistic hair, set these values a little higher than 0. It is also a good idea to use a higher-than-usual Hair Segments value, in order to improve deformation.

Set the sub-objects that grow hair:

You'll grow hair from the tops of the cylinders and then drape it down around the surface.

• At the Polygon sub-object level of the Hair And Fur modifier, select the top polygons of each cylinder as shown, and then click Update Selection.
  
  

  Top two segments of the hair braid selected

Align the hair to the braid model:

• On the Tools rollout, click Recomb From Splines and then pick the Spline Guides object.
  The hair aligns to the direction and length of these splines.
  You could easily create these splines from edges of the geometry, drawing them by hand. Or you could just create the same hairstyle using the styling tools and skip the splines altogether.
  The next step is to lock the hair to the surface of the cylinders, which you do in the Styling rollout.

Lock the hair guides:

1. Change from the Polygon to the Guides sub-object level.
   This also activates the controls on the Styling rollout.
2. Open the Styling rollout.
   By default, all the guide vertices are selected, so you don't need to select any.
3. Click the Lock button to turn it on. Now the hair guide vertices are locked to the Braid surface object.
   Note: In other situations, it might be desirable to lock only specific parts of the hair to a surface; for example, to wrap hair around curlers, or tuck hairlocks behind the ears.
4. Click Finish Styling to turn this button off. This also exits the Guides sub-object level.

Set up rendering and render the result:

1. In the modifier stack, turn on the Morpher and Path Deform modifiers.
   Note: For animation, the braid mesh can be skinned to a bone chain, instead of posed with Path Deform.
2. Go to frame 20.
3. Render the Camera01 viewport.
   
   

   The completed braid
   If you have time, you can also look at the scene morph_braid_finished.max. This scene contains two additional Hair And Fur modifiers, which model layered growth effects.
   
   

   Rendering of braid with layered hair

Next

Copying Hair: Transplants, Wigs, and Toupees

Copying Hair: Transplants, Wigs, and Toupees

Once you’ve created mesh-grown hair, you can use a number of ways to move it from one character or creature to another. This lesson demonstrates three of them.

Method 1: The Toupee

The “toupee” method is relatively simple. Starting with mesh-grown hair you get rid of unnecessary geometry in order to move this hair elsewhere.

1. Open the file toupee_start.max.
2. Select the head mesh, and then go to the Modify panel. On the Tools rollout, in the Hairdo group, click Copy.
   This caches the full hair description, including guides and materials.
   Important: If you skip this step, the method will not work!
3. Go to the Polygon level of the Hair And Fur modifier.
   The polygons selected to grow hair become visible.
   
   

   The selection of polygons that grow hair
4. On the Selection rollout, in the Named Selection Set group, click Copy.
   The Copy Named Selection dialog appears.
5. In the dialog, click to highlight the tophead selection set, and then click OK.
6. On the modifier stack, expand the Editable Mesh entry. Click Yes to dismiss the warning that appears. Click the Polygon entry to go to that sub-object level.
7. On the Selection rollout, under Named Selections, click Paste.
   
   

   The hair polygon selection pasted to the editable mesh
8. Choose Edit > Select Invert to invert the selection.
   
   

   The polygon selection inverted
9. Press Delete to delete the polygons that don't grow hair.
   
   

   After Delete, only the hair-growing polygons remain.

   
   
10. On the modifier stack, highlight the Polygon level of the Hair And Fur modifier once again.
    Your selection has probably been scrambled a bit.
    
    

    After you edit the mesh, the poly selection in the Hair modifier is scrambled
11. Press Ctrl+A to select all the polygons. Then on the Selection rollout, click Update Selection.
    The hair now looks approximately like it did originally, but not exactly.
    
    

    Updating the full polygon selection
12. On the Tools rollout, in the Hairdo group, click Paste.
    
    

    Pasting the original hairdo to complete the toupee
    You now have a hair toupee that you can plant under the skin of your characters. For best results, make the surface polygons non-renderable (Edit > Object Properties > General Panel > Rendering Control group > Turn off Renderable).
    Using “toupees,” you can create a library of custom hair setups, retaining only the essential geometry: that is, only those polygons from which the hair grows.

Method 2: The Wig

For the “wig” method, you first convert the hairs to an editable spline object, then use the spline object to grow new hair.

1. Open the file wig_start.max.
2. Select the head object (objpCube1) and go to the Modify panel.
3. On the General Parameters rollout, reduce the Hair Count to 2200.
   The initial value of 22,000 is a huge processing load.
4. On the Tools rollout, in the Convert group, click Hair -> Splines.
   
   

   Hairs converted to splines
5. Press Delete to delete the original mesh object.
   
   

   Hair splines after deleting the mesh
6. Select the resulting spline object and then apply a Hair And Fur modifier.
   This creates a spline growth.
   
   

   New hair grown from the splines
   Because it's a spline growth, not a mesh growth, the interpolation is uneven. To resolve this, you'll disable interpolation.
7. On the General Parameters rollout, turn off Interpolate.
   This means that Hair won't fill in between the guides. In other words, you'll have one hair per spline, if the Hair Count is set high enough.
8. Turn off displacements by setting values Rand. Scale, Frizz Root and Tip, and Kink Root and Tip to 0.0.
   The original values are already reflected in the spline object you created.
   
   

   With Interpolation and displacements turned off, the new hair follows the splines.
9. On the Multi Strand Parameters rollout, set count to 20, and also set Root Splay and Tip Splay to 0.5.
10. Render the Perspective view.
    
    

    The rendered wig
    You now have a hair description that is independent of any mesh, upon which you can run dynamics if you like.

Method 3: The Transplant

The “transplant” method essentially consists of copying the hairdo, selecting a target surface that’s positioned as closely as possible to the original, adding a Hair And Fur modifier to the new surface, and then pasting the hairdo.

The steps that follow also show what goes on inside Hair when you copy and paste hairdos.

1. Open the file transplant_start.max.
2. On the Tools rollout, click Convert > Guides->Splines.
   
   

   Hair guides (not all hairs) converted to splines
   This differs from the wig method (described above) in that this time, we use the hair guides instead of the individual hairs.
3. Save the hair settings by clicking Tools rollout > Presets > Save. Name the preset temp_hair_material.
4. The head is no longer necessary, so delete it.
   
   

   Hair-guide splines with the mesh deleted
5. Position the spline object created in step 1 around a new growth mesh. This illustration uses a Capsule primitive, but feel free to use any type of object you like.
   
   

   Hair-guide splines positioned on a new surface
6. Apply a Hair And Fur modifier to the new surface, select the polygons from which the hair should grow, and then click Update Selection.
   
   

   Hair regrown from a new polygon selection
7. Recover the original hair settings. On the Tools rollout, in the Presets group, click Load. and then in the presets dialog, double-click the temp_hair_material thumbnail.
8. On the Tools rollout, click Recomb From Splines, then in a viewport, click the spline object that was converted from the hair guides.
   
   

   The recombed hair
   Note: Technically, you don’t need the spline object after this step, but you might want to keep it around for a future hairdo.
9. Render the Perspective view. The rendered transplant

NEXT - Cloth Tutorials