cmiVFX Releases Awesome Houdini Facial Hair Grooming Video

[cmiVFX]

cmiVFX Releases Awesome Houdini Facial Hair Grooming Video

High Definition Training Videos for the Visual Effects Industry

 

Princeton, NJ (October 28, 2015) Several months in the making, cmiVFX Research releases an epic video on how to groom human facial hair using SideFX Houdini Animation Software. Artist, cmi’s Chris Maynard, researched hair sculpting in conjunction with hair styling students of an international beauty school as well as popular NYC salons to come up with his ground breaking technique of “Render Softening” using digital hair to dither CG renders for a more realistic look. In conjunction with all of these resources, we added the compatibility with Solid Angle’s Arnold Rendering system to leverage the power of inoperability between several major animation packages. Using Alembic support allowed for us to get true congruency across multiple platforms. To add even more excitement to this already amazing video content, we recorded dual monitor high resolution screens to be displayed in our new higher resolution playback formats! No matter what kind of device you are on, or whatever location you are in, we have a solution for you! The cmiVFX website is designed to work 100% of the time using our redundant cloud servers and multiple device support, which is why many global developers are now using our site to test their own networks for problems! At cmiVFX, we are not only the teachers, but life long students. We take our customers feedback seriously, so our website will keep getting better after each new video release. Houdini Facial Hair Grooming is a major video milestone for us, allowing our extremely popular, “outside of the box” methodology to help guide you as the viewer in a way that is both fun and intriguing. For the cost of a family dinner, you can increase your chance for consistent work exponentially. To assist you even further, we will even help you get a job doing what you love. Simply watch a video, then tell us if you want to do this for a living, and we will help you get started on a path to happiness and success. You can rely on cmiVFX.com to help you be the very best you can be! Purchase this video now, and start making all your characters more detailed today.

 

Vimeo Teaser Trailer

 

Short Description 

Chris Maynard shows one of his legendary VFX tricks of hair blending and “Render Softening” using Houdini.

 

SideFX Houdini Facial Hair Grooming

https://cmivfx.com/store/653-Houdini+Facial+Hair+Grooming

 

Chapter Descriptions

 

Introduction

Get a quick preview of the content of this video before getting started. Did you know more than 70% of the women in Chris’s family worked in the Beauty Industry? He had attended dissertations on the latest research in hair growth and maintenance as a teenager when his mother was an instructor for Hair Styling and Chemical Treatments in New Jersey. One of his many side jobs was helping maintain a family salon geared towards the Music Industry where he was soon introduced to his initial career in music.

 

Setting Up

As an ongoing software UI designer, Chris tends to arrange his workspace for the most efficient level of effort. By reducing the amount of UI clicks, we can spend more time on visualizing changes. It is very important to keep your eyes tuned to the desired object in edit.

 

Base Hair

During the years of research in CG, VFX and Design, it often becomes very clear to work from large to small. In this chapter we start off with the largest body of hair which we use a central jumping point to all the secondary and tertiary hair systems. We also cover the seeding of multiple duplicates to create various hair colors for added realism. Most people have hair color variations, as well as fine white hairs which help deflect light in various directions. 

 

Hair Blending

Often ignored by low level animations, hair can create hard edges that lack reality. Especially, with shorter hair styles, the technique of blending is required to taper between hair types and lengths. This chapter is a key link between the base hair and the rest of the hair systems.

 

Hair Line

Sometimes, some variation is required to help pull the eye in a different direction. In our first “Render Softener” we use a bridge of fine hairs to blend the forehead into the head hair. This technique will be used in every digital hair style for the rest of your career and is probably worth the price of the video all on its own.

 

Beard Shadowing

How many times have you seen beard shadow added into the texture maps of a character? That might look ok from far away, but on close ups, it just will not do. This chapter we use not one, not two, but THREE different hair systems to make up the 5 O-Clock Shadow of the face. Another ground breaking technique of “Render Softening” is to use it evenly around the object of desire.

 

Eye Brows

This is one of the more tricky systems of hair styling. In this part of the video, we will use nearly all the grooming tools on the Houdini Toolbar. The eyebrows fall into our 80%/20% technique, so we allow for the ability to tweak at the end.

 

Eye Lashes

Because the eye lashes are going to be moved by animated morph objects, we must make sure they follow the proper direction and help keep them from colliding when the eyes close. The ability to tweak the lashes during this scenario is available, so we are able to design the base look which will be adequate for the animation departments later on.

 

Auxiliary Hairs

There are hairs all over the head, face and neck. Find out how to create hairs that cover every single polygon over your entire model and how to shade them appropriately. Ranging from nostril hair, to forehead hair, you will learn more about yourself here than ever before!

 

Final Touches

The trick to working in CG is to nail down 80% quality of all your objects until they are all together, then finish the last 20% with all your parts in one place so you know they will work as one. Working in any other way will take much longer and could yield a lesser result in the long run.

 

Wrapping Up

Find out how to set up Arnold Hair Shaders and Lights so that you can go back and forth between Mantra if needed. This video was meant to work with other cmiVFX Hair system videos so that no matter what application you are in, the end result renders the same.

 

About The Instructor

Chris Maynard is an international software GUI designer and the owner, Chief Public Partner, as well as Head Researcher of the profit-sharing organization known as cmiVFX.com. 

 

Project Contents

All cmiVFX videos come with all the training materials you need right from our website. No matter what time of day, your location, or how your feeling, cmiVFX will be there waiting for you!  

 

This video is available today at the cmiVFX Store: www.cmivfx.com   About cmiVFX cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. Register for free and receive hours of free content at the cmiVFX Video-on-Demand Player. Copyright 2015 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. All rights reserved.