Hair Shader Tips

[Justin K]

Hello all, 

 

Doing some experimentation with the hair shader.  Just curious as to what the general reviews of it are when it comes to getting hyper realistic results? 

I have been playing around with the hair and fur system on the technical end and love it.  The thing is I am struggling on the shader end.  Im not that experienced with shading to be honest, and at the moment I am paintstakingly experimenting with parameters and lighting in hopes of getting something that works.  Dont mind the experimentation but I stumbled across this 

 

 

And became a bit curious.  I know it is two years old, but is there something fundamental in the default houdini shading model that leaves things to be desired when it comes to hair?   

 

The arnold shader when I used it in maya seemed to get me realistic results fairly quickly--

https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AFMUG/Standard+Hair

but I want to use Houdinis fur system, and would prefer to use mantra to arnold if I can.  

 

 

Id like to point out that the masterclasses put out by SideFX have been extremely helpful for learning the tool itself.  

 

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions!

 

If youd like a temporary file Ill be happy to provide one--but im just working on spheres and grids at the moment, and trying to match hair to a couple references I found.  

 

 

 

[bbentley81]

This looks like a good start to me. How did you get the braid to work? I've been looking for how to do that in Houdini for some time now. I also find it is hard to judge how "real" something looks out of context. Maybey a test on a model head would give better feedback on what direction to push the look. I know it's not a technical answer, but I think it's a good place to start.

Great work!