HOW TO APPLY FUR TO A CHARACTER by Jason Ungerman

This how-to explains the process of adding fur to a character model.

Adjustments are then made to the fur in order to achieve the desired look.

   STEP ONE

Download the project files for your platform:

Set your project to Fur and open the fur.ma file from the scenes directory.

Select the shoulders and the torso of the character and verify that the selections made in the Window > Hypergraph show as minionShoulders and minionTorso.

With these surfaces selected, from the Rendering menu set, go to Fur > Attach Fur Description > New to place fur on these surfaces. Since both surfaces were selected during the Attach Fur Description operation, they both will reference this single new furDescription.

There now should be noticeable "hairs" on the shoulders but not on the torso. These "hairs" are the fur normals displaying the direction of the fur just created. These indicators on the torso appear to be sticking inwards as opposed to outwards. You will need to reverse the normals. Select the minionTorso and go to Fur > Reverse Fur Normals. All the fur normals should be sticking outwards.

   STEP TWO

To edit the look of the fur, it is necessary to edit the attributes of the furDescription created. Select just the "hairs" on the torso but not the surface itself. Call up the Window > Attribute Editor and select the furDescription tab at the top of this window in order to edit the attributes' parameters. Change the following attributes of the furDescription:

  • Length to 2.5 (specifying the fur length)
  • Inclination to 0.8 (specifying that the fur will lie somewhat flat against the surface.)
  • Polar to 0.25 (specifying the angle relative to surface normal at which the fur falls, in this case down the torso.)

Notice that the fur on both the shoulders and torso surfaces are affected at the same time. As mentioned, the fur description effects both the "hair" on the shoulders and torso simultaneously since both were selected at creation time of the single fur description.

   STEP THREE

To edit the actual placement and orientation of the fur as opposed to the "look" occurs directly on the surface itself. Therefore, for this type of operation, any of the surfaces to be considered must be selected together at the same time.

Select both the minionShoulders and minionTorso surfaces then go to Fur > Paint Fur Attributes Tool. From the Paint Fur Attributes Tool Settings window that appears, change the Fur Attribute to Baldness. The Paint Fur Attributes Tool utilizes Artisan and therefore its hotkeys may be used as well.

Use the Artisan Hotkey "n" to change the Value of Baldness by holding the Hotkey and Left Mouse Button dragging in the modeling window to interactively change the value to 0. By specifying a value of zero for Baldness, painting on any selected area that has fur will become completely "bald" in that area. Use the Artisan Hotkey "b" to change the brush size to around 3.5 by holding the Hotkey and Left Mouse Button dragging in the modeling window to interactively change the brush size. Alternatively, the option window for this tool offers editable fields for this information as well.

Remove the fur from the middle of the torso and shoulder regions by painting over this area with the brush. To add hair back into the armpit regions, change the Value of Baldness to 1.0

   STEP FOUR

You are now ready to comb the direction of the fur.

In the Paint Fur Attributes Tool Settings window, change Fur Attribute to Direction. Make sure that the Value of Direction is set to 1 using the n hotkey. With the brush, "comb" down the length of the character's arms and down the back so that the hair travels down the shoulder blades.

   STEP FIVE

With the fur in place it is now time to refine the "look" of the fur.

Press 6 on the keyboard to view the model in Hardware Texture mode.

Press q on the keyboard to enter select mode. Select just the hairs from the torso surface. Open the Attribute Editor.

Click the FurDescription1 tab. Change the Length attribute to 2.8 to make the hairs a bit longer. From the Attribute editor: FurDescription1 window, open the Details section, then the Length section. Change Noise Amplitude to a value of 3.0. Open the Inclination section and change Noise Amplitude to 0.6.

In the Attribute Editor click on the minionTorso_FurFeedbackShape tab and change Fur Accuracy to 1.0. Fur Accuracy refines the display resolution of the fur normals but also slows performance while using the Artisan Paint Fur Attributes Tool. Select the hairs from the shoulder surface and in the Attribute Editor: minionShoulders_FurFeedbackShape window, change Fur Accuracy to 1.0.

From the Attribute Editor: minionShoulders_FurFeedback window, click on the FurDescription1 tab and change Scraggle to 3.5 to make the hairs more jagged along their length. Change the Base Color and Tip Color accordingly.

For on screen purposes, the number of hairs displayed by hardware may be increased in the Attribute Editor for the hairs selected by editing the U Samples and V Samples fields. Interactive performance decreases as the numbers in these fields increase. To affect the number of hairs produced from a software render but not affect hardware display of them, in the Attribute Editor of the FurDescription, change the Density value. The higher the number, the more hairs created but the longer it will take to render.

   CONCLUSION

Fur helps to add convincing realism to characters. It is possible to get fur to react with dynamics simply from creating attractors by selecting Fur > Create Attractor.

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