Curve guide hair problem

Support Modeling
1

Hi,

I’ve set up some curve guides the way I want my hair to move. Most of the hair follows the curve guides well, and looks pretty good. However, the point where the hair first comes out of the mesh is not following the guides, but rather laying flat against the mesh. No forces or velocity are affecting the particles, so I am not understanding what is keeping them from following the guides. It’s a very visible part of the hair too, so it really needs to get fixed. I’m posting a screenshot so you can see what I mean.

Thanks

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Also, while I’m on the topic, if anybody could comment on the use of the “Additive” option on curve guides I’d appreciate it. I know more or less what it means, at least I think I do, but I am not sure about what kinds of situations it’s most appropriate to use it for. For example, in the case of a head of hair, would it be better to use it or not? (No worries, I’m experimenting, but it’s taking time…)

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Update: I think I sorted the curve guide problem out. Seems I need more control points in my curve. I would still be happy to get any comments or suggestions for further reading on this stuff.

2

For the problem in your pic reduce your Steps value (and check your Keys value is high enough).

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3

Thanks very much for the reply. My steps value was already at 1, but I don’t know what keys ought to be. That’s at 8. Is that low? The hair is fairly long, if that matters.

One other question about curve guides… actually two. How can I reverse which end of the guide affects the particles, and how can I insert control points at a particular place on a curve?

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Google’s adsense is giving me a bunch of ads for hair growing tonic… maybe they can see my avatar…

4

Steps (when you go beyond 1) gives you… well, steps, sections, kinda like resolution. It’s akin to 3, 6 or 12 verts in a Mesh Circle. Keys takes the Static Particle stream and (in a virtual sense, since there is no IPO) divides it up into ‘keyframed’ sections, much like an IPO Curve over X number of frames could have any number of keyframes.

In Edit mode W >> Switch Direction (you should know that since you worked out soft body weighting for hair some months ago).

Select 2 CV’s and W >> Subdivide in Edit mode then Grab it and slide it into position.

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5

Thanks. Increasing the keys helped a lot.

W >>

Heh heh. The old W menu… should have thought of that.

6

I had no idea that you could switch the direction like that. I haven’t seen that anywhere until now. Thanks you have saved me alot of trouble Fligh.