Hair .. always the hair

I know there is alot about this on forums…but i still havent found anything. I am looking for a way to make realistic looking hair, found that, but it has to be able to be animated, i need the hair to be able to animate like say…softbodies, i saw a hair tutorial using planes where you take a really thin piece and make it a soft body, i was able to get the animation of it right, but it doesnt look good (its a thin, flat plane). I tried to use static particles, now it looks good but cant really be animated. What i want is for the hair to

  1. have a downwards force like softbodies’s ‘gravity’
  2. if the character moves forward, the hir should stay behind for a while, naturally and for eg if the character turns his/her head quickly the hair should move and keep moving for a while because of the force, also naurally.
  3. act with forces such as wind
    I know this could all be done with softbodies, but i cant do it with static partacles. I also dont want to do the thing with the big plane where you put on a hair texture because it cant really be animated

Any advice and help will be very very very very appreciated

imho the current way is to use Curve as guide of the particle, and apply softbody to the curve…
you can set weight for softbody with W key in curve editmode.

Wow, is that really possible, Gabio? I haven’t really gotten into softbodies too much (aside from giving my avatar a superman cape), but if they can also be applied to curves that makes for a lot of interesting animation.

Have you rendered any tests like that?

thank you ver much…ill try as soon as possible…i never would have thought of that…ill inform on my progress :slight_smile:

well, i got a softbody applied to the curve, but the ‘W’ key doesnt work to set weights, it brings up the special menu. Am i doing anything wrong?

Press [tab] first to get edit mode!

i was in edit mode, if in object mode nothing happens…

You’ve got me playing with this now too, and I also can’t find the settings for weighting curves. I’ve got curves falling infinitely and stretching infinitely and such, but nothing much more.

If anyone figures out how to lock a curve into place and then have that curve bounce with object movement I’d be very interested to know how you pulled it off.

Weights only work in NURBS and Surface curves. But it seems you can’t assign VertGroups on Curves. Maybe you can use VertGroups on the Mesh as Goal though.

%<

tried that, but just realised i made a mistake.

The nurb weights isnt for use with softbodies and such, its just the weight for bending the curve, so if its less, it will be affected less (i think)

You seem to be posting all over the place about this so here’s a possible solution. If you’re willing to ditch softbodies then you can add a Hook to a CV on the Curve and set it to SlowParent. The further down the curve the slower you set the parent.

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33896

%<

Another Orange sneak-in feature: SoftBody support for Curves & Surfaces.

Well, it already worked a bit, but without weight options or edge
stiffness. You now can set the weights using the “Properties” Panel in
the 3D Window (allows multiple selections too) or with Wkey in Edit Mode.
Bezier curves have this too.

NOTE2: Surface Objects don’t support edge stiffness yet.

From here: http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7415

DwarvenFury

yeah, thats right, download the newest version, 28 november, then edit the curve and press ‘w’ there will be an option to add weight…it works like magic, the curve hangs from the point like anything else, its just great!!

sorry about the multiple posting…im just so desperate, im currently modeling some characters thats going to be used in a game for the ‘movie’ parts, so i want it to look perfect :slight_smile:

Cheers!

This is a fun game. Can’t wait for the proper stiffness.