Particle Hair from Meshes, Bezier Curves, Nurbs

Inspired by Jandals HairNet Add-on I decided to implement my take on the problem of creating particle hair. The difference: First, I think mine is slightly easier to use (at least for me) and second its focus is randomization.

Here is an example of eyelashes generated from nurbs entirely procedurally without editing afterwards:



Features: It supports Meshes (with seam edges), Bezier Curves (extruded so that radius and twist apply) and Nurbs as guides. It interpolates hair between connected parts of the guide with a density / spacing parameter. It allows for randomization of the length and both directions (tangent and normal) with parameters for the hairs root, entirety and tip. It takes into account the transformation of guide and transmitter as well as modifiers on the guide.



Available under GPLv3:
Blender 3.0: https://github.com/Lichtso/hair_guides
Blender 2.92: https://github.com/Lichtso/hair_guides/tree/Blender292
Blender 2.83: https://github.com/Lichtso/hair_guides/tree/Blender283
Blender 2.79: https://github.com/Lichtso/hair_guides/tree/Blender279

34 Likes

Nice
This be great :+1:

great ! looking for Blender 2.8 support

great job, if can support Blender 2.8 could be better :laughing:

1 Like

I need this so hard. Please, upgrade to 2.8. Thank you!

1 Like

I already ported it to 2.80, however there are still bugs in the blender python API which prevent addons from updating the positions of hair particles:
https://developer.blender.org/T58792
https://developer.blender.org/T60930
https://developer.blender.org/T64805
https://developer.blender.org/T65624

As long as these are not fixed, the add-on will “work” but not produce any result.

2 Likes

Thank you for this very good add-on, it is actually much easier and adjustable than Hair-Net, at least to me, Great Job!
Just a remark: the ‘Connect’ option only seems to destroy the hair, while the same command executed from the particle panel works flawless (on 2.79.7).

Thanks again!

Good news: I got it running for Blender 2.80! :partying_face:

You can download it at this git branch:
https://github.com/Lichtso/hair_guides/tree/blender280

5 Likes

This looks awesome, but i have a question: can i use it in a scenario like this one?
p.s: can you please take a screenshot on make a short video to explain how it should works? I don’t see any “Particle Hair” operator

Yes, I would go for a nurbs in your scenario.
(Curious: How did you get there? Is that combed?)

It is true that it is not beginner friendly right now and feels like the stars need to be aligned for it to work. On the GitHub page in the readme you will find a step by step guide.
And I will do a video tutorial when I find some time to do so.

If you can’t get it to work it is either:

  1. Not installed / activated (check add-on options in Blender)
  2. The target object is not selected and in object mode
  3. The target object has no hair particle systems

Fist of all thank you for your addon and your support, i managed to make it work with the “mesh” option.
I have a question: would it be possible to make every single polygonal line a hair guide just like in HairNet addon? It’s a very useful feature that allows lots of flexibility, for eyebrows and eyelashes especially.
As you can see i’ve modeled every single hair with polygons, and i want every single hair to be a hair guide, in order to create children out of it.

Yes, it would be possible and I might add that as an additional operator.

However, apart from conversion, I think it would defeat the purpose.
The idea of the add-on is to just model the rough shape and then use the parameters and randomization to do the rest, instead of modeling every single hair manually.

And also, you can always use the generated hairs as parents for more children, once you connect them to the mesh.

To improve the usability and make it easier for new users I added new error messages instead of just failing silently (no operator shown in search). I hope this helps before I do the tutorial video.

2 Likes

The exelent begining. Thanks for sharing

Thank you, it works well in 2.8!

Hi,
I was following the steps in the readme, but cant get it working in 2.8.
Here is the error message when executing the operator.
Maybe i miss something?


Can you please show a video how to use this right?
Thank you in advance.

Could you make sure that you have the latest release of Blender (fresh download) as well as the latest version of the add-on?

If it still occurs, please send me the blend file.

Ok, did fresh download, and reinstalled the addon. However i get error message again. Here my test file:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/29doh15w62msiuo/AABNTsHZx4E5myr9ZA_xaFAua?dl=0
its bassically simple plane with hair particles and one guide mesh.

PS: I found something out . If i remove my settings incl. addons and instal only this one addon then it works! . Hmm i dont know maybe some of the addons have a conflict with this addon. I will try to found out which addon makes a conflict.

PS: If figured out what it was. It was “search button for the header” addon. I was using it to search for the operator. Now i got it. Thanks for great addon!

Not work for me the insturction is very confusing.