The first time I brought a Poser figure into Vue 5 I was
very unhappy with how the dynamic hair looked. Initially,
it was a problem with Vue 5. However, the problem was fixed.
Even then, I was not very happy until I found a way to manipulate
the hair in Vue 5. Once I found this out, I was very satisfied.
For this tutorial, I am working with blond hair.
Step 1 - In Poser, a portrait of the figure looked like the
picture below and the hair in the Material Room was set up
according to the picture below on the right.
Step 2 - I brought the Poser figure into Vue through Import
Object and the screen capture on the left is of the controls
I chose. I do not know whether I chose correctly; all I know
is that it separated the body from the hair while still leaving
the 4 hair groups that I created in Poser 5. This gave me
the ability to modify the different hair groups which I found
useful. I did not keep the settings of all the hair groups
uniform. Also, when working with Poser files, I make sure
that I keep all the files together. I do not keep them on
my c drive in Poser. Instead, I keep them separately on one
of my data drives.
It needs to be noted that the five groups come in with the
same material, even the body is represented by the yellow
hair material icon. However, the body renders as flesh color
with the correct details. If I had imported the figure not
as a single mesh, all the body parts would have been represented
by the same body color icon and the hair groups as the yellow
icon. One needs to experiment with each figure to see which
works the best in each situation.
Material-Hair Icon |
Material-Body Icon |
Mapped Picture-All Body Parts |
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Step 3- This next step is not mandatory and the changes are
not very perceptible. However, before I discovered the differences
that Material's Shadow Cast and Received made, I added
this step. Since there is a slight difference on the blond
hair, at least, I thought I would put it in. All lighting
stayed the same. However, Step 3 can be eliminated.
If you look at the original Poser 5 hair directly below,
you will see that the color of the material is irregular-
noise has been added to the color. The new material, shown
immediately below on the right, is however smooth. As I stated,
this changing of material, which I accomplished by selecting
the hair group and then loading a new material, did not
make much of a difference. However, it does give one the ability
to change the color of the hair.
Original Poser 5 Hair |
New Loaded Hair Material |
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Hair from Poser 5 without any Changes - Material
Shadows Cast and Received On |
Hair with Changed Material
- Material Shadows Cast and Received On |
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Hair from Poser 5 without
any Changes - Material Shadows Cast and Received Off |
Hair with Changed Material - Material Shadows Cast
and Received Off |
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Step 4- The real difference took place on the Material screen
having to do with whether the Material Cast or Receive
Shadows for that particular hair group was checked or
unchecked. Ignore how the Cast Shadows and Receive Shadows
boxes are checked in the screen capture. The screen capture
is to primarily show where they are located.
Basically, once the lighting is satisfactory,
and remember it was the same for all the Vue 5 hair images
shown here, the shadows on the Material Editor make the difference.
The following is a table showing all the combinations.
1 - Cast and Receive Shadows |
2 - Cast Shadows |
3 - Receive Shadows |
4 - No casting or Receiving Shadows |
5 - Poser 5 Hair |
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Notice in the Casting Shadows (box 2) how her arm
is very visible through her hair. Also, in the Receiving
Shadows (box 3) notice the dark spot to the back of her
head.
While there obviously is a difference, certainly box 4 is
a lot better than box 1. The texture between the hair in Poser
5 and Vue 5 before any changes Boxes 1 and 5) shows the most
difference. Interestingly enough, the noise that was added
with the original Poser import didn't make much of a difference
in the texture of the hair on the render. The screen captures
above were rendered in Vue 5 on Final setting without making
changes. The Vue 5 image below was rendered using basically
default User Settings and the Anti-alias settings below. I
am not putting in my settings because I do not consider myself
an expert in Rendering and I don't want to mislead anyone.
When I tried maxing out anti-alias, but keeping the type of
anti-aliasing setting standard, the change in anti-aliasing
did not make a difference on the hair. It did, though, on
the face. However, the better rendering (User Settings) did
make the hair smoother. All were rendered at 640 x 480 and
a dpi of 72 because I was making them for the web.
Anti-alias Settings Used in Render |
User Rendered in Vue 5 with Anti-alias
Settings Shown Left |
Poser 5 - Same as Above |
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As you can see from all of the above there are three factors
that affect the way Poser 5 dynamic hair looks in Vue 5, the
material casting and receiving of shadows and the render settings.
The reason I have detailed the tutorial with so many pictures
other than just a quick statement is that I found the difference
interesting and they gave me ideas for special affects., Etc.
If you want to create dynamic hair and don't know how, you
might find my tutorials helpful. They can be accessed from
Training
Curious Labs . This link leads directly to the tutorials
on my website of perpetualvisions.com.
© Paula Sanders 2004 |