Create the Head Hair

To create the hair for the top of the head, you will use a spline cage; this method helps to style a large amount of hair, especially long hair, all at once.

Spline cage for growing a head of hair

The spline cage method is somewhat different from the polygon method you used for the beard and mustache:

• Hair grows from the splines, instead of from the Head surface.
• There are no guide hairs: The splines themselves are the guides.
• When you grow hair from splines, the default values are different from when you grow hair from polygons.

Set up the scene:

1. Continue from the previous lesson or open viking_02.max.

Hide the beard and mustache:

1. Click and Ctrl+click to select the Beard and Mustache objects. Then right-click, and from the Display (upper right) quadrant of the quad menu, choose Hide Selection.

Draw the spline cage:

Note: The tutorial files include a spline cage that has already been drawn. If you have trouble completing this procedure and the two that follow, or if you don’t want to spend the time it takes to construct the splines, you can skip ahead to the procedure "Apply Hair And Fur."
1. On the Create panel, click (Shapes) to make it active, then on the Object Type rollout, click to activate Line.
   
2. On the Creation Method rollout, change both the Initial Type and the Drag Type to Smooth.
   
3. On the main toolbar, right-click (Snaps Toggle) to open the Grid And Snap Settings dialog. In the dialog, click Clear All, and then click to turn on Face.
   

   Close the Grid And Snap Settings dialog.

4. Click (3D Snaps Toggle) to turn it on.
5. Open the Rendering rollout, and turn on Enable In Viewport.
   

   This simply helps you see the splines better while you create them.

6. Draw the first spline, on the left side of the head, from the crown down to the right shoulder. Right-click to end spline creation.
   

   Because you are snapping to faces, some portions of the spline might sink below the skin. Don’t worry about this: You will move the splines away from the head before you generate the hair.

7. Using the illustrations as a guide, draw the remaining splines.

   On each side of the head, there are three splines in front of the ear, and three behind the ear.

   
   

   There are also two additional splines at the very back of the head.

   

   Orbit the viewport while you draw the splines (you can use Shift+Z later to undo the view changes).

Assemble the splines into the cage:

1. When you have drawn the splines to your satisfaction, select the first spline you created (at the front left temple). Right-click it, and from the Transform (lower right) quadrant of the quad menu, choose Convert To: Convert To Editable Spline.
2. Make the Top viewport active.
   
3. Go to the Modify panel. With the first spline still selected, turn on the Geometry rollout Attach button and proceeding in a counterclockwise direction, click to attach each of the additional splines in the cage.

   The order is important: If splines are out of order, the hair will be tangled or scrambled. Because of this, you can’t use the Attach Multiple button, either.

   
   Tip: If it is hard to see the splines, you can select the head, right-click and choose Hide Selection, and then do the attaching as described earlier in this step.
4. When you have added all the splines to the cage, turn off Attach.

Move the cage away from the scalp:

1. Turn off Rendering Enable In Viewport.
   
2. Turn off (Snaps Toggle), if it is still on.
3. Click (Vertex) to go to the Vertex sub-object level.
4. Click and Ctrl+click to select all the first vertices of the hair splines (the ones that display in yellow, when they aren’t selected).
   
   Tip: At this point, if the root vertices seem to be a bit far apart, you might want to use (Select And Uniform Scale) to bring them closer together so the viking doesn’t have a bald spot.
5. Press Ctrl+I to invert the selection.
   
6. Activate (Select And Scale), choose (Use Selection Center), and then scale the vertices up a bit, so that all but the first, scalp vertices are at a distance from the skin of the head.
   
7. Click (Vertex) to exit this sub-object level.

Apply Hair And Fur:

1. Do one of the following:
   • If you followed the preceding procedures to create the spline cage, and are happy with how it looks, then skip ahead to step 2.
   • If you prefer to use the prepared spline cage, or you didn’t create your own, then from the Application menu choose Import Merge. Open hair_spline_cage.max. In the Merge dialog, click the Hair_Cage object to highlight it, and then click OK.
     
2. Select the spline cage.
3. On the Modify panel, from the Modifier list, choose WORLD-SPACE MODIFIERS Hair And Fur (WSM).
   
4. On the Material Parameters rollout, give the head hair the same colors as the beard and mustache:
   • Tip Color: RGB = 51, 23, 13
   • Root Color: RGB = 11, 5, 2
   • Mutant Color = Root Color: RGB = 51, 23, 13
   • Mutant [percent] = 15.0
   
5. On the General Parameters rollout, change the Hair Count to 3000.
   

   Notice that the default Hair Count is 450: This is far lower than the default for hair grown from polygons, and it is too low a value.

6. Also on the General Parameters rollout, change Hair Segments to 100 and Hair Passes to 2.
   

   Hair Segments specifies how many segment subdivisions Hair And Fur uses for each hair. We increased this value because the Viking’s hair is long.

   Hair Passes is a quality control: Increasing its value increases rendering time, but also improves the appearance of the hair.

7. Also on the General Parameters rollout, change Random Scale to 20.0.
   

   This specifies that 20 percent of the hairs will have a random variation in their length.

8. On the Frizz parameters rollout, change Frizz Root to 3.0 and Frizz Tip to 2.0.
   
9. On the Kink Parameters rollout, change Kink Root to 0.1 and Kink Tip to 2.0.
   
10. On the Multi Strand Parameters rollout, change the settings as follows:
    • Count = 3
    • Root Splay = 1.2
    • Tip Splay = 1.15
    

Now you are ready to try rendering the hair.

Render the hair:

1. On the main toolbar, click (Render Production).

   Because the hair is longer, the head takes longer to render than the beard or mustache.

   

   The result is not good: The hair looks matted and oily. In part, this is because the defaults for hair grown from splines differ from those for hair grown from polygons.

2. On the General Parameters rollout, change the value of Root Thick to 2.5 and the value of Tip Thick to 0.25.
   

   The default Root Thick(ness) for polygon hair is 5.0, while for spline hair it is 10.0!

3. On the Material Parameters rollout, change the values of Specular and Glossy to both equal 15.0.
   

   In this case, the defaults are the same as for the beard and mustache, but the greater area of the head hair makes highlights more apparent.

4. Right-click a viewport, and from the Display (upper right) quadrant of the quad menu, choose Unhide All.
5. Render the head once more.
   

   This time, the appearance of the head hair is more in keeping with the beard and mustache.

Save your work:

• Save the scene as viking_hairy.max.