Texture Hair

OK. Let’s take a look at texturing hair the old fashioned way, without plug-ins. This is for an anime girl, not a fully resolved, realistic character.

This should work well wherever relatively low-polys are desired.

First make the hair texture. I used Photoshop 6 and patience.

The Photoshop file is a 4x1 aspect ratio, 1024x256.

Tip --- use shift key and “connect the dots” to make straight lines with the brush tool.

Here are the Photoshop layers: Diffuse, Specular, and Opacity:

Bring each Photoshop layer into a Max material.

Make a 4x1 aspect ratio rectangle, convert to editable spline, add surface, add a planar UVW.

Apply the material you made.

This results in a nice flat plane with an undistorted material:

Shift drag this plane to make some copies [not instances.]

Now, convert [or collapse] to Editable Patch.

This will create a wonderful creature with your Bezier handles intact in the form of a sub-object level called handles.

Vary and “sculpt” the hair [so now I’m a hair-dresser?] by manipulating the handles and vertices AND layering different copies of the hair patches on top of each other.

You will probably want to make some variations on the hair material, at least your opacity map, to avoid it looking repetitive. Make enough clones and variations of layers to make sort of a wig for your character.