Problem creating new hair

[raughnut]

Wow, that seems like the kind of problem that can cause everything i've done so far, pointless haha. I've been looking for something similar in max and in forums about 3dmax but I haven't found anything like sort faces yet. maybe if I try to do that in blender first and then export the mesh to .obj and import it to 3dmax? I don't know if it'll work but I'll give it a try. I feel I'm so close! yet nowhere near it as well! haha I'll post any update as usual.

 

by the way, if it's not too much trouble, in blender, what setting do you use in the sort face dialog to determinate the relative center of the head? I see there are 5 options. view axis, cursor distance, material, selection and randomize.

[kzelsama]

I know nothing about 3dMax, I tried it once but I was completely lost, as I learned to model using Blender. Nevertheless, this is a very common issue with models using extensive alpha blending, so I doubt there's nothing in there to sort it out.

 

Anyway, in Blender I sort by Cursor Distance, just after placing said Cursor (the little ring that you can move by left-clicking) at the center of the head using front and side views (Numpad 1 and 3).

[raughnut]

I can't believe it!!! IT WORKED!!!!!! HAHAHAAAAAA!!!! sorry, but it worked!! I did as you said the face sorting in blender and I exported the mesh in .dae format. I imported ir back to 3d max and then back to the game and it worked!! well, there are still some minor glitches but I'm going to keep trying until it looks ok. and after that, Ill fix the other maps. right now I only used a difuse and alpha map.

 

a BIG thankl you Kzelsama!!! :thanks:

[raughnut]

I'v tried several times the face sorting process with almost every possible variant, but I cant get all parts of the hair mesh to display propperly. If I move the cursor down and do the face sorting, the hair in the nape of the neck looks fine but the upper part looks wrong... the same with the opposite. so I don't know what else to do! haha.

 

I'm thinking I may as well upload the current state of the hair so that more experienced people can turn it into a propperly working hair. I cant figure out the way to use hair tints for the character generator, so I made a couple of texture variants. and I cant get the material of the back of the head mesh right. it stays in one color, even if I used the same settings from the vanilla hair in its .mao file...

[kzelsama]

I've occasionally had this problem, what I do then is separate the mesh into two objects (after selecting the vertices to separate, hit P), sort with different cursor positions for both, and then merge them (select both and CTRL-J). In your example you could separate the whole back of the hair, sort it with a lowered cursor and then merge it back with the front.

 

Strange that tints don't work if you use the same material as the vanilla hair. Make sure you use Default_White.dds as the Tint Mask in the .mao, other than that I can't really tell without looking at the files.

[raughnut]

I separated the mesh and did as you said. it looks a little better now but there are still some weird looking parts. as for the material in head part it is set as

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<!-- Exported by Material Editor --><!-- dc:source=file:///C:/BioWareDrive/DragonAge/SourceControl/ArtContent/Art/Characters/MATERIAL_PROJECTS/PN_HAR.matproj --><MaterialObject Name="PN_HAR_BLD">
<Material Name="Face.mat"></Material>
<DefaultSemantic Name="Default"></DefaultSemantic>
<Texture Name="mml_tBrowStubble" ResName="pn_har_stb_0t.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tBrowStubbleNormal" ResName="pn_har_stb_0n.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tDiffuse" ResName="pn_har_blda_0d.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tEmotionsMask0" ResName="default_blackzero.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tEmotionsMask1" ResName="default_blackzero.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tEmotionsNormal" ResName="Default_FlatNM.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tTintMask" Respn_har_blda_0t_white.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tNormalMap" ResName="pn_har_blda_0n.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tAgeDiffuseMap" ResName="Default_Gray50.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tAgeNormalMap" ResName="Default_FlatNM.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tSpecularMask" ResName="Default_SpecularMask.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tTattooMask" ResName="Default_Black.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tTintMask" ResName="pn_har_blda_0t.dds"></Texture>
<Vector4f Name="g_vAmbientMult" value="1.00 1.00 1.00 0.00"></Vector4f>
<Float Name="g_fLipSpecularBoost" value="0.35"></Float>
<Float Name="g_fRimPower" value="2.22"></Float>
<Float Name="g_fSpecularMult" value="0.68"></Float>
</MaterialObject>

 

So, where can I upload the hair so that you can give it a look?

[kzelsama]

this line :

<Texture Name="mml_tTintMask" Respn_har_blda_0t_white.dds"></Texture>

should be

<Texture Name="mml_tTintMask" ResName="pn_har_blda_0t_white.dds"></Texture>

 

and this is a material used for the face, is it the one you're using for your hair too ? Because you should be using pn_har_all.mao or an edit of it.

 

If you want me to take a look at the hair, you can upload it anywhere (except Mediafire apparently) and send me the link via PM.

[raughnut]

Ok, I sent the link via PM... let me know if it was sent propperly because it doesn't show up in my sent messages, so I don't know if it was really sent hehe.

[raughnut]

Thanks to Kzelsama, I now succesfully created another hair on my own hehe. I also figured out what was wrong. as I exported the hair mesh to fbx format. I unchecked tangents and binormals and left only smoothing groups. then I used tazpn tools to convert it to msh and mhh. then I EDITED the mmh within the toolset and change some properties... I renamed the MMH NAME field under MMH CHILDREN to HairM1 and HairM2 for each mesh part, and I put a zero in MMH_MESH_CAST_BAKED_SHADOW, MMH_MESH_RECEIVE_BAKED_SHADOW and MMH_MESH_RECEIVE_RUNTIME_SHADOW... fot both mesh parts, the hair and the back part of the head... I don't know why but it seems to me that was the problem. as for the texture I used a packed texture just as kzelsama explained a few posts ago, and the .mao file for the hair was left as follows

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

 
<MaterialObject Name="nerohair">
<Material Name="HairAlpha.mat"></Material>
<DefaultSemantic Name="Default"></DefaultSemantic>
<Texture Name="mml_tPackedTexture" ResName="pn_har_nero.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tTintMask" ResName="Default_White.dds"></Texture>
<Texture Name="mml_tTintNoise" ResName="uh_har_0t.dds"></Texture>
<Vector4f Name="mml_vHairParameters" value="0.01 60 62 7.32"></Vector4f>
</MaterialObject>

 

 

 

And that's that! I guess haha. whatever I did also seemed to fix the back of the head wich didn't change color with the skin tints. thank you Kzelsama again! maybe later Ill add both hairs to the mod downloads so you can add them to your hair pack if you want to...

[modluv]

This is great! I just posted looking for a tutorial on hairstyle modding. But, I'm more in the "where do I start" stage. It was nice to see the evolution of one modder's work. Grats on finishing your hairstyle! :)

 

Could you tell me the address of that tutorial you found on the web? I've searched and search but can't find one.

 

THanks!