Hair Problem

[Rheezu]

@Fumofumo

Ah, that's a nice and perfect conversion. Well, as I've said before that I am rather quite novice with the use of Blender for hair mesh and such. Do you think you could perhaps dumb down the instructions on face sorting for me? So that I can get an idea of whether it is actually doing something? I mean I can see it form from inside-out, but I really am unsure of if it's actually doing anything, or if I'm even doing it right. I hope it is not too much to ask for, as I'd really like to see visually if I'm doing the correct method of face sorting as you have and such. Also, I'll try out the increase in size to fit the textures as you suggest. Luckily I managed to figure out how to work with separating the combined UVMaps and properly place them in their proper textures.

 

@Ghogiel

Thank you for the advice! I'll try that out in my next export. Hopefully as I change a few steps in the process of importing hairs, I can get this problem cleared up. ^^

 

P.S. Also this is the tutorial I have been following and have encountered the issue with the alpha-spots: http://www.mediafire.com/?pt9u7s33qd7mbdj

So I assume that I need to do quite a bit more work in Blender to fix my problem. Oh and another thing, that yes, I have the proper settings for the alpha properties in NifSkope and I still get quite the size of alpha gaps, no matter how much I increase the threshold.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Rheezu

[Fumofumo]

Gaps will exist regardless of the threshold, it just tends to try to lessen them while decreasing quality. As for Face Sorting, I can't really dumb it down. Refer to this. Ziitch also lists another working method to do this at the bottom.

[Rheezu]

So far, the process is working out quite well.

 

But the problem now lies with the texture size now in NIfSkope. I sort of worded it wrong earlier, but I meant that every time I increase the resolution size of the textures to fit in another texture, the UVMaps scale with the whatever the image size turns out to be and it doesn't properly fit the textures I have placed in them. If that occurs, do I simply rescale the UVMaps then and place them accordingly?

Edited May 30, 2011 by Rheezu

[Fumofumo]

Yes. If you go 2048x2048. You should be able to scale the UVMaps of each respective part to 1/4, then simply move them over position. It's easier if you hold Ctrl for Grid Locking while scaling and moving.

[LHammonds]

Fumofumo is correct. Also, when you adjusted the image, I hope you just adjusted the canvas size and did not actually resize the image...thus affecting the quality. Combining images like this always means you have to modify the model's UV maps to fit correctly on the new image. The process itself should NOT degrade the quality. If degradation occurred, you've made a mistake somewhere...most likely in the texture up-sizing.

[dthumb]

Hi Rheezu and to everyone I'm new to creating hair as well, so I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions.

 

I have this little wip project and I'm planning on giving her hair, I made some quick placeholder mesh to find out where I'm going to mess up in the future. As you can see, she's going to have hair with varying lengths...

 

http://i594.photobucket.com/albums/tt28/d_thumb/hair-wip001.jpg

 

Should I:

 

1) Make textures first, do the mesh and duplicate faces to improve volume? Or...

2) Go at it then... *blank* no idea what to do, honestly.

 

Sorry again for barging in on your thread, it's just you guys know a lot more and are more experienced than I do. Not sure where else to ask.

[Fumofumo]

Making a hair mesh? That's something new. Usually most people port over hair. Well, I can give you some tips for this. You don't have to make a texture first but you can if you plan on duplicating and placing locks as it will save you time in the long run.. You can really go about this any way you want. Either way, you will need to make a texture and UV Map the hair at some point. Making the texture early just saves time as you can UV map a single lock then duplicate it and adjust it as needed, but even then you may have to change the UV's up. If you plan on using Alpha Layers to give the semblance of strands in Photoshop, you will have to learn how to re-layer the strands so the transparency doesn't screw up. If you've been working inner-outer, you may not have to but you probably will. TESA has a short tutorial on this. Not really much I can tell you. You just make strips and UV them. If you get stuck on the NifSkope magic, you can always post back.

[dthumb]

Hi Fumofumo, it's not a Bethesda game mod... yet. I found this Paul Tosca hair tutorial after I posted and made 3 locks of hair in photoshop, still testing out the deformations though. I wouldn't mind seeing that TESA tut too, do you have a link?

 

One last question I'm using Blender 2.57b, is there a way to activate double sided faces in 3d view? I've had no luck so far, checking double sided while selecting all active faces seems to work in edit mode. But there's nothing in texture mode, checked the normals and there's nothing on the other side :facepalm:. I've been pulling my hair all night because of this.

 

Edit: Nevermind, just found out you have to use blender game instead of blender engine and set each textured face as two-sided by hand.

Edited June 15, 2011 by d_thumb

[Fumofumo]

The Tutorials should be linked on the first page of the thread. You won't need to worry about layering the alphas until after you are done though. Can't really help you with Blender 2.5 as I still use 2.49b.

[dthumb]

The Tutorials should be linked on the first page of the thread.

You mean TESAdventures? I can't, it says I need to register first... I'll figure it out. Thanks!