Porting hair from other sources

[Septfox]

So I was messing around on Renderosity, and found a hairstyle that I thought would look nice on my character. Knowing that there were tutorials around for dropping Poser/Sims/etc hair into Oblivion, I grabbed it.

 

Thing is...it's a fairly complex hairstyle. Around 100k+ triangles in stock form. So I go grab a optimization plugin for 3ds (Polygon Cruncher) that works pretty alright, but in the process of optimizing it pretty much kills off the alpha sorting. After looking around for a while, I find that the sorting can be restored by detaching each element and reattaching them, ending with the lowest layer. Seems to work ok.

 

The problem is, like I said, this is a complex hairstyle. Going through each piece and detaching/reattaching after optimization is...going to take a while. On top of that, the overlapping transparencies don't agree very well with each other (at least in nifskope) even with the sort order apparently fixed and alpha testing turned on.

 

So here I am. Anyone done this before, and found shortcuts to restore the sort order/ways to optimize heavy meshes without breaking the order to start with/superior ways to pull off transparency for highly-layered hair? I'm willing to do the work, I just need some pointers to keep it from taking forever (and ending up with an inferior port anyway).

 

 

And yes, I'm fully aware that I can't redistribute it when I'm done, this is just to give my character a bit of a unique touch.

[Ghogiel]

I think it would be easier to just make a new hair in the style of, rather than actually reduce 100k tri down to a managble amount, then untangling the probable mess, then sorting it. wouldn't it just be easier to create a hair that you know will sort well and is the desired poly count... right now I am thinking what you are trying to do isn't going to be fun.. and may just end in tears because if it's a zillion planes overlapping on itself it may never render very well without extensive rebuild anyway.

[Septfox]

Thank you for the response.

 

I've actually been working on this off and on the last few days, and have learned a bit:

 

3ds max's abilities to handle elements and create separate objects out of'em are invaluable. Detaching layers in the reverse order that they appear (working inwards) followed by re-attaching them in rendering order actually does a nice job as far as alphas are concerned. This is of course contrary to and more intuitive than what I read elsewhere about reattaching in reverse render order. Ah, the internet and incorrect information...

Blender, curse its wretched PITA-to-use soul, has a script version of Decimate that can reduce the triangle count to a much more manageable ~20k, likely lower if I wanted to push it harder, without much if any visual difference when the texture is applied. Even keeps the UV mapping and realigns it as needed, mostly. Unfortunately it screws up the alpha sorting something fierce, necessitating reordering via its horrid interface or exporting back to 3ds for reordering.

Polygon Cruncher is terrible. It retains the UV map, but doesn't adjust it when it removes vertices. It also has an annoying habit of attaching vertices in the middle of expanses (i.e. a lock of hair) to layers underneath, creating annoying buckling and encouraging clipping. Also it costs money on top of all that. It can go do naughty things to itself.

 

So, my process when I can get around to it will be...

1: export each layer of hair to object files for optimizing via Blender

2: crunch the layers one by one in Blender. It does a decent job doing the whole thing at once, but the aforementioned eating of the sort order means I'd need to reassemble it afterwards anyway so eh

3: re-import each piece into 3ds, attaching as I go

4: export as a complete object to Blender and proceed to follow the tutorial at TES Adventures

for making new hair work, as it does so perfectly

 

 

Believe me, I'd like nothing better than to simply create a new hair style. The problem is, I don't believe I'm capable; always have been far, far better at modifying things rather than creating new ones. Besides, now that I have the process worked out, it won't be all that difficult, and hopefully one of these days someone will read this post and learn from my frustration :v