All of the parameters on this page are mappable, meaning that you can connect texture maps to them to create specific effects. For an example of using a texture map for colors, see Connecting a Texture Map to Hair Color Parameters.
Trying to cover up those dark roots? Leaving just a touch of gray? You can do these coloring activities and more with the various illumination parameters in the Hair Renderer shader. While you can apply any Softimage shader to the hair object to define color, the Hair Renderer shader allows you to specify different root and tip colors, as well as where the root/tip color starts and ends.
Getting Started with Color Presets
Better than a shade card from your hairdresser or private colorist, you can have drag-and-drop hair color! There are many presets to choose from for hair colors, just like having your own virtual salon. The presets are simply variations based on the Hair Renderer shader. You can use them “as is” or as a starting point to creating your own custom hair color.
To apply the presets
1. From the main menu, choose View > General > Preset Manager.
2. In the preset manager, select Materials from the drop-down list on the left side of the toolbar, then click the Hair tab.
3. Drag the presets and plop them directly on the hair object in a viewport or on the hair object’s Material node in the render tree.
4. Create a render region and admire.
Overview of Setting the Hair Color
To color the hair strands
1. Open the Hair Renderer property editor.
2. On the Illumination page, specify the color information for the hair strands using the parameters outlined here:
|
All of the parameters on this page are mappable, meaning that you can connect texture maps to them to create specific effects. For an example of using a texture map for colors, see Connecting a Texture Map to Hair Color Parameters. |
Setting the Tip and Root Colors
Ambient Color is the hair surface’s underlying ambient (shadow) color. This color gets modified by the scene’s ambience. To get luminescent hair, use a high value for this parameter.
The hair’s Diffuse (main) colors are divided between a tip and root color. You can easily set the root and tip colors and then choose how you want to blend them (see the images starting in Balancing Tip A and B Colors).
• Tip Color A and B combine to define the diffuse color of the tip of each hair strand.
- Tip Color A is the main tip color.
- Tip Color B provides an alternate tip color that gets added to random hair strands.
• The Root Color does what you expect: it defines the hair strands’ diffuse root color. Making the root color darker than the tip helps to give more depth and realism to the hair strands.
You can set the color and area (decay) of Specular highlight on the hair. Lower values for Specular Decay give a larger highlight area indicating less decay. The specular color value (not the decay) should be very high for dark hair and very low for light hair.
Although you can’t directly set the Specular values of the hair’s root and tip separately, you can do this by connecting other shaders to the Hair Renderer shader.
To set the root and tip specularity separately
1. Select the hair and open a render tree (press 7).
2. Choose Nodes > Mixers > Gradient and plug it into the Specular input on the Hair Renderer shader.
3. Choose Nodes > State > Scalar State and plug it into the input of the Gradient node.
4. Open the Scalar State property editor and change the State Parameter to Barycentric B/Lengthwise Hair.
This creates a white/black gradient running along the length of each hair. You can reverse the gradient direction by plugging an image processing/invert node into the tree.
See About the Barycentric Hair Parameters for an explanation of the barycentric parameters.
5. Open the Gradient property editor and change the values on the gradient slider to define the hair’s root and tip specularity.
Setting the Colors
To set the ambient, diffuse, or specular colors
• Drag the color sliders, enter values, or click the color box to open the color editor. For information on these controls, see Defining Color Properties [ Interface and Tools ].
• Copy a color by clicking its color box and dragging its “color chip” to another color box (on the same property page or from another one).
Adding Color Variation (Random Color Mixing)
In addition to these basic colors, you can set the Color variation value which adds some hue jittering on the hair’s final diffuse color. For example, this may be useful to use when you want subtle variations in white or light-colored hair.
The original color is converted to HSV, the saturation is set to 1, and a random hue is picked. Then this color is mixed with the original color. A value of 0 is no mixing, while 1 is 10% mixing (you can type in values up to 10 for 100% mix). At 100%, you will see only chromatically random colored hairs.
The A/B Balance slider lets you set the balance between which tip color is used: a value of 0 is only tip color A, and 1 is only tip color B.
The root and tip colors are blended along the length of the entire hair. The Root/Tip Crossover Center slider sets the point along the strand at which there is an equal percentage mix of root and tip colors. A value of 0 is mostly tip color and 1 is mostly root color.
Blending Tip and Root Colors
The Root/Tip Crossover Range slider defines the way in which the root and tip colors blend together (that is, how much of a contrast between the types of colors). A value of 0 is sharp contrast and 1 is full blending.
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5