Hair Tool for Blender

By

bartoszstyperek

Hair Tool is addon for Blender 2.83 and 2.9x that will help you generate hair-card based on 3d curves in non destructive way.

• Online documentation
• Discord server where you can get support and  report bugs
  
• Hair Tutorial Part 1 and Part 2 by SinHouse
• YouTube channel with videos related to HTool
  

Business vs Individual license: if you are company with above 100k $ income you are Business. Otherwise you can buy individual license

Three main ways to generate hair-cards with Hair Tool:

• using guide mesh (grid surface)
• using particle hair interactive grooming
  
• by drawing hair strands (similar to Grease Pencil drawing)
  

Some of the features:

• automated UV workflow (random uv region assignment per hair strand)
• texture preview directly on curve ribbons
• curve modeling tools (extend, shorten, cut, move hair with IK physics)
  
• hair library
• go back and forth between curve and mesh ribbons
  
• adjust ribbons profile (tapering radius, randomizing tilt, editing profile etc.)
• convert: Curves to Particle Hair, Particle Hair to Curve ribbons, Curve ribbons to mesh ribbons and so on.
• curve resampling and decimation (increase/decrease curve/ribbon points count)
• generating vertex color/weights gradients, transferring UVs and vertex weights from character to mesh haircards.
• texture baking (from curves or particle hair; supports: normal, ao, diffuse, tangent maps, ID maps, root map etc)
• build-in addon auto-updater
  
• and more

Hair tutorials for Blender 2.8 series:

• Introduction video
• Working with materials and uv in Hair Tool 2.1
• Example of making hair in Hair Tool 2.1

Hair Tool can be used to export hair to Character Creator. 

• Check out CCreator Smart Hair system
• Hair Tool to Character Creator workflow video tutorial
  

• Smart Hair Shader Part 1 - Basic Parameters & Base Color in CC
  

• Smart Hair Shader Part 2 - Effects & Save Materials in CC
  

Past Updates:

Update 1.4:

• added ability to attach curves as particle hair system 'Particle Hair from Curves' (this can be used to import zbrush fibermesh curves and use them as blender Particle Hair system)
• added 'Generate ribbon weights' - make vertex group with gradient from ribbon root to tip
• added 'Generate ribbon vertex color' - make vertex color with gradient from ribbon root (black) to tip (white)
  

Update 1.5:

• added ability to draw multiple uv boxes when using 'UV hair' operator. Each ribbon will pick random uv box. It helps differ the texture look.
  
• Added 'Curve Resample' - changes number of points the curve is made from.
• Added options 'Select Tips', 'Select Roots' under Blender 'Select' menu (visible during curve edit mode, on bottom header bar)

Update 1.6:

• New option 'Ribbons from particle hair with children' - gives better result compared to child particles generated by build in blender child particles (more even distribution, better aligning of child ribbons to surface). Great for short Hair.
  
• Resample - more options, and keeps curve tilt and rotation.
• 'Particle Hair From Grease Pencil' strokes painted in grease pencil, can be converted to particle hair (with some options available under f6)
• 'Flip UV' option in preferences - if enabled random strands will have uv's flipped in X-axis

Update 1.6.4:

• ability to add 'random vertex color per ribbon'. Can be also used on non hair meshes, to add random ID vertex colors per loose mesh parts.
• ability to add presets for 'Ribbons from particle hair with children' operator

Update 1.6.5:

• added "Smooth scale" - similar to 'Smooth Tilt' but smooths the radius
  
• added 'Edit curve profile', 'Close Curve Profile' - if you want  to adjust curve bevel profile by hand
  
• ability to taper roots of curves ribbons (previously you could taper just tips)
• added 'Placement jittering'  F6 option for 'Ribbons from particle hair with children' button - helps a bit to get more uniform child strands distribution.

Update 1.7

• ability to preview hair texture directly in curve ribbons stage. See video explaining new feature: https://youtu.be/gtbhmYEKGZE
• linear deformer tool - for curve modeling can be downloaded here: https://github.com/JoseConseco/mira_tools  (how this tool works is explained in video above)

Update 1.7.1

• hair resample and simplify operators preserve material order
• added options to remove, resize, reset - uv boxes when using "Draw uv area for Hair" operator in imaged editor window (found under spacebar).

Update 1.8:

• Particle Hair Combing with Interactive  Ribbons  see video -  https://youtu.be/r4da3J5omd8

Update 1.8.4:

• early support for texture baking. Baking panel is located in -> 3d View -> Tools -> Hair Baking panel. I will make short guide video soon. https://twitter.com/JoseConseco3/status/975484075841605633

Update 1.8.5 (11.04.2018):

• finished and polished hair baking in blender (ao, id, root mask, tangent map, normal, depth etc).
  
• added channel packing nodes (beta but should work 90% of time)
• video showing example worfklow and how baking works: https://youtu.be/0UAxl549pNA

Update 1.8.7 + 1.8.8  + 1.8.9(17.04.2018):

• added parameter - Output texture name - for hair baking
• changed 'Randomize Curve Tilt' operator - this change makes it now possible to make curly hair.

• added 'Generate Braid' Operator. See video below.
  

• In this video you will see who to create curly hair and Braid: https://youtu.be/iXjBCxesA_I

Update 1.9.2 (day 20.07.2018) -  some bug fixes added in 11.08.2018:

• added select Next/Previous to curve editmode -> Select menu. I will select next point on curve.
  
• Interactive Child particles count can be set manually over 2000 (use with caution)
  
• generated curve ribbons will now have the rotation applied (this fixes bad curve ribbons aligning - 90deg offset)
• New: Ability to copy hair curve profile. Located in HT menu -> Next to 'Close Profile'

Update 1.9.3 (26.08.2018):

• Fixed UV bug when going back and forward between curve and mesh mode.
• Randomize curve tilt - tilt can take positive or negative values.
• 'Include Parents' - option added in interactive hair combing - this will take into account Parent strands when using 'generate children option'.
• align curve tilt - make it work only on selected points. Previously it would align whole curve.
• Curve from grease pencil - now it has option to generate curve ribbons on the fly (https://bartoszstyperek.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/pg_to_curveribbon.gif?w=575&zoom=2).
  

Update 1.9.4 (03.11.2018):

• New clumping option added for - 'Curves from grid surface' operator.
• Speed boost to all tools that use curves resampling, including 'Interactive hair combing'. This affects lots of tools, but hopefully this didn't introduce any new bugs.
  
• fix jumping particle hairs when converting curves to particle hair
• Some of parameters can now be set above maximum value, by manually entering bigger values (eg. max curve ribbon width can now be set above 10)
  

Update 2.0.4 (09.02.2019):

• Curves from grid surface will now remember its previous settings, when executing for the second time.

Update 2.0.6 (27.03.2019):

• added auto-update feature, in addon preferences. When new release is out, you can use auto-update to automatically download and install  new version.

Update 2.0.7 (5.04.2019):

• Fix auto-updater not working for some users (no longer use https).
• Added 'Target length' for hair drawing (when you draw hair, their length wont exceed this value if set above 0

Update 2.0.10 (22.05.2019):

• added compatibility with latest blender api changes  - use only with blender builds after 21 may!
  
• Improved speed in interactive hair combing and generation of curves from grid surface

Update 2.1.00 (01 Sep 2019)

• added curly hair support
  
• lots of bugfixes and tweaks - check out new documentation for what is new: https://joseconseco.github.io/HairToolDocs_28/

Update 2.1.1 + 2.1.2 (01 Sep 2019)

• improved aligning when generating curly hair
• fix generating curls from bezier curves or poly curve

Update 2.1.3 (14 sep 2019)

• fixed channel remapping nodes not working in blender 2.8

Update 2.1.4 (25.08.2019)

• Show warning popup when opening baking scene,
• Hide braid deformer visibility in cycles,
• added option in preferences to disable drawing grid mesh as 'WIRE',
• fix braids generation, when only one curve is selected

Update 2.1.6 + 2.1.7 + 2.1.8(For Blender 2.81 16.10.2019)

• support for blender 2.81
• adjust particle hair length added (in 'interactive combing' panel)
• more hair examples in hair baking blend scene
• randomize rotation in interactive combing
• flip UV in V (top-bottom) direction
• new drawing mode - connected
• fix hotkey - disabling drawing hair would erase ctrl+shift+H pie menu hotkey, and possibly other hotkeys too!

2.20 (for Blender 2.82 only 06.03.2020)

• texture baking added padding support and new channel compositing nodes
• mesh ribbons -  added vertex AO bake with bounces approximation
• taper curve profile (hack)
• added flatten scalp to UV option in baking scene
• mesh ribbons - added UV Pick from target
• replaced default hair material - it no longer needs special light hack. But anisotropic highlights are still faked. It uses new texture too

2.22 (for Blender 2.83 only 26.07.2020)

• Added Hair Modeling Workspace Tool
• non square UV baking support,
• added Straighten strand tool,
• added ability to define custom texture suffixes in addon preferences,
• interactive combing now support length vertex group,
• you can pick uv which will be assigned to drawn strand,
• added finalize option (merge all selected hair into one, new output mesh)

2.23 (for Blender 2.83 only);

• fixed baking on solid background
• fixed Z-up aligning error on curly hair generation,
• possibly fixed auto-updater on MAC,
• fixed uv drawing on curves with no materials,
• fix error when using 'Curves from grid surface' with bezier curve output type
• fix drawing particle hair regression.

2.24(for Blender 2.83 and 2.9x) 22.12.2020:

• added Adjust Length for curve strands
  
• Hair Draw - added Extend option
• New 'Set UV region'
• added Direction bake pass
• faster and better looking texture padding

2.25 (for Blender 2.83 and 2.9x) 24.01.2021

• bugfixes