Hair Tool is addon for Blender 2.83 and 2.9x for creating hair cards based on 3d curves.
Business vs Individual license: if you are company with above 100k $ income you are Business. Otherwise you can buy individual license
There are main ways to generate hair-cards using Hair Tool:
- using guide mesh (grid surface)
- using particle hair interactive grooming
- by drawing hair strands (similar to Grease Pencil drawing)
This addon will help you generate hair card with uv's and much more:
- 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!
Videos about Hair Tool 2 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
Old videos for Blender 2.79 (may contain some useful info, but quite a lot changed since then):
- Detailed info, links to youtube tutorials can be fund on MY BLOG
- Discord server where you can report bugs: https://discord.gg/cxZDbqH
- I also recorded tutorial about using this addon, with some tips and tricks, problem solving and stuff: https://youtu.be/FLHbzCXOijg
- Old video: https://youtu.be/WE0aBe8SNls
- Video about hair shader: https://vimeo.com/229043427
- Video about creating texture: https://vimeo.com/228873075
Past Updates:
Update 1.1:
- works better with custom unit scale
- added radius param, to 'Change radius profile' operator
- source surfaces will take modifier into account (eg. mirror)
Update 1.2:
- Adjust generated curves tilt, so it is aligned to source mesh surface with new - 'Align curve tilt' button
- Added ability to generate hair spline ribbons from blender Particle Hair system.
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
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