Hair Tool for Blender

By

bartoszstyperek

Hair Tool is addon for Blender 2.83 and 2.9x for creating hair cards based on 3d curves.

Online documentation

Great Tutorial by SinHouse 01

Great Tutorial by SinHouse 02

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