Realistic Photosourced Hair Textures?

Hello,
I create hair in Teen Second Life and would like some tips and/or tutorials on creating photo realistic hair textures. I can make simple ones which always look really wood like and hard. For example of a hair texture look I'm going for, If you have seen "Maitreya" hair, then that's how similar I'd like them to look on my hair. I create all my hairs using Maya so if anyone can pass on some useful tips I'd really appreciate it.

Edited: I get my photo references from 3D.sk, Just so you know.

Thanks in advance!
Tristen;]

Before I answer you, I have to ask, if you're on the teen grid, should you even be on this forum? The rest of us can get in trouble for talking to you if you're under age. Please keep that in mind. Don't do anything that might cause any of us to get suspended or banned.

For now, I'm going to assume that since you're here, you are in fact an adult, and that perhaps you've got a special agreement with LL that allows you to create content for teens. I really hope this doesn't come back to bite me. I just hate letting good questions go unanswered.


Anyway, I'd never heard of "Maitraya hair" before, but I just googled it, and found these images:




If that's what you're after, then the texturing looks to be pretty simple. I'd start by generating some noise, and then giving it a generous directional blur, to stretch it out into strands. You can do this in either Photoshop or Maya. I'd recommend Photoshop, but either one will work.

The blurred or stretched noise will give you a rudimentary facsimile for the light and dark streaks you'd see if a lock of hair were laid flat on a canvas. I'd suggest you create several versions, and overlay them, to create the illusion of depth and imperfection. This is best done in Photoshop, but again, you CAN do it directly in Maya, if you wish.

Next, take your strand layers, set their blending mode to Hard Light, or to any of the other overlay modes, depending on the specific effect and type of depth you're going for. Place them over a solid or streaked color layer, again depending on what effect you're trying to create. I'd recommend putting some variation in the coloring, since a real head of human hair is never just one color. (This is where the hair in the pictures goes wrong, in my opinion. With the possible exception of the redhead, the coloring is way too uniform. It looks like more like a cheap showgirl wig than like real hair. But most avatars look like plastic Barbie doll mannequins made up to imitate showgirls, so maybe that's OK.)

Next, add highlights and shadows, to create the illusion of sheen. Again, you can do this in either Maya or Photoshop. If you do it in Maya, I'd recommend using either a Blinn or anisotropic material, with reflectivity set to zero, and with a medium specularity. Your strands image (sans color), will make an excellent bump map, by the way. Just be sure to adjust the amplitude carefully; if you overdo it the hair will look like rough wood, and if you underdo it, it will just look flat. Give it just enough amp for a little depth, no more, no less. Light scene well, and you can bake out some beautifully realistic hair textures.

Or, if you choose to do the lighting/shading in Photoshop, use the burn & dodge tools on a gray overlay. Again, any of the overlay modes like Hard Light, Soft Light, Linear Light, etc. will work. Just pick whichever one you think looks best for the effect you want. By using an overlay, rather than burning/dodging directly on your strands or color layers, you can apply the same lighting scheme to many different textures, non-destructively, without permanently altering any of the underlying layers. Overlays are wonderful things.

The final step is to add an alpha channel, to create the fringe effect at the end of the hair. You can see this was done on some of the black hair in that first picture. Presumably, it was done on the others as well, but the black is where you can really see it clearly.

Don't overdo it with the alphas, or you'll have sorting problems. Remember, only SOME of the textures should have transparency, not all. Pick and choose carefully which particular tufts of hair you feel will benefit from it the most and which should remain fully opaque. Any good hairpiece will be made from several prims. Most of those prims should have opaque textures on them. Use just enough alphas to suggest some realism, not enough to cause glitches.

Happy texturing.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your help! I am a teen, but for some reason on all my accounts, I somehow end up on the adult forums. Maybe Linden Lab allowed us on the same forums?

Oh and I believe there new hairs seem to have different textures from the ones on the photos you added to your post,
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ktCoX95Aofg/SlKOF8hr-SI/AAAAAAAAAiA/ZeIloky0tw4/s1600-h/Hair+Milla.jpg[URL]I don't know if there made any differently but I'm sure it's the same concept.

Those look much better, good color variation, especially on the brunette. I'd approach it basically the same way, just with some multi-colored overlays, in addition the grayscale ones.

Another technique is to use a grayscale streak pattern as a layer mask. Put a light brown layer above a dark brown one, apply the mask, and right away, you'll have fairly good color variance.

Thanks, this has really helped a lot. I'v made my first test texture so I'll see how that looks In-world.