VRayFur styler for Maya

[johnchen]

Is there a VRayFur styler for Maya available? or someway of interactively painting the direction maps? From searching around it seems in Max you can do link it up via vertex paint, I'm not sure how to this in maya however.

Thanks in advance

[vlado]

We don't have an equivalent tool for Maya, unfortunately. Some people found a way to convert textures done for Maya fur for use with VRayFur, but I have to dig out the details from the forum.

Best regards,
Vlado

[johnchen]

thats a shame... I'm getting decent results with just the b/w maps, but would like to know of an easier / interactive way of doing angular maps.

[vlado]

Well, if you have a way to paint them in 3ds Max, you can export the maps as vertex colors...

Best regards,
Vlado

[johnchen]

ahh, I dont have max, I've just been researching on possible ways to do this in Maya.

another question please Vlado if you have time. The Vrayfur Manual gravity direction is world space based. is it possible to somehow make it object based?

[t.petrov]

Hi

In fact there are two ways you can get some interactivity while painting maps:
1. Using VRayVertexColors texture
Steps:
- assign the texture to one of the maps for the fur
- create a vertex color set for you mesh
- select the colorset in the texture
- use the Maya's tools for painting the colors ( Polygons->Colors->Paint Vertex Color tool)

This method will work if you have a dense mesh.

2. Using the 3d Paint capabilities of Maya (this method is a bit hacky)
Steps:
- assign a lambert material, as VRayMtl doesn't work
- select the rendering->texturing->3d paint tool
- open the tool settings
- attribute to paint = color
- click assign/edit texture
- enable update on stroke
- enable save texture on stroke
- open hypershade and assign the new file texture to one of the maps of VRayFur (the texture should be assigned to the material and to the fur at the same time in order to paint it)
- paint

/Teodor

[johnchen]

thank you!

Teodor thank you so much, you rock! Appreciate you taking the time to write out the steps too.

Will give your workflow a test on my rat. Loving vrayfur with vrayfurmtl3, you can get some nice controls and fast renders.

Any plans to develop vrayfur in future release to include some simple dynamic sims for animation? This would be super useful for a time crunch project and client just insists on having fur

[johnchen]

Sorry another question, is it possible for vrayfur to respect the normal map of the underlying geometry shader? I tried plugging the vraymtlhair3 into a vrayBump mtl and assigning it to the fur geometry, but it looks like vrayfur is not looking at the normal map of the shader for hair generation.

or maybe possible to assign a normal map to vrayFurProperties ?

[t.petrov]

What exactly do you want achieve?

If you want to change the initial direction of the strands you can use the initial-direction map.

[vlado]

You could put the normal map as the "initial direction map", or blend it with that map if there is one already.

Best regards,
Vlado

[johnchen]

hi guys, thanks for response. Basically the rat mesh has a normal map from zbrush, which has additional details on the skin, which would make the fur look much better if they were generated with the normal map in mind.

I will try putting the normal map into init slot and get back to you.

[johnchen]

Putting the normal map in the init spot did make the fur render slightly different, not by a lot but it did make a difference. I probably have the gravity set too high anyway, which is overriding the init.

In any case, I will try the vertex paint method and let you know how it goes, thanks again.

[johnchen]

I'm back! Big thanks to Vlado and Teodor.

Using Maya's 3D Paint and hooking it up to a texture for the bend direction worked perfectly ( although it was tricky to paint )
Now I have really nice fur which doesnt depend on manual gravity, which works so nice with a rigged character )

It was hard trying to find any tutorials on Vrayfur, so I hope to write up a small tut on my process soon on my blog.

Here is a test render of the finalised rat character, rendered of course with the awesome Vray and domelight.

[jasonhuang1115]

Look forward to the write-up. What's the URL to your blog?

[johnchen]

Look forward to the write-up. What's the URL to your blog?

My blog is http://www.vfxforge.com , will post up in a day or so. 6:30am time for bed lol.