Create Any Fur in Blender! Part 1: Grooming

hello everyone and welcome today we are going to  be making some fur and the reason why is because   well the geometry notes for hair are incredible to  use for all sorts of systems and I've been using   them a bit more lately so I just want to share  some new insights and we also got two kits Two   Kitties so they have a very nice layer of fur  they are Siberian cats so they have some nice   coating and so I just would like to make that  right so I may as well just share that with you   all as well so let me just turn on my screencast  where is it there it is and we're going to start   off by adding a reference image right so hit  shift a image reference and we have two cats   but I grabbed the picture that I had on my  phone which is this one minus 90. so this is   the reference this is what it looks like right now  they are about five and a half months out old so   I'm gonna grab my Cube modifier subdivided three  times all right there we go and shake that smooth   so I'm not gonna make the entire cat ahead of  course I'm not gonna create eyes or anything   this is about the fur this is all about how we  create the fur we can add some ears later because   it also has some nice fur but the eyeball stuff  like that if you really want me to we can create   this entire Siberian kit in another tutorial  series which is fine but for now let's just   do the fur for the head first okay so how do we  start this off well I'm not going to use particle   systems because particle systems if we add some  hair and we sculpt the hair we are ready right   away lose the ability to let's see tweak some of  those initial values like the length the segments   stuff like that so I'm instead going to use the  new system it's not entirely new anymore because   blender is currently in like 4.0 beta and but we  can add curve empty hair and then we can go to   object modes skill modes and we can start adding  some hairs right so the first layer that I want to   add is this thin Coating in the face all right so  I'm already trying to look at the different kinds   of systems that we need one of them being the  face hairs the short ones the second one is the   slightly longer top hairs and the hairs are going  around the face as well there and layer 3 is going   to be the bottom code here alright so the actual  chin area the the mains pretty much of the kit   so let's start with this thin code first and  what I'm trying to wrap my head around already   is the density of the hairs that we're going to  be adding so usually in the start I work with the   density brush because it adds a very even amount  of hairs all around where we draw right you can   see that the cloud Max is a hundreds if we set  this distance to for example 0.05 you can see   that the hairs will always have a minimum  distance of 0.05 right which is very nice   so the density is something I try to figure out  right away because we don't want to over saturate   this with hair but we also don't want to under  saturate and what I mean with that is especially   around areas like the ice you have a very harsh  line where the hair starts forming where they   start popping out of the skin right and if you  have for example let's say a minimum distance of   points one all right so you can see that we have  quite a lot of distance between your hairs and the   only way to fill that up is with an interpolate  hairs duplicate hairs but they will be scattered   in between the hairs and on the outsides as well  because they are scattered around a radius of your   hair pretty much and what happens if you have  that around the eyes is they are also going to   be popping inwards right and that is something  that I want to avoid at all costs right so the   easiest way to do that is to have a particle  system around the eyes that is a separate from   the rest right because that way and you can see we  even have some longer hair there around the eyes   and on the bottom they start I'm a bit shorter I  guess so they can be a different particle system   and you can just crank up the density for those  places because you want those harsh lines there   right so if I make this distance 0.01 you can see  that they're very close together and any extra   here that we will add later on will be distributed  in between of those hairs right with a much   smaller radius and that way we will keep that  harsh outline right so we don't have the eyes   right now we're not going to be making them as  well but just just so you know right so this   initial density I'm going to keep it quite low  anyway because um well I like having that initial   code to be quite thick we can always thin it out  later by just setting the density lower right and   what I mean is if we draw a minimum density right  now on this face part of the mesh we can simply   set this to minus and increase the distance a  little so for example points oh five and it will   just subtract the hairs until we have a density of  0.05 it's that easy right so let me control that   a few times and let's just hit the plus because  we want to add density and I guess we can also   do the auto modes so the density what I'm going to  work with is 0.01 and I'm going to go to the curve   shape and I'm going to set the length to about  0.052 right so let's say we already get some nice   and short hairs maybe I want it to be even a bit  longer Point O seven five that sounds about right   so now I'm just gonna draw in the hairs but first  we're gonna enable the Y mirror symmetry pretty   much right so now if I draw left it will also  appear right I'm gonna make our lives a little   bit easier right so let's start drawing in the  middle this is going to be where our little face   will be right so this is where we will add short  hair just like that beautiful beautiful beautiful and for the top of the heads we will need a  different system right so you can see right   now this looks very even and very already quite  dense so this is all we need so we can already   start giving this a little bit of shape right  so if you go to the groom brush the comb we can   actually start combing this entire shape so the  first thing you notice is that our hairs are going   through the mesh which is something that we don't  want to happen right so what we can do is enable   collision and it's a very tiny button that may  be quite hard to find if you're just starting out   with this but it's all the way in the top right  there's this icon it says use sculpt Collision   click the button and now when we drag it's going  to stay nicely on top of the mesh right so that   is very nice so let's draw some of these shapes  in right you can see that the hairs are going all   over the place well at the nose they're going  pretty much up behold below the eyes are going   to the sides on the header going up and a bit  to the side and at the chin area they're going   down again right so let's try and just follow  some of the shapes so this is going up let's   just crank down that strength to 0.3 as a value  I like to use there we go this goes up a little   bit then for example we have let's go to the  side somewhere here this goes down and this   goes a bit more to the sides as well right and  the rest of it we can pretty much just smoothen   out interpolate a little bit more maybe even here  a little bit more so it doesn't have a very harsh   kind of Blitz there for example there as well  let's make it a little bit more even right so at   some point it's going to be hard because we have  symmetry enabled so just disable that and then we   can just make this a little bit less identical  right because no face is that smooth not even a   perfect cat face it that's symmetrical all right  so something like this is already looking quite   quite decent I'd say right nice so what we have  done right now is we pretty much have laid all of   those hairs flat on the surface right if I go and  look at it from an angle they are pretty much flat   on the surface with some hairs sticking out a bit  more right so we want this all to be a bit more   well Cliffy puffy Buffy is the name so there's  an actual brush for that it's called the poof all   right and what that does is it will stand each of  these hairs up a bit more right so for example if   I would draw with a pair with a 0.3 strength and  project it you can see that the hairs are going   to be moving away from that initial surface a  little bit more right and the reason why we avoid   them being stuck on the surface is because of the  lighting later on if they are flat on the surface   the lighting is going to make it look like it's  going to be um more of like a flat surface and   if you have glossy hairs then the reflections  are going to look very odd almost like it is a   flat plane so you want to make sure that there's  at least a little bit of puffiness in your hairs   right unless you have it groomed in a way where  you don't want that to happen for example if   there's a lot of grease in somebody's hair orifer  is wet for example then of course you could make   them much more flat alright so something like  this is perfect to start off with right amazing   now what I want to do next is add that second  layer and then after that we will start blending   it more together right so I'm not going to include  this in the same system because I want to treat   the top hairs different than I wanted to read  the phase hairs especially because I want to add   some noise and Curves in that top head hair  and this pretty much has to be straight and   smooth right so what I'm going to do is go back  to object mode I'm going to name my first system   base hairs there we go our second system so select  your initial object I'm going to call this emitter   hit shift a go to a curve and go to empty hair  once again so let's name this the let's say stop and sides hair you know at least we know what  we mean so just go into skill mode once again and   now we can add some more density now the longer  your hair gets the lower the density usually can   be right if you have a very short hair like the  face here you need much more hairs to cover the   initial skin than when you would have long hair  like this on the top or long hair like this on the   bottom so I already tried to lower my density  based on how long those hairs will be and the   hairs on the top of the face the heads will be  longer so I'm gonna lower the density slightly   to like point O three maybe let's see how that  looks that is better right so we can already start   drawing with a little bit of a longer length  right so I'm going to set the length to point   two maybe and this made me a little bit too  long 0.15 here we go we can tweak that later   don't worry too much and now we can just start  drawing in the space where we need this hair   to be like here beautiful I'm not gonna worry  too much about the back because right now we're   focused on getting that initial front and the  front face so I'm gonna draw this on the sides   as well and a little bit on the bottom as well  because we need some kind of an overlap between   a short hair that you would have on the chin and  the long hair in which it grows right so we want   this to be like an in-between layer pretty much  I'm going to draw this all around the heads just   like that and maybe even with a little bit more  of an overlap in the actual face area all right   that's the best way to create an overlap or a  smooth transition between systems is to have   them overlap nicely all right so now we can go to  the shrink brush or gross shrink we can set this   to minus set the strength to 0.3 again and now we  can shrink some of these hairs down on where they   meet the actual particle systems right so let's  actually just enable that y symmetry for now   and there we go let's shrink that down a little  bit shrink it here a bit as well because this is   going to be the transition area so is this here we  go beautiful now for the top part I even want them   to be a little bit longer right so especially here  at the little tip of the head I want the hairs to   be a bit longer so we can groom that a little bit  better later on as well right so this is going to   be fine I usually set this to project it because  I like a bit more as it works more straightforward   like which hairs are going to be moving with  the brush something like this I guess beautiful   and for the sides I want this to be longer as well  right you have you see like those hairs sticking   out on the sides and we're gonna be making that as  well so I'm gonna make all of these sides a little   bit longer here we go beautiful and maybe here on  the chin area as well because that is going to be   the transition part right right there beautiful  so next up we can start grooming this a little bit   and let's go to the comb brush and let's just  groom our little cheek hairs and our chin   hairs there we go make it look a little bit like a  groomed kit alright something like that and if you   can't for some reason groom all of the hairs just  set it to project it and you'll be able to do it   and something like that now I already want to  bring some kind of roughness in the hairs just   by pushing for example this part up and this part  more down right just to add some Randomness right   from the start we can do it with the geometry  notes but I already want some manual placements of   those random hairs because I enjoy doing it and I  like having some control of for example the curve   in here like that and this one as well I want this  to point more up and already create some kind of a   noisy feel of that hair there that looks quite  nice there we go beautiful so less local it from   let's look at it from the side as well because  right now we have a good looking front view but   the side view usually looks very boring at that  point right so you can see and we didn't do any   side work yet so let's just do that right now I'm  gonna make this go up and to the side a little bit   like that something like this and already add  some noise of course and you change the brush   size with f right so F and just move your mouse  and you'll see the circle go up and down and   that will basically mean the size of your brush  so this goes down of course something like this   and then this can go a little bit more back there  we go so more roughness more roughness here we go   beautiful and now we have quite a decent profile  from our sides I guess right so maybe just from   the top view the sides may be a little bit odd so  let's fix that make it a bit more random as well   here we go and that is pretty much it for this  part right later on we will come back to that   let's save this as for and now let's just start  already adding the third system as well so let's   select our initial object which is the emitter  shift a curve empty hair so this is going to   be our long hair system so let's continue and set  the density brush with the Curve shape to be much   longer for that chin area right so this is going  to be like 0.3 now when a kitty is fully grown   and those hairs will be even longer but right  now he's not fully fully developed yet right   so this is still not quite as long as it will  be one meter is a little bit long maybe 0.75 there we go so let's draw in a nice area of that  we can use to draw in this thick fur coat on the   neck so right there is whenever I want that to  be and maybe even a bit more to the sides there   because we're going to be grooming this down a  bit so make sure it overlaps slightly there we go   here as well and that is looking like quite  the decent layer of hair maybe a bit more to   the front here as well there we go beautiful so  how do we now make this work beautiful well easy   we groom we groom we groom so let's start off  with that right so let's first move this down   and let me enable the Y symmetry again and let's  set this to projected it already was so let's move   all of this down a little bit this as well and  something like this already looks quite decent   right so for the the neckline we of course don't  have a neck we also don't have a chest area so we   have to stop the hairs at some point so we're  gonna make up the shape of that and make it   nice and noisy I guess something like this and  let's add some initial Curves in here as well   right so you can see that there's some curling  going on here and a lot of clumping as well so   that is something that we have to achieve later on  as well and something like this looks quite nice   maybe this goes a bit more to the sides and up as  well right because we have to of course transition   that later on and let's go to the side view of  course see how that looks which isn't a bit one   and let's move all of this a little bit more  down you know we have gravity in place no   long hairs are going to stick out as much  like that something like this looks decent   all right so if you think your hair needs  to be longer at some parts or you want just   some freedom to drag it out or make some longer  hairs at some point just grab the snake hook and   you can just drag those hairs out for example  like that and like this right so you can make   them longer and more noisy on the spot setup so  projected that may work even better here we go   right so drag them out just like that beautiful  now maybe this as well drag it out a little bit   beautiful just like that right so we can also  drag these ones out on the side a little bit   beautiful right so let's actually sculpt this  and let's make this look a little bit more even   like that and now we can go to the comb brush  and just recomb that a little bit more right so   we remove a little bit of the chaos and I'm also  going to disable the Y symmetry for a second and   work on this bottom patch because I didn't  like the way it was symmetrized right there   something like this works much better I think  alright so now I'm going to go to object mode   and I'm going to go back to my second layer the  top and sides and I'm going to go to skill modes   and I'm going to try to work this a little bit  more in the actual shape that I want it to be   right those size here I want this to transition  beautiful so I'm gonna grab the comb brush and I'm   gonna comb this down a little bit right so this  is the hair that's actually going to transition   into the longer hair as well so we need some  kind of a downflow there to interact with that   part right and maybe even go a little bit more  to the front something like this so that already   shows much more of a transition area between  those hairs all right so that is not too bad   let's see how it looks from the front if we go to  object mode and let's even go to rendered View and   set this to Cycles right so you can already  tell more of how it's gonna look in the end   right so that has been part one of this tutorial  in the next one we'll be looking at adding the   geometry node startups adding the details adding  more hairs making them look more realistic in   general so I hope to see you in that one and  for now thank you so much please leave a like   a comment subscribe any one of those will make  me happy and I'll see you in the next one cheers

Channel: Nino

Views: 18,332

Keywords: hair, blender hair, procedural, blender 3.5, geometry nodes, grooming, animal fur, animal, cat, kitty, realistic, lifelike, superrealistic, hyperrealistic, blender 4.0, realistm, making

Id: csXjfrJ0DIY

Length: 20min 20sec (1220 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 29 2023