# xgen hair with splines & guides _seriously needs to be finished and formatted._ --- [Maya XGen](https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2022/ENU/Maya-CharEffEnvBuild/files/GUID-C0470142-600B-4615-8110-EC779934DF5F-htm.html) is a tool developed by Walt Disney Studios for creating hair or instanced geometry (such as trees in a forest or flowers in a field). The splines and guides approach to creating hair is more complex than [[XGen groomable splines hair|groomable splines]] but gives you more control over the final quality of your hair. ### a few notes Be sure to set your Project Folder because XGen saves multiple files that are used to build your hair. Also, be aware that XGen is notoriously finicky and will probably crash on your from time to time. Save often as you work. --- ## set up new xgen hair Open up XGen window in upper-right. It becomes another panel similar to Attribute Editor. Work your way through the list… 1. create new Description - overall name of group, name of character 2. create Collection - each collection is a style or element that is part of the description 3. choose type of Primitive - **Spline is good for hair** _(this is the one we are using)_ - Groomable Spline is like a brush tool for hair, good for short hair - Custom Geometry for using your own meshes. Good for planting a forest of premade trees - Spheres is good for marbles or rounded rocks - Cards is for flat stuff like scales or roof tiles 4. set to Randomly Generate Across the Surface 5. set to Place and Shape Guides 6. press Create --- ## add hair guides Select individual faces of mesh for where you want to grow hair, otherwise hair will grown on the entire mesh. Think normal human growing hair on scalp versus wolfman growing hair everywhere. use add guides tool to interactively click on your mesh to plant where hair will grow. You will get little spiky guides popping up from the mesh. Click Preview button in XGen menu to see hair. Crank up the Density in the menu to add more strands. Can continue to add guides as needed. Can remove guides where you don’t need them. --- ## modify the hair By default, your hair is going to be short and spiky. Select a guide and right-click to get options for Guide Control Points. Modify the guides to grow out length and flow of your hair elements. Style as needed. If you have a lot of guides, this may be a tedious process. You can do half of your head and then mirror guides to the other side. That saves time. Continue to toggle the Preview on and off to see how well the hair is filling in. By default, each hair guide only has four vertices and so the generated hair strands may not follow the guides accurately. In the XGen menu, increase the Modifier CV Count to something like 10 or 20 to get a better flow. --- ## mask the hair Even with only the scalp selected for growing hair, you will probably have strands that look like they are coming through the face. You will need to mask out the areas where you don’t want hair. In the XGen menu, find the Mask option and click the little triangle to open a sub-menu and choose to Create Map… Give your mask a name and set the Resolution to something like 10. Press Create. You can now paint out areas you don’t want to be affected by hair. Double-click the Current Brush Tool on the left and change your brush tip to solid and color to black. Now go paint black on your model where you do not want hair to appear. Basically, you are painting in the hairline of your hairdo. Be sure to hit the Save disk icon in the XGen Mask menu. Turn on your Preview to see how it looks. --- ## tweak hair strands To make your strands actually look like hair, go to the XGen menu and find the Primitive Attributes section. The following settings are just a guide. Feel free to modify as needed to get the kind of hair you need. Set the Taper to something like 0.8 and the Taper Start to something like 0.2. That will make the hair thicker at the start and have it get thinner at the tips. Set the Width to something like 0.1 to thin the strands. --- ## color the hair Maya automatically adds a color to the hair but you need to adjust a few things to see it properly. Under the XGen > Primitive Attributes uncheck Tube Shade. In the regular Maya Attribute Editor, you can navigate to the XGen Hair Phen setting and adjust Ambient and Diffuse colors. --- ## make the hair clumpy and noisy By default, the hair is pretty straight and smooth someone used far too much conditioner and over-brushed the hair. In reality, hair clumps up in small groups and chunks. We can easily get the same effect with a few different modifiers. Noise Clumping --- Learn more… - [Using XGen to create hair - Part 1: Basic hair video from Maya Learning Channel](https://youtu.be/Q08WLqixuuE) - bit old, but still good introduction - [Maya Xgen Basics Tutorial Part - 1 video from FX Maniac](https://youtu.be/jIP8RN21Pm8) - newer, longer, better - [Create hair and fur using grooming brushes from Autodesk Help](https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2023/ENU/?guid=GUID-687F5111-FBE8-4D7F-89D7-F0B3CF958915) - [Creating Creature Fur Using XGen & Arnold from Gnomon Workshop](https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/creating-creature-fur-using-xgen-arnold) --- tags: #3d #maya #lighting #resources home: [[! 3d modeling- maya]]