by John Swanson

Product Title: "Hair 3ds Max… out of the box"
Training Author: Joe Gunn
Level: Intermediate
Overall Running Time: 5 hours, 12 minutes
(available through download only)
Price: Check the website for prices and bundle deals
Site: joegunn3d.com

If Hair is a tool in 3ds Max that you really want to get familiar with so you can feel confident that you will get results that you will be proud of. Then I recommend that you check out “Hair 3ds Max---out of the box” Joe Gunn delivers in these training videos. From the introduction straight through the bonus material at the end you are presented with solid instruction laid out the way I prefer. He progressively builds on information so the workflow makes sense. It’s almost impossible to get lost because of the logical way the ideas are laid out.

This is listed on his site as an Intermediate level training and it is. Joe presumes that the customer for this product is pretty well versed in 3ds Max and can get around without much hand holding.

Let me start out by saying that the download process was painless and the installation was a breeze. The interface is clearly laid out. The video controls make it is easy to go back and repeat any instruction you may have missed, or just want to review. This training is well recorded. The video is clear and the audio is well balanced and easy to listen to. Both Joe’s knowledge and confidence with the subject comes through loud and clear.

I also like to say that for the price of good solid Hair training you will also be exposed to many extra Max tips and tricks and workflows. You’ll be shown things you may or may not have been exposed to like how to set up a custom Quad Menu, Point Caching, using Vertex Paint as quick way to create maps. The logic behind starting out using a cube instead of sphere when modeling a collision object for a character’s head is revealed. If you already know these things – good for you – if not then take note because little gems of information like these are found throughout the Hair training.

We start out with an overview covering the components that make up Hair in 3ds Max. The version of Max in this training video is 3ds Max 2008, but I had no trouble following along in 3ds Max 2010. All the MaxScripts and scene models I was instructed to load in worked fine. In this section we went over things like the Hair world space modifier, light attributes, render effects, and the growth object in relation to Hair.

In the next part Joe takes us through the setting up of the UI to assist general workflow we will be following. In all my years of using Max I never customized a quad menu before, but in order to follow along I thought it might be a good idea. I saw how this workflow tip sped things up when we got down to using the tools. Here you find out why he uses his custom scripts when he works with Hair as well as save and load presets. There is a lot more good stuff here – but let’s move on.

The Hair modifier is explored in the following section. He shows us how to work with the parameters, highlighting which ones in particular to pay attention to. I like the way Joe Gunn demonstrates what he is talking about. This makes the concepts he is describing much easier to understand. You come away with the 'why you use this tool' rather than just the 'how to use this tool’ This is part of the progressive method he employs and it works well. We are shown old school styling methods and shown methods that yield better, more predicable results.

A girl model and guy model are used in the course of the instructions. In the next section Joe brings out the girl model that was rigged by Paul Neale of Pen Productions. With this model we are shown the hair cap we get into a discussion collision objects for both grooming purposes as well as for dynamics simulations. Both Skin and Skinwrap are explored in relation to setting up the character. Here we are really getting into all the necessary preparations for a real production pipeline. We learn when to use Skin and when to use Skinwrap. The Point Cache Modifier's role in this process is gone over

Styling Hair - Part One is up next. We start at the beginning creating a hair cap. We are shown how the hair styling tools, from both the Command Panel and Quad Menu, are used together to start getting the hairs in place. There is so much in this section it's hard to believe it's only Part One. We go over selection methods, the uses of the clumping tool, the stand and puff tools, and finally the all important creation of the part in a hairstyle. The methods he shows us really to get good results. We get the benefit of a lot of experimentation and explorations made by Joe.

Part Two of Styling Hair is also packed with info. We use tools learned in Part One while referring to reference photos. Joe shows us how to make selections to style the hair based on these photos. We use the brush, scale and cut tools to do this styling. He shows us restyling using recomb splines - a very useful bit. We are shown some adjustments to kink and frizz parameters to get the 'look' we are going after. Again we are shown the process of saving out to preset. The use of geometry in creating portions of a hairstyle is gone over; in this case we make a bun. When the guy character makes an appearance we are shown the copy and paste features of Hair. Apparently the hair cap geometry can be different yet we can still copy and paste hairstyles

Materials and Maps is the next topic up. We make the hair style on the guy character look good at render time. From a style that is basically at a good starting point we make adjustments in the Hair Command Panel. Joe Gunn discusses the importance of the adjustment of OC, Geometry and self shadows, root thickness, etc. Subtle things like hue and value variations along with specular and glossiness setting are gone over. I know that my first attempt at using hair I encountered problems with getting the hairline on my character to look natural. It didn't always work out. In this tutorial I learned the secret to this problem and you will to. He gives us plenty of examples of refining the settings to get that hairline to look natural, instead of like ‘hair plugs'. Clumping with the use of maps is another good technique to have under your belt.

We move on to 'Dynamics and Creating Collision Objects' in the next section before moving on to 'Lighting and Rendering' Again we start from scratch. I think this is a good way of teaching, the repetition is never boring in fact it gives you a chance to catch things you might of missed earlier or add to what you learned. We now make use of the Paul Hormis TiM scripts Joe had us download from Paul's site at the beginning of the instruction. He shows us different methods of creating collision objects depending on the resolution of the character you are using. Tells us why it's important to have a good recognizable resting position hairstyle when doing dynamics. We are given so many tips to get dynamics and hair to work together for good results. At one point we are shown how to use vertex paint to make maps that control hair stiffness. When and where to animate parameters to get the best dynamics results is covered.

In the Rendering and Lighting Section we find out why Joe prefers the Scanline renderer. We are shown how he sets up the Render effects Dialogue and what kind of lighting to use when rendering hair. All this is explained in detail going over things like the hair light attributes and how to assign a light to hair. We are presented with the options for rendering hair. It seems that nothing is left out. I didn’t realize that hair did not show up in reflections. But since it’s a render effect I guess that makes sense. Here we are shown the work around for this reality. The problems of hair and motion blur are addressed. As if this isn’t enough we are shown how to render hair as geometry. Echinacea even get into the act at this point when he first shows reference pics of a sea urchin, and then shows us how to model and render one using the Hair modifier and geometry (instancing nodes). This part was especially interesting because he shows us how to render hundreds of thousands of hairs without bring our system to its knees. Very cool information indeed.

I had to leave out many things that are covered in the sections I just went over. Believe me when I tell you there is a wealth of information delivered in easy to understand lessons because concepts are built up one on the other until it all makes sense. My knowledge on the Hair and Fur Modifier was very limited, but not anymore. Using the techniques and workflow that Joe Gunn lays out here I have been able to get good results.

All of the above training I outlined in this review is well worth the money. But Joe also includes two bonus features that are powerhouse training in themselves. The first one is the use of Cloth with Hair. The main part of this section has a very detailed explanation on how to use both the Cloth Modifier and Hair Modifier to some convincing dynamics working on a pony tail on an animated girl character.

The second bonus section covers the making of the ‘cover art’ for this training. Starting from the beginning right through to finished artwork. Like the rest of his training Joe goes into subjects beyond the scope of Hair and Fur. We are taken through steps to set up subsurface scattering for the skin of the character, and how to avoid major stumbling blocks in the process and how to fix the problems if they do occur. We are shown the set up for HDRI for environment and lighting. How to make and texture a bounce card for up lighting and how to fake it for the hair since hair can’t ‘see’ bounced light. Just be taking through this process is an education on planning and problem solving. This and the Cloth section are bonuses with a capitol ‘B”

If you want to learn Hair in 3ds Max I don’t believe you will go wrong with Joe Gunn’s "Hair 3ds Max… out of the box” I highly recommend it.