Subtitles of the Movie

Let's start talking about the Hair and Fur Modifier in this movie. I have the file Hair dot Max open from the Chapter 18 Folder. A simple file with a Ground plane and two Trees. Let's select the Ground plane, go to the Modifier List and apply the Hair and Fur Modifier under the World Space Modifiers. Give it a second and you can see that the entire Ground plane has the Hair applied. Let's quickly Render this and you'll see first it renders my Geometry and then the Hair and Fur. And there you go that's what it looks like. So it looks pretty decent for just a few clicks. If I go really close to this I have a lot of options. Let's close the Styling in this case. Tools Ð I can load some Presets over here if I want to. Right now if I go down under General Parameters I have Hair Count. Let's take the Count down to 5,000 in this case. Density, the Scale, let's take the Scale down as well like so. Also in the Material Parameters, let's open that. I have Tip Color and Root Color. So let's change the Tip Color in this case to like a green value and let's just do a Render again. Give it a second and there's the grass. Something else I can do, is I can go to the Sub-object Level, Polygons, and let's go to the Paint Selection Tool over here and let's start painting some Polygons like so. And simply, after this is done, all I need to do is, just go back up over here and say Update Selection. So right now you can see that the Hair is added only on that selection right there. Let's increase the Hair Count right now back to 10,000. It was earlier at 15,000, I took it down to 5,000 and right now it's at 10,000. Let's render this quickly just to see what it looks like. And there you can see that's my Hair right there showing up as grass. So, it's really a cool way to deal with this. You have some other options right at the bottom over here. If I close the Materials Level, under Dynamics you have Gravity, Stiffness Ð how stiff the Hair is, Root Hold Ð if you want it to hold the root. Collisions, if any, if you have any objects you can add them here or you can simply say Polygons, Use Growth Object, which is that object right there. Also External Forces, if you have any Wind or anything you can add them over here. If I simply turn on Live over here you can see how the hairs over there are giving me a nice little preview. If I say None and if I increase the Stiffness slightly and then if I do Live right now you'll see they're still going but they're just taking a little while to give me that preview. There you go. So it's really a cool way. There are a lot of Parameters, but really it's easy to get started with this. If I open another file over here called head dot Max, a simple Head over here. Let's select the Head and apply the Hair and Fur Modifier and right now if I Render this the entire Head over here will be covered with Hair. Let's quickly go and make some selections again. So let's go to the Polygon Level and let's go to Tools. Actually let's go first to the Material Parameters and how about changing the Tip Color to like almost a black and the Root Color in this case. And I simply want to Swap these two colors. Actually I just wanted to Swap them so let's go back to a black over here and let's drag and drop this and let's say Swap. There we go. Right now I'm going to go to the Polygon Level, I'm right there, and start painting again. Maybe after I've painted one side I just need to go back to my regular Rectangle selection and just select a few more Polygons right here so that I can select them properly like so. So let's say if I'm satisfied with my selection right now all I need to do is go down and say Update my Selection and that's what it looks like. I can further come down over here to Styling, say Style Hair. It gives me a little brush. Control and Shift and left mouse button takes the size of the brush up and down. I have things to Comb and Cut. In this case I'm going to say Cut the Hair. So let's Cut it and you can see how nicely it's cutting the Hair for me right over here. I can then go to Comb and Control Shift left mouse button I can start combing the Hair. And then I can further come down over here and start cutting the Hair. So I can just come down after I'm done combing, I can go back and start cutting some areas right here, there we go. And right now that's what the Hair looks like. I can then add some Polygons over here and then add a moustache and then the Hair for the head. So right now if I render this, this is what it looks like. So I can still select a few Polygons and add those to the Hair. So it's really a cool way to start with your Hair and Fur, so play around with that.