Revisiting native Fiber FX

[Ma3rk]

I've been trying to take my efforts to convert Daz's dForce hair to the next level by using the result currently as guides in LW's Fiber FX. In theory this is doable, but seems there's some naming, surfacing conventions to meet.

So before jumping directly into that, figured it would be worthwhile to see where things are in 2019 version first.

But vid-wise, I'm not finding anything more current that erikals's Strand Modeler Bugs Vid:

It's 6+ years old, so well before 2019. I've only checked out a few of the bullet points; there are still problems, but not really the same ones.

So e., was wondering what issues still exist; if you've bothered, had time, inclination, etc. to update.

I came across a bomber jacket item that was quite suitable to use Fiber FX for the collar, and w/o complicating things just yet using the imported obj curves as hair guides.

Frontally, it could use some for tweeks obviously (shorter, denser), but for my purposes, where camera is behind and level with the right shoulder, it'll work just fine. (That's Cap'n Manny, if you're wondering).

I'll re-make the collar at some point, but it was quite a pain to do the weight mapping this time around when it came to swapping out geometry in my main scene.

So basically at this point, looking for tips, care & feeding suggestions, etc. from actual use of Fiber FX in 2019.

 

[erikals]

Haven't touch the later LightWave versions much
I don't think that there is too much of a change

FiberFX in layout seems to be pretty much the same
In model also it seems to be, the same

I find tweaking guards in in layout kind of a drag
So I would go the modeller way instead

Adjusting FiberFX kind of like painting in 3 dimensions so it is difficult to give advice without making a very long video on it.

I thought would be to use dynamics to faster adjust the look of the fibers.

also see >

 

[Ma3rk]

Fair enough. Sounds like I'll pretty much just have to play with it; see what works & what doesn't. How rare.

I'll have to do tests to see if I can get the imported curves to work as guides. Might have to ask Oliver a question or two about his import tool.

Is guide adjustment strictly via point selection, i.e. no brush or the like? Too bad if that's the case.

Here's Manny at the helm and a wider perspective:

 

[erikals]

Is guide adjustment strictly via point selection, i.e. no brush or the like? Too bad if that's the case.

no brush strokes i'm afraid.
personally i'm ok with it, brush strokes do tend to be very generic, not that great for accuracy.
the problem with the LW method is the clumsiness.

i could've made a "don't do this" versus a "do this" list.... but, time.

 

[erikals]

https://www.youtube.com/c/erikals/search?query=FiberFX

 

[Ma3rk]

Ah. Helpful, but will take time to peruse.

 

[prometheus]

no brush strokes i'm afraid.
personally i'm ok with it, brush strokes do tend to be very generic, not that great for accuracy.
the problem with the LW method is the clumsiness.

i could've made a "don't do this" versus a "do this" list.... but, time.

That doesn´t seem correct, the guide tweaking in fiberfx has a brush falloff setting, and you can draw with it, it´s not just per point selection.

 

[erikals]

for long hair, doubt it will work.

but for super-short guides, like shown, yes mostly. bad falloff tho' - harsh blending some places.

i guess it depends what we mean by "it works"

 

[prometheus]

for long hair, doubt it will work.

but for super-short guides, like shown, yes mostly. bad falloff tho' - harsh blending some places.

i guess it depends what we mean by "it works"

The question was just about guide adjustment, and as such..the guide editing it´s not just point editing, but a brush control with depth and falloff, and you drag it as a brush stroke.
As for long hair VS shorter guides when doint "brush strokes" , that wasn´t up on the table at all

 

[erikals]

As for long hair VS shorter guides when doint "brush strokes" , that wasn´t up on the table at all

wasn't it ?
ok, but it often should be.
not sure what's up with the wink?

 

[prometheus]

wasn't it ?
ok, but it often should be.
not sure what's up with the wink?

Ohh..I just got something in the eye , but also..I just wanted to make it clear that it wasn´t a question about long hair..you know me getting stuck on details.
But it was just what was mentioned in this quote below, and nothing indicating long hair specificly at all, and the fact that it Is possible to brush stroke edit the guides, even long hair, but it´s not the best tool though for it, as you pointed out.

Is guide adjustment strictly via point selection, i.e. no brush or the like? Too bad if that's the case.

 

[prometheus]

Compared to blender hair, and styling as well as rendering, it feels like fiberfx is stuck in the middle ages, refusing to adapt to modern times.

As for creating it in blender with the new hair tools, I don´t know yet, I tested some day ago, but it is a new type of geometry, unlike the old particle hair that you simply converted to a mesh and could send to lightwave, the new hair tool curves in blend I seem to not be able to convert properly to a mesh, but I need more research on that, for whatever unexplained reason you need it in Lightwave.
Turn on zdepth, use scale to make hair longer,if you start from basic appliance that is, push to brush stroke the styling.. but it´s not a very galant solution, it´s bad.
Right mouse click and drag up and down, increases or decreases strength of brush. right click and drag to left or right increases or decreases radius of the brush.

 

[Ma3rk]

This might be a more relevant example of what I wanting to do & how close I am.

Here's what the guides look like in Daz for it's dForce fur/hair. If you export via FBX, those end up as closed ngons. If you export the model as obj, and open it as such in Modeler, you'll end up with the same thing.




HOWEVER, if you use Oliver's undocumented tool from ODTools 2018, the Import .obj curves, and use the Houdini Curve option, it will give you open LW curves. And it will ONLY import those curves from the object.





Still doesn't do you much good for Fiber FX as it wants poly chains for guides, so you choose that option:

So Fiber FX lets me chose that layer to use as guides ... and crashes Modeler.

Checked the wt. mapping and it's zero at the 1st point and the rest either graduate to or set at 100 depending on the option chosen. No help. Cleared the map. Nada.

And that's where things are at.

 

[erikals]

use >

 

[prometheus]

Fiberfx can be used on curve as they are without turning them to polychains, however, that will rule out mesh editing or dynamics on the main curves.

As for the crashes, yeah..lightwave is very picky on how the polychain is created, I´ve managed to handle a lot of that by selecting edges and pasting back, which changes the structure of the polychain, but it´s been a while since I tried that, and you need at least lw 2019 to do that, this helped avoid the crashing.
I may be able to test with a sample if you have.

And another way to test it is to use what erikals shows above, but from my experience, the copy edge and paste was the most stable, even strandmaker failed on imported geometry from other software.

You could also try to open your daz characters with hair in blender..parse it through that, I wouldn´t be surprised if that imports them without closed polygons, that´s my experience with some imports and exports anyway..where Lightwave imports as closed polys, but blender doesn´t.
All that which you then could perhaps save out back to lightwave, then again..you got the OD tools which I don´t have so..

What you could do is to let as many as possible do case testing, just export something that isn´t of private or business value to you, and upload it here for us to test with our different and varied knowledge at our disposal.

 

[Ma3rk]

If I could figure how to post a sample for you to test I certainly would, but haven't figure that out. The dForce guides I can't make myself in Daz unfortunately, or if there is there's no documentation. Those are proprietary tools apparently. Perhaps there's a freebie item I can find.

The LAMH (Look At My Hair) tool uses RMan curves, and that worked great... until Daz mostly broke it a couple years back & hasn't it fixed of course. Alessandro (AM) has had a ver. 2 in development, but who knows if. He was under the impression that everyone preferred the dForce hair & I informed him that that wasn't the case.

I've heard there is a technique using Blender but I'm not familiar enough with it. Similar with ZBrush.

Even so, I'm not sure that will help for LW. The tests I did with Strand Maker as e. suggested almost works, makes the two layers, shows some values in the status area, then crashes. I'll test more with fewer guides.

 

[prometheus]

If I could figure how to post a sample for you to test I certainly would, but haven't figure that out. The dForce guides I can't make myself in Daz unfortunately, or if there is there's no documentation. Those are proprietary tools apparently. Perhaps there's a freebie item I can find.

The LAMH (Look At My Hair) tool uses RMan curves, and that worked great... until Daz mostly broke it a couple years back & hasn't it fixed of course. Alessandro (AM) has had a ver. 2 in development, but who knows if. He was under the impression that everyone preferred the dForce hair & I informed him that that wasn't the case.

I've heard there is a technique using Blender but I'm not familiar enough with it. Similar with ZBrush.

Even so, I'm not sure that will help for LW. The tests I did with Strand Maker as e. suggested almost works, makes the two layers, shows some values in the status area, then crashes. I'll test more with fewer guides.

Well.then I can´t test.
As mentioned, Strandmaker isn´t water proof, the best way to handle much of that stuff is to copy edges and paste back, strandmaker can cause crashes, while copy edges ..if done right had the least issues with crashing.

Then again, I have a lot of other things to do, so maybe it´s best I focus on that
All good
Have a nice Christmas Holiday, I am guessing you are safe from the Snow Cyclone Bomb roaming some parts over there?
Otherwise it´s time to wrap Real fiber fur around your body

 

[Ma3rk]

Ah HA!

Daz is free of course. With it are the dForce essentials. Within those are some samples, one of them being a male figure with a dForce Mohawk. Still too large to post the obj,, but here are just the curves extracted from it using the OD Tool.

So if anyone's inclined (or bored) for that at some point ...

I'm preaching to the choir how cold it was here yesterday, but we started with no running water (we're on a well, a pipe had frozen). And then the power went out. Fortunately, plenty of firewood. Got power & water back in the afternoon. Then last night I heard rain. Freezing rain. Then it snowed.

Down to just one cat these days & she's sticking close to her food bowls & the fire place.

 

[prometheus]

Ah HA!

Daz is free of course. With it are the dForce essentials. Within those are some samples, one of them being a male figure with a dForce Mohawk. Still too large to post the obj,, but here are just the curves extracted from it using the OD Tool.

So if anyone's inclined (or bored) for that at some point ...

I'm preaching to the choir how cold it was here yesterday, but we started with no running water (we're on a well, a pipe had frozen). And then the power went out. Fortunately, plenty of firewood. Got power & water back in the afternoon. Then last night I heard rain. Freezing rain. Then it snowed.

Down to just one cat these days & she's sticking close to her food bowls & the fire place.

Yep, daz3D core is free... I know.

I have yet to re-install the stuff after my system crash, I have some old libraries and content I need to move to another drive though first then install daz, previously I worked with an older daz version, so its´gonna be interesting to test the hair stuff.
That´s kind of why I asked if you had any samples ready since I haven´t installe the stuff.

My time is a bit limited this upcoming month I believe, much else to take care of and possibly a new job around the corner as well, so I want to keep time free to focus on that as a priority.

How codld was it over there in..Oregon?
Right now here only minus 6 celsius, that´s ok, and I can stand up to around minus 10- but over 12 I tend to stay in the house if I can.
Seems there could be minus 40 celsius over there ..as I heard on the news.

Cat´s..no cat´s in my home, but will cuddly with two of my sisters cat´s tomorrow at the Christmas dinner, and their dog as well, on cat very old, probably need to be removed during 2023, same with the dog.

I just adore cat´s, so funny, so cuddly..and some of them quite smart.

 

[prometheus]

First test, no crash, but I am using Lightwave 2019.1.5

Just go to select mode edges, select all of them with lasso or other selection methods if needed, copy them, create a new object, paste it in, they are now polychains instead of curves.
Save and send to layout, apply fiberfx.
Simple as that

However ..using older lightwave 2015..will probably not deal with the edge copied properly as I recall, and later 2020 I know nothing about unfortunately.