Hazel's Hair Brief

Unwrapping

The unwrapping process went really smoothly this time, and I didn’t run into any major issues. I took my time laying out the UVs properly and made sure all the pieces had consistent texel density so the textures would look even across the whole model. I also organised the shells to make the most of the texture space and avoided placing seams in visible areas.

Overall, it was a clean and efficient unwrap, and I’m happy with how everything turned out.

Using Yash Patel’s Hair Shader

Thanks again to Yash Patel for his hair shader — it’s a great tool, and pretty much every character artist in our class is using it now. The amount of customisability it offers is amazing, and it only gets better the more you understand how to use it.

Using the Unreal Metahuman Eye Material

Unreal has a really nice eye material that gives a realistic effect, especially with how the eye reacts to light from different angles. I asked Will if I could use it, and he said it’s fine as long as I create my own textures and mesh, which I did.

I really like the look I’m getting from this material — the side view in particular looks great. It’s also highly customisable, which is a big plus. I exported the iris and eyeball textures separately so I can easily change or update them in the future. This matches how the material works internally, so it made sense to keep them separate.

Question for Hazel Brown:
How do you usually approach creating eyelashes and eyebrows? Do you place everything by hand, or do you use any techniques or tools that make the process faster or more efficient?

If you do place them manually, is there a quicker, more rough approach you’d recommend — something that might not look quite as refined but still gets the job done when working under a tight deadline?

Questions for Hazel Brown

• Your approach to braids — how do you usually handle them?
  
  

• The use of real-time strands:
  How common is it in production, and do you see it eventually replacing the current hair card workflow?
  
  

• Can real-time generated strands be used hybridly with hair cards?
  Do you think that would be efficient?
  
  

• Maya selection issue — any thoughts on why it happens or how to avoid it?
  
  

• Are there any other workflows or tools you think are worth learning outside of the ones you mentioned?
  (For example, Fibershop makes baking and hair card creation much easier.)
  
  

• For the braids on your orc character — how did you make them?
  Did you use your own method, or did you follow George’s GS Curve Tools approach?

Problems Faced During Hair Creation in Maya

• Accidentally deleting the mesh the fibers were generated from, which caused the entire setup to break and corrupted the file.
  
  

• Even after fixing the file, the fibers stopped appearing, so I had to troubleshoot the setup again.
  
  

• I also ran into the issue where I couldn’t select the curves — Maya kept automatically selecting the mesh instead, which interrupted the workflow.