Locks of Hair

Locks of Hair Project                            Locks of Hair Braids Project

Sample QuickTime Movie Tutorial

Locks of Hair feature allows strands of hair to be guided along a spline in a model.  The hair will follow the spline and will be the same length as the spline.  This feature is useful for pony tails and braids.

Spline for the Lock of Hair

To create a lock of hair first add a spline in the modeler for the hair to follow.

New Material

Create a new Material by right clicking (Ctrl Clicking on the Mac) and pick [New][Material].

Change Material to Hair

Right click (Ctrl Click on the Mac) the Attribute icon under the material and pick [Change Type To] [Particle System] [Hair].

Show Advanced Properties

From the [Tools][Options] dialog on the Global Tab make sure that Show Advanced Properties is turned on.  This is needed for the next step.

Select CP on Spline

Right click (Ctrl Click on the Mac) any Control Point (CP) on the spline and pick [Select CP].  This will highlight the CP in the project workspace tree.  If Show Advance Properties was not turned on this menu item would not be visible because CPs and splines will not show up in the Project Workspace.  The only purpose of this step is to show you the Spline in the Project Workspace that you want to add the Lock of Hair to.

Drag Material onto Spline

Drag the hair material you created onto the Spline above the CP that you just selected.

Hair Lock Object

After you drag the material onto the spline a Hair Lock object will appear under the spline in the Project Workspace.

Locks of Hair                                                   Lock of Hair Manipulators

When the Hair Lock object is selected the model window will show manipulators where every CP was along the spline.

Scale Manipulator

Use any of the four knobs on the disc manipulator to scale the hair at that location on the hair lock.

Rotate Manipulators

Use the Roll Handle to twist the hair at that location on the hair lock.

Use Density to create more hair in the hair lock and Kinkiness to add waves in each strand.  Under the Realtime property you can choose Shaded for quality to get a more accurate representation on the shading of the hair in the interface.  Note Shaded quality will be give slower draw times in the model window.

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