PROJECT OBJECTIVE

To explore XGen and use-cases in Maya.

​

SKILLS USED

Maya (XGen), Rendering (Maya; Arnold)

​

ABOUT THE PROJECT

(This model's copyright belongs to Cynderian Limited and was used with permission by the company).

 

 Creating the hair for this character was my first attempt at generating hair on a project and production level. Although the animation's style had changed shortly after I produced this hair, I was tasked with creating realistic-looking hair based on concept art I had drawn prior for Cynderian Limited.

​

My first objective was to block out the hair style, and attempt to understand how the hair should flow. Specifically I needed to figure out; where the regions of hair would spawn from, how stiff and loose certain zones of the hair were, and lastly how much feathering the hair would require at the tips. To accomplish this, I drew up various maps and discussed them in-depth with my supervisor.

​

After we had agreed upon the hair clumps and on the various mark-ups I made, I began by drawing out the curves for each section. This was the most time consuming and technically challenging part of this project, as during the first few iterations of the curve-drawing, the clumps of hair would not generate accurately within the regions, resulting in hair either standing at odd angles from the head, or were spawning in other areas. Moreover, the pony-tail proved a big challenge as there was a lot of clipping issues around the hair-tie itself.

​

Another point of discussion was how 'cartoon-like' the fringe of the hair should be. There was discussion about whether they should be clumped more into "V" shapes, or to fall more naturally, In the end, we agree that a "V" would be more visually interesting.

​

After a lot of iterations and re-doing of the curves, I settled on the design shown below.