striped hyena & hairstyles

STRIPED HYENA

I did this project together with Dennis Petzinna who is responsible for the model and who wants to improve his anatomy skills. The striped hyena project was very interesting and challeging for me, because of the different parts of the hair structure.

Dennis Petzinna (modeling)

Joshua Schmidt (posing and animation later on)

Anthony Kersten (rigging)

Elia Göttlicher (lighting)

I was responsible for grooming | texturing of the fur | lookdev of the groom. 

reference

Especially for grooming it is essential to use references to be able to reproduce the shape and direction of the hairs. References are also important for the clump variation and how high the noise level has to be.

To get the right gradient of the base color of the fur you have to look at many references from different angles to become a realistic result.

texturing fur

I textured the base color of the fur in substance painter. 

grooming 

I used xGen for the groom and it tooks me around 4 weeks to complete the groom. During  grooming I have run into different smaller problems and errors, but I have learned a lot of them. 

setup

First I begin to make a base groom on the whole mesh. I started with groomable splines to define the direction and length of the bodypatients. I started out very simple and then went into more and more detail and added some swirls in the end. 
After the base groom was finishes I divided the body parts into different descriptions to have the possibility to vary the density and clumping. 
At the end I added splines descriptions for the mane and the long parts of the fur - for the frontlegs, backlegs, the tail and the whiskers. 

clumping

For each  description I made an own clump setup. I take a look at the references to get an idea how big the clumps are in each area. First I started making bigger clumps and painting clumpmaps to break up the clumping and make it look more natural. 
After that I created smaller clumps and also painted clumpmaps there. 
At the end I put a noise modifier on each description to break up the clump setup again and get a realistic look. 

Here you can see the different descriptions.

From skeleton to mesh to final groom. 

I subdivided the mesh again before I started to groom. 

final renders

genral

- stones/ rock models and textures are from quixel megascans

what I learned

- to start with a simple groom and  then become more and more detailed 
- to work with a reference groom which I can use for the other descriptions 
- a lot about clumping maps 
- how to overblend the different descriptions to get a good transition 
- how I get the animation via geoCache back on my groom model 
- to work with expressions 
- to plug in the base color into the groom 
- to lookdev the groom 

FEMALE HAIRSTYLE

This is my first groom project I did for my demo reel. 
In this project I worked with Ornatrix for the first time and it took me around 2 months to learn and finish the groom. 


Model by Colton Orr. 

Elia Göttlicher (lighting) 

I was responsible for grooming | shading the hair | modeling the bun pillows & braids.

reference

Before I started I looked up references for my bun braid hairstyle. 
First I wanted to get a straight shape of the hair at the bottom but while working I found that the hairstyle looked too strict and to break it up I decided to add curls. So I updated my reference sheed with some curl hairstyles. 

grooming 

I used Ornatrix for grooming and Arnold for rendering. 

setup

In the beginning I splitted the hairstyle into areas and made a description for each area. 
First I made the buns with the help of a torus which I twist in a little bit and created guides from curves for grooming. After trying to form the braids with guide curves I decided to use a braid plugin and generate the hairs from the mesh.
Then I started to do the parting hair on the top and add some clumps to make it look like the hair goes into the braid. After that I put on some frizz to get a more natural look. 
The lower hairs were smooth at first and then I added curls to get a casual look. 

Here you can see the different descriptions.

final renders

general

- male and female model are from Colton Orr

what I learned

- a new software - Ornatrix
- don´t be afraid of learning a new software
- to not duplicate the faces on which the groom should be placed, because this caused the faces to shift 
  during the groom process. 

MALE HAIRSTYLE

This is my second groom project I did for my demo reel.
In this project I worked with xGen and it took me around 2 weeks to finish the groom.

Model by Colton Orr.

Elia Göttlicher (lighting)

I was responsible for grooming | shading the hair 

reference

Before I started I looked up references for my male groom.
I have not only taken one reference picture and made it 100% copy - I created my own hairstyle with the help of the references. 

grooming

setup

In the beginning I made the description for each part of the groom.

I started with groomable splines to grooming the beard and first brushed the direction for the beard and add longer and shorter parts. I painted a density map to get the thinning out look of the beard.
I did the same worklflow for the eyebrows and eyelashes. 
Only the head hairs I generate with splines to get a better shape of the style. 

clumping

For each description I made an own clump setup. I take a look at the references to get an idea how big the clumps are in each area. First I started making bigger clumps and painting clumpmaps to break up the clumping and make it look more natural.

After that I created smaller clumps and also painted clumpmaps there.

At the end I put a noise modifier on each description to break up the clump setup again and get a realistic look. 

final renders

general

- male and female model are from Colton Orr 

what I learned

- to groom with splines
- working with paintmaps 
- a lot about melanin shaders