Table of Contents

This page provides information about the Hair Next node in V-Ray for Cinema 4D.

 

Overview


Hair Next node is designed for rendering hair and fur. It provides settings for a workflow based on the physiology of real hair. Instead of tweaking arbitrary colors that mix together, the Hair Next node uses a simple melanin slider that determines the hair color just like in the real world. The material is the product of research based on the paper A Practical and Controllable Hair and Fur Model for Production Path Tracing.

 

 

 

Parameters


 

Melanin – The pigmentation component that gives the hair strand its main color. The higher the value assigned, the higher the concentration of melanin and the darker the hair strands are. 

Pheomelanin – The redness (pheomelanin content) of the hair strand as a fraction of all melanin. 1.0 makes the hair redder. The ratio of melanin to pheomelanin determines how red the hair is. The pheomelanin amount has no effect, if Melanin is set to 0.

Dye Color – Applies a color tint to the hair. For a dyed hair look, set Melanin to 0, otherwise the melanin darkens the dye color and pheomelanin introduces redness to it. White means no hair dye. A texture node can be connected.

Transparency – Controls the transparency of the hair. White is fully opaque, while black is fully transparent. A texture node can be connected.

Diffuse Color – Controls the diffuse component of the node. Use this for materials made out of cloth threads or other non-translucent fibers, as well as for dirty hair. A texture node can be connected.

Diffuse Amount – Specifies the amount for the diffuse component of the material. A texture node can be connected.

Glossiness – Controls the glossiness along the hair strand. It primarily controls the width of the highlight, essentially how shiny the hair appears. A texture node can be connected.

Primary Glossiness Boost – Additional scaling factor to boost the primary reflection glossiness. This can be useful for reproducing the effect of shiny coating on rough-looking fur.

Softness – Controls the overall softness of the hair by how much the highlights are wrapped around the individual hair strands. Higher values make the highlights wrap almost completely around the strands, giving the hair a smoother look, while lower values make it look crisper. 

Highlight Shift –  Shifts the highlights along the hair strand. Positive values shift the highlight away from the root of the hair, while negative values move the highlight closer to the root. Values in the range 2-4 are typical for human hair.

Ior – The hair's Index of Refration. The typical value for human hair is 1.55. The higher the value, the more reflective the hair strands.

 

 

Glint


 

The Glint rollout provides control over the Glint (focused highlight) and the Glitter (focused colorless highlight) parameters.

Glint Strength – Controls the strength of the colored highlights across and along the strand.

Glint Variation – Adds a random glint variation along the strand. It affects the glint strength and orientation; the original secondary highlight strength and orientation; the softness, glossiness and highlight shift.

Glitter Strength – Controls the glitter strength. Glitter is the additional more focused colorless highlight, which is randomly scattered along the strand. It is more pronounced with hard lighting produced by small or collimated light sources.

Glitter Size – This parameter controls the size of the randomization pattern applied. Increasing the value increases the size of the pattern.

Glint Scale – Internally, the variation along the strand is set in real world units. This parameter allows correction of the appearance of hair not modeled in real world scale. Values below 1.0 shrink the variation pattern, while values above 1.0 elongate it.

 

 

Randomization


 

The Randomization parameters can be used to introduce variation of the general parameter values. When using randomization, different hair strands will receive slightly different values for the below parameters, so in fact the randomization works on a per strand basis.

Random Melanin – Adds variation to the amount of melanin in each hair strand.

Random Dye Hue – Adds variation to the hue component of the Dye Color. This makes each strand appear with a different Dye Color. This parameter has no effect, when the Dye Color is not used, i.e. when the Dye Color is pure white.

Random Dye Saturation – Randomizes the saturation of the Dye Color between hair strands. This makes each strand appear with a more or less saturated Dye Color. This parameter has no effect, when the Dye Color is not used, i.e. when the Dye Color is pure white.

Random Dye Value – Adds variation to the value component of the Dye Color. This makes each strand appear with a brighter or darker Dye Color. This parameter has no effect, when the Dye Color is not used, i.e. when the Dye Color is pure white.

Gray Hair Density – Adds variation to the number of gray hair strands. A texture node can also be connected to specify areas where the density is higher.

Random Glossiness – Randomizes the Glossiness of each hair strand.

Random Softness – Assigns a random value for the Softness parameter for each strand. This makes some hair strands appear crisper, while other appear softer.

Random Highlight Shift – Adds variation to the Highlight Shift for each strand. This offsets the highlights closer or further away from the root of the hair on a per strand basis.

Random Ior – Randomizes the Ior value for each hair strand. This makes some strands more reflective, and others - less reflective.

Random Tangent – Adds a random offset to the hair tangent. This makes the hair stands receive light from slightly different directions, which also means that the highlights are placed in slightly different places for each strand. Note that this parameter depends on the scene scale.

 

 

Tint


 

Primary Tint – The color tint for the primary component. Corresponds to the light reflected off of the outer surface of a hair strand. 

Secondary Tint – The color tint for the secondary component. Corresponds to the light piercing through and reflecting off of the back surface of a hair strand.

Transmission Tint – The color tint for the transmission component. Corresponds to the light going through the hair strands.

 

 

Advanced


 

Trace Depth – The number of indirect bounces used to compute the effect of the multiple scattering. It can significantly affect the hair appearance, especially for light colored hairs. The number of bounces necessary can vary from 5 for dark colored hairs, to 30 and more for light colored ones.

Subdivs

Compensate Energy

 

 

Options


 

MATERIAL ID

Material Id Enabled – Enables the use of Material ID.

Material ID – The color used by the Material ID render element. You can also use a shader here.

Multimatte ID – The integer ID of the material to be used by the Multi Matte render element.


ROUND EDGES

Round Edges Enabled – Enables the round edges effect which uses bump mapping to smooth out the edges of the geometry during render time.

Radius – Specify a radius (in world units) for the Round Edges effect. Since the actual geometry is not being changed and only the normals of the faces are affected, large values may produce undesirable effects.

Consider Same Object Only – When enabled, the rounded corners are produced only along edges that belong to the object, which has the attribute applied. When disabled, rounded corners are also produced along edges formed when the object with the attribute intersects other objects in the scene.

Corners – Choose which edges are considered in the calculation. Possible options are:

Covex and Concave – Considers all edges.
Convex Only – Only applies Round Edges effect to edges with convex angles.
Concave Only – Only applies Round Edges effect to edges with concave angles.