1. Computer Animation Ying Zhu Georgia State University
Hair and fur

2. How to create hair?
Create an object. In Object (F7) panel, click on “Particle Buttons” icon
Add a new particle system
Select “Hair” type
Can add multiple hair systems for one object

3. Adjust amount of hair
Under “particle system” tab, adjust “Amount”

4. Adjust amount of hair with “children”
It’s often more efficient to keep a relatively low number in “Amount” and add “Children”
Go to “Children” tab
Select Children from “Faces”
The “Amount” in this tab is the number of child hairs displayed in the 3D view (set lower for efficient editing)
The “Render Amount” is the number of child hairs displayed in the rendered image (set higher for better visual quality)

5. Adjust amount of hair with “children”
If you have 1000 parent particles you need 50 to 100 children
Thin hair (blond) need more child particles
Thick hair (black) need less child particles
Press “Kink/Branch” to create curly or wavy hairs

6. Adjust the length of the hair
Under “Physics” tab, adjust “Initial velocity” to change hair length
Adjust the “Normal” velocity to change hair length (e.g for fur)
Adjust “Random” to vary the hair length (e.g )
Adjust AccX/AccY/AccZ to change hair direction

7. Segments The “Segments” value in the “Particle System” tab
Each hair strand is simulated as a curve
The “Segments” value is the number of control points on the curve
The more segment you have, the more flexible you can manipulate the hair
Therefore add more segments for longer hair

8. Decide where to grow hair
There are three ways to specify the areas on a 3D mesh where you want the hair to grow
Use vertex group
Use UV mapping (finer control but more complex)
Use Particle Edit tool in Particle Mode (easier to use)

9. Use vertex group to control hair growth
Select the Emitter, enter Edit mode
Select the faces on the 3D model that you want hair/fur to grow from
Under “Link and Materials” tab, create a new Vertex Group
Give it a meaningful name (e.g. skin)
Press “Assign” button to assign the selected faces to the vertex group

10. Use vertex group to control hair growth
Go to the “Particle Buttons” panel
In “Extras” tab, under “Vertex group”, click on the button on the right side of the “Neg” button
Select the name of the vertex group you just created
In the “Attribute” drop down menu, choose “Density”
Now hair only grow from the faces that belong to that vertex group

11. Control hair growth with UV mapping
This method works better than the vertex group method when you only have a small number of polygons on the 3D mesh model
A little complicated though
Check out this tutorial

12. Control hair growth in Particle Mode
This is probably the easiest and the most interactive method

13. Editing hair In “Particle System” tab, press “Set Editable” button
In 3D view window, switch to “Particle Mode”
Press N to bring out the “Particle Edit Properties” window
Add and Cut
Comb
Puff
Smooth
Adjust Length

14. Editing hair
Once you start to edit hair in Particle Mode, you won’t be able to adjust parameters in “Particle Buttons” window
Unless you press “Free Edit” button, but then you’ll lose all the editing done in the Particle Mode.
Therefore set the “Amount” and the hair length to the desired value before pressing “Set Editable”

15. Hair and force field
You can also use force fields to change hair style
Create an empty object and create a force field (e.g. sphere, vortex, wind, etc.)
Move the force field closer to the hair

16. Hair and Curve Guide Add a Bezier curve
In Object (F7) panel, click on “Physics Buttons” icon
Under “Fields”, select “Curve Guide” type
Move the curve closer to the hair
Enter Edit mode to manipulate the curve, which in turn manipulates the hair

17. Adjust the shape and thickness of hair strand
In “Particle buttons” panel, under “Visualization” tab
Press “Strand render”
Go to Shading (F5) and “Material buttons” panel
In “Links and Pipeline” tab, under “Render Pipeline”, press “Stands” button
For a detailed explanation see

18. Adjust the shape and thickness of hair strand
For black hair
Start 0.86
End 0.854
Shape
For blond hair
Use Blender Units
Start 0.003
End 0.002
Minimum 2
Shape 0 (or -0.5)

19. Creating materials for hair
Create a material for the hair and set the base color
The color of the hair is governed by the specular highlights (Spec), so you may want to set the Spec color too
Press “Ztransp” to make hair semi-transparent

20. Add more realism Make the hair strand fade towards the tip
Create a texture for the hair material
Go to “Texure buttons” panel, select “Blend” texture type
Choose either Lin(ear) or Quad blend
Go back to the “Material buttons” panel
Set “Map Input” to Strand
Set “Map to” to Alpha
“DVar” to 0

21. Blond hair
For material settings of Blond hair, check out