Among other phases done in this final MA project, hair simulation was very important for me. I learnt more about how to simulate hair using nHair. It is something I did for the first time and naturally took me some time to understand in order to obtain minimally acceptable results. However, It was for sure the phase I enjoyed the most.
The project was done in collaboration with:
Martin Fettuciari and Aidan Lonergan - Rigging
Julien Chery - Animation
Arvid Schneider - Lighting
Render of the hair layer + character alpha layer.
For better understanding, I have used a piece of human hair and shoot my own video reference creating roughly the overall movements which are necessary to see in the final result.
I started first to running a small simulation test by simulating hair guides to make sure everything would work well. Above, you can see the playblast of this first test connected to an earlier groom Xgen version.
Second small simulation using few hair guides attached to the alembic of the first animated version.
Playblast of the final hair simulation with all the hair guides attached to the mermaid model.
Playblast - from the desired camera shot perspective - of the final hair simulation connected to the final Xgen groom version.
The whole breakdown of the underwater hair simulation.