this may give you some ideas on what you can do with weightmaps when you get to clothes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KiUlKbCg9s&index=1&list=PLP4k8gQ35YmHpuCQUAp7-seTtut2-4IIV

"there's a simple solution to a complex problem, the wrong one"

There is no one size fits all hair weight map, as hattori said. Each hair mesh has different UV coordinates. That's why the weight map customization floating panel has an image editor applink which loads a UV map to your Photoshop equivalent.

I do think it is more intuitive if the diffuse texture layer is loaded along with the UV as a visual guide.

For now....for mid to long hair, fill the crown area with black, mid section grey, the rest near white, blur the transitions, will do the job. I did that for a few G3 hair for practice. If you have a 3D paint app option it will be easier.

But yes, even after the "soft cloth" hair become physics-enabled, it will still poke through at times esp if the hair is dense - multi-layer AND transmapped like Heidi's. The collision mesh of the head/ face, shoulder, neck area are just capsule primitives, not sufficient for most abrupt movements.

The best match for iClone6 kind of "soft cloth" hair collision is Self-Mesh and Custom Collision Mesh, both of which are not present in the collision mesh selection options. I hope this will become possible in future updates. Otherwise there will be ongoing complaints of PhysX hair poking though face/ neck/ shoulder and another half-implemented new feature.









  >>> Indie Generalist modeler-rigger-animator <<< Hardware: AlienWare i7-HK 32G GTX1080 2T-SSDs BenqSW320 Wacom-Intuous 3Dconnexion ||| Software: IC6 Pipeline - CTA3 Pipeline - ATK2 - Indigo ||| Zbrush4R8. Blender 2.79. DazStudio 4.9. Carrara. Poser. Octane.

Thanks Hattori, I will give that a shot and see if that helps. Still need to figure out how to keep hair from going through the characters faces, but perhaps I'll figure it out at some point.

IMDB: James Muia
Aviticus Dragon on YouTube

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If you can see the uvmap of the hair then it would be possible to paint the grayscale weightmap based on that. Black color or fixed selection set is usually at the root of the hair and near areas. White areas at ends of the hair.
Its guesswork creating weightmaps if you can't see the uvmap or not able to paint directly on the model viewport. There are appz that can paint weightmaps directly in the viewport though like the one I used in the video.
So if you used a grayscale weightmap from the Iclone library, that might not exactly work on the hair you're trying to use because its a different uvmap layout. Custom made would work.

My end goal is to use Daz 3D characters, because I can decimate their clothing but keep their faces high poly for the main characters in my films.

For the instance I'm describing in this post, I was using G5 Gwen as a test though and found that her hair would go through her face just with the steps I outlined above.

When I pull up the actual texture of the hair for a daz character; I don't exactly know how to "build" a weight map from that image. It's basically an image of the hair texture in purple covering the entire image. It's not exactly like the tutorial with the dress where you just select the dress, the entire image is a hair texture outline basically. Would I just make a gradient for the entire image? I might have to experiment with that.

I will take a look at your links and see if that information helps as well!

IMDB: James Muia
Aviticus Dragon on YouTube

Computer Specs:
Intel® Core™ i7-7820X Processor (8x 4.30GHz/11MB L3 Cache)
Corsair Hydro Series H115i 280mm
Liquid CPU CoolerASUS ROG STRIX X299-E Gaming Motherboard
32 GB DDR4-3200 GSKILL Ripjaws V Memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - 11GB - EVGA FTW3

Had time this afternoon to study how hair is implemented in Iclone.
Here's my findings to create own hair or cloth items.

Production log 3.
https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic221550-36-1.aspx?Update=1

This was done fast so its better to spend more time creating proper weightmap especially if this stuff is planned to be sold in the marketplace.

I used Lightwave to create the map but any other app is similar if they support vertexmaps to image maps conversion.

Hair is not well documented in Iclone. I have a thread somewhere trying to get all info added for my own reference, too.
Without seeing the scene, hair setup its hard to tell.
Are you able to see the uvmap of the hair and how the weightmap looks in it and referencing which parts of the hair have the gray and which parts are black? Maybe try to put the black and white image into diffuse slot to see how the hair is weighted.
Default avatars seem to have collision dummies built in. Maybe adjusting the shape and strength of the collission dummies.
I would like RL to do mesh as collisions which I think got removed in IC6 but was in IC5 not sure. Or even proxy meshes support would be great.

When you say you haven't messed with weight maps, does that mean you are selecting a weight map and not adjusting it and leaving it at 0 brightness, 0 contrast? Or you aren't even using one?

I understand what you mean about the physics part now, thanks for clarifying. However, I don't have "bake animations" turned on in the properties yet at this point. Is that something I should be doing right now at this stage before? From the iclone tutorial it looked like the leg going through the skirt was simply because they were in real time mode and not frame by frame. I don't think baked animations was even on at that point.

IMDB: James Muia
Aviticus Dragon on YouTube

Computer Specs:
Intel® Core™ i7-7820X Processor (8x 4.30GHz/11MB L3 Cache)
Corsair Hydro Series H115i 280mm
Liquid CPU CoolerASUS ROG STRIX X299-E Gaming Motherboard
32 GB DDR4-3200 GSKILL Ripjaws V Memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - 11GB - EVGA FTW3

I don't think I'm going to have any new information for you in this post...I'm just going to clarify what I meant.

When I said play the animation, I guess I should have said "click the play button". I haven't messed with weight maps.

When the physics option is turned on, your CPU does calculations to determine collision. If you "click the play button" again, it does all of the calculations again from scratch. By turning off the physics option you tell it "don't bother recalculating everything...just use the calculations you did before". This is the "baking" part. So, you essentially have physics turned on until you're happy with the results. Then you turn physics off and you will continue to see the same results.

Running in frame-by-frame mode gives your CPU more time to do more accurate calculations. It doesn't go to the next frame until the CPU is done. It just gives better results than running in realtime, where the CPU has to keep up with 60 frames/sec.

I'm not sure why the hair is still going through the avatar's head. Maybe someone who has access to the program can verify if this is an issue for them as well.

- Keith

Do I need to apply an animation to the character? I've been strictly testing just by applying wind to the hair with the avatar motionless.

I did try playing in frame by frame mode but the hair still goes through the actors head/body. Why would I turn the physics off at that point after I do that? Not sure I understand that part.

The steps I took with no animation applied to the avatar:
1. Turn on Collision for Avatar
2. Turn on Physics
3. Set weight map for hair
4. Use wind preset to apply gusts of wind to see hair flowing.
5. Play back in real time or frame by frame and the hair goes through head/body.

I didn't get to the baking animation portion because from the reallusion tutorial it appears as if I should see the results once I go into frame by frame mode, which I'm not seeing.

IMDB: James Muia
Aviticus Dragon on YouTube

Computer Specs:
Intel® Core™ i7-7820X Processor (8x 4.30GHz/11MB L3 Cache)
Corsair Hydro Series H115i 280mm
Liquid CPU CoolerASUS ROG STRIX X299-E Gaming Motherboard
32 GB DDR4-3200 GSKILL Ripjaws V Memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti - 11GB - EVGA FTW3