Houdini 20.5 Hair and fur

Painting masks to control attributes

You can use masks to control various attributes when grooming. For example, if you have a more realistic character, such as an animal, you can control the length of fur around the face, ears, and feet by painting on the mesh.

Once you have a piece of geometry, you can create fur by using the Add Fur tool on the Hair Utils shelf. Next you can use the Initialize Guides tool on the Guide Process tab to set the direction of the fur, which is necessary when styling the fur to ensure predictable results.

The Set Guide Length tool will allow you to control the length of the coat, as well as paint areas where you don’t want fur.

Using the Length parameter dropdown menu, select Skin Attribute and click the button below to interactively paint the areas where you don’t want fur in the viewport.

Note

By default, symmetry on the brush is turned on. To disable this, go to the Symmetry tab and uncheck the Reflective parameter.

Hair and fur

Working with fur

Shelf tools for creating fur

  • Add Fur

    Adds fur to a surface.

  • Create Guides

    Creates a guide curves from a skin geometry or manipulates the guides of another groom object.

  • Groom

    Creates a Guide Groom SOP ready to draw & brush curves.

Shelf tools for styling with guide processes

  • Initialize Guides

    Gives the guides an initial direction.

  • Curve Advect

    Advects curves using a vector field generated from curves drawn on the skin surface.

  • Groom

    Creates a Guide Groom SOP ready to draw & brush curves.

  • Reguide

    Interpolates guides between planted guides.

  • Set Guide Direction

    Points guides in the direction of a vector.

  • Set Guide Length

    Lengthens or shortens guide hairs.

  • Lift Guides

    Lifts curves off the skin or flattens them against it.

  • Straighten Guides

    Straightens the hair by bending each segment back so that it’s in the same direction as the previous segment.

  • Smooth Guides

    Blends the shapes of the neighboring guides to create a smoother look.

  • Frizz Guides

    Offsets the curve points along the guide hairs to create a frizzy look.

  • Bend Guides

    Bends curves in a certain direction and by a certain angle.

  • Clump Guides

    Creates bunches of guide hairs.

  • Part Guides

    Lets you draw a parting line on the skin geometry.

  • Add White Hairs

    Adds the required attribute to mark hairs as white hairs in the standard hair shader.

Shelf tools for animating and simulating fur

How to