With the concept sculpt done we can start laying down our base for the hair strips. This block-in mesh is only going to be used as a guide when laying out our Alpha strips, so we don’t need to be too detailed and can concentrate mainly on the style and look of the hair. This is a very important step as it will determine the look of our character and also help us decide on how we will go about laying out the hair strips. Once you’re happy with the head sculpt, start by creating a DynaMesh hairstyle. This means that the brush is working correctly. Then when you Autogroup, every hair strip should be in its own PolyGroup. To do this, lay a few strips on a plane and then, when you’re happy, go to Tool>Geometry>Modify-Topology>Weld-Points. Make sure the depth is correct so that you can layer the strips on top of one another and that the points are welding nicely. Now we should be able to test the brush and make sure it’s working correctly before saving it for use later. This is so that the meshes weld together during each stroke. You may need to increase the Curve Res as well. Start by turning on Curve Mode in the Stroke setting, then clicking on Brush>Modifiers>Stretch/Weld Points. With the mesh locked in, we just need to play with some settings. With the mesh snapped into place in the viewport, you can hit Brushes>Create InsertMesh. In ZBrush we need to duplicate the SubTool for the brush to work, or you can also add new meshes that might help later on, such as a single strip brush instead. These meshes must be flush with one another and assigned their own PolyGroups in ZBrush. I prefer to add a slight curve to the top, so it replicates the natural curve from the root. In your 3D app of choice all you need to do is create a start, a middle, and an end. This is going to be the basis of our Alpha cards, so is very important to get right early on.

For more of his excellent work, head to Step 01 – Prepare your IMM brush There are also a few tricks to learn to help make hair more believable within Toolbag 2. We’ll finish the tutorial in Marmoset Toolbag 2, which is a real-time PBR renderer. The idea behind this workflow is to keep the process as artistic as possible, so we’ll be working in ZBrush often, using InsertMultiMesh brushes for laying down our Alpha strips and also in creating believable hair that can be baked down for the texturing process. Here you’ll build medium- to long-length hairstyles in line with the latest videogame techniques and specifications. Through clever use of ZBrush, we can streamline the process and create a hairstyle from scratch in a few hours.

Making believable real-time hair for games is often a very technical task, usually requiring the use of specialist in-house hair solutions or lots of fiddling with curves.

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