HairTG-Cards is available! It gathers hair card based procedural texturing and modeling in a single package and may let you see card based hair or fur creation in a different way! It even has a tagline (!) "Realtime Hair Authoring Re-Imagined", because yes, this was the main idea for this tool, making card-based texturing and modeling more focused and integrated than ever before.

You can get HairTG-Cards at Artsation or Gumroad. Discord server available for questions and support.

100% of the commissions earned through HairTG-Cards sales from March 17 to March 21, 2022 will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (https://msf.fr, https://msf.org) to support the efforts helping the people of Ukraine.

Texturing & Presets

The parametric texturing in Painter benefits from the previous work done in HairTG tools, which means there are tons of features even if this is only release 1.0. The way things are approached though is very different from Hair & Fur, the usage has been simplified as well as the terminology. You'll still find plenty of horsepower to design your hair textures, but in a more accessible and straight-to-the point way.

The texturing side also benefits from many preset designs, 40 in the 1.0 version where more than half, including Morph Shapes, have been designed by 3D artist Tara Solbrig, who I thank for her inspired and gorgeous creations! More presets from Tara to come with an upcoming update of HairTG-Cards.

Control hair variations over multiple textures at once

One standpoint of HairTG-Cards is the ability to change the properties of all the hair/fur textures of a texture set at once from a single Controller. This way, you can see in real time how your model will look like with thinner or thicker hair, some waviness or randomness into the hair length etc. directly within the Painter or Stager viewport. This may greatly change the way you used to work with hair cards providing unprecedented flexibility into design decisions and options.

Morph Shapes

Each preset design in HairTG-Cards comes with a set of Morph Shapes. They enable to morph a design overall shape into one another, either predictably, i.e. defining the exact morph factor, or randomly in combination with other random design parameters. When a random design variation is selected, not only the hair distribution and various other properties may change, but the shape may also change, leading to a whole new set of possible variations obtainable from a single base design (hundreds). This way, each of the initial design presets need to be thought as a base for the generation of hundreds of related designs. 

Modeling

As procedural modeling came to Substance 3D a few months ago, HairTG-Cards had to support procedural hair card and model generation! Even though at an early stage at the moment, the 3D modeling tools are quite capable and the HairTG-Cards models already have a host of features. These will be improved and completed over time as the Substance 3D modeling tools improve.

The idea for modeling is to handle things through "hair patches", basically groups of cards with certain common properties. This way there are few limitations to what may be achieved with these tools. The workflow consists in defining a set of base card patches and UVs, then assemble them to create the hair model, still with the ability to modify each of them once they're in place.

The procedural modeling tools may be used to completely or partially build a hair model. You will find certain operations very convenient to make through the modeling tools, such as its usage of symmetry, mirroring the overall patch placement but not their distribution, so each side is not looking the same as the other. They are also very handy to add flyaways to finalize a hair model, and you may also make the full hair model with them if you wish!

Editions

There are 3 editions of HairTG-Cards:

HairTG-Cards Mini

This is a try-out, non-commercial edition, with limitations such as texture resolution at 512x512 maximum, texturing tools only (no modeling) with a selection of parameters. However this is a great edition to start with, you'll see how things work overall and can even make pretty cool hair with it! It comes with a dedicated tutorial video.

HairTG-Cards (Personal/Indie)

The regular HairTG-Cards edition contains the full texturing and modeling tools for Substance 3D Painter and Stager, 40 artist-designed texture presets, each of them with at least 2 morph shapes and hundreds of possible random variations, global control over multiple textures within a texture set etc.

HairTG-Cards Pro (Indie/Studio)

Same content as the regular edition plus Substance 3D Designer specific content. This edition enables to export texture design data from Painter and use them in Designer to make hair/fur materials covering whole texture sets, which can then be used into other Substance 3D hosts such as Stager. Also contains several components for Designer to make hair texture graphs and Morph Shapes. 

Special offers & Thanks

You can get 20% discount using code HTCCARDS until March 27th, 2022.

Users who bought HairTG - Hair & Fur between Dec 1, 2021 and March 17, 2022 are eligible to a 50% discount (not time limited) on HairTG-Cards, Personal and Indie variants only. Please send your proof of purchase to support@eyosido.com to get the discount. 

This release has been possible thanks to the help of several people and collaborations with artists, which I hope will continue and amplify in the future! I would like to thank in particular the early beta testers for their insights on how the tool could be made more useful, Jean Thompson for the motivation (!) and hair model samples, Tara Solbrig for the awesome texture designs, 3D.sk for the great demo head model, the Substance 3D Discord community and people at Substance 3D for their responsiveness and invaluable support!

Finally, as excited I could be to finally deliver this tool I have been working on for months, I do not forget many people are living through terrible times these days. As mentioned at the top of this post, proceeds of HairTG-Cards sales up to March 21, 2022 will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (https://msf.fr, https://msf.org).

Hey everyone!

Here's a preview of a new tool I am working on, back to the hair card roots (!) of my first tool! HairTG - Cards will let you create procedurally hair card textures directly in Substance 3D Painter and modify properties of all the cards at once, in realtime, so you may explore several design variations in context, with the rest of your character design.

Check out the below video, it shows a few of the things that will be possible, but the tool is not finished though, many things left do to so I am expecting availability in Q1 2022. I'd be glad to know in the comments below what you think about it, if you have suggestions, questions, whatever!

Many thanks to Dorothy Jean who provided the great 3D meshes for the video!

Hi everyone!

I am opening an alpha/beta testing program for a new tool aimed at procedural hair card texture creation which will be sort of a successor to HairTG - Hair & Fur. While not replacing it, it will offer a new approach with simplified workflow and support for Substance 3D Painter in addition to Designer.

The Alpha phase will focus on Designer while the Beta will add the Painter components. The Alpha 1 is now available along with a 25mins demo/tutorial video. If you wish to participate, please join the Discord server where a specific channel is dedicated to this program.

Thank you!

Update: Substance3D released a tutorial video demonstrating the warp projection without the need to create a material in Designer, check it out!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been experimenting with the new Warp Projection feature of Substance 3D Painter and it turned out to be very useful within the context of HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition: once the hair cover is created with HairTG - Surface and textures exported, it is then possible to create a material gathering these textures and project it using the Warp on a head mesh. This way artists can create procedural hair covers independently of specific head UVs then distribute the resulting PBR textures as a material ready-to-warp in Painter!

Here is a tutorial on how to do this. I am using Designer to create the material (don't worry, the incursion into Designer is very short and basic!) but ideally I would like to handle everything in Painter. I tried using a Smart Material but I could not project it using the Warp. Something I missed? If you find out how to make the workflow Painter-only I'd be glad to know about it!

Reminder that all my tools are on sale 30% off this week so it's a good time to get them!

It's pumpkin time again and all my tools are 30% off until Oct. 30! Go get them at the store of your choice:

Artstation

• HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition v2
• HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition Extended v2pre
• HairTG - Surface, Facial Hair Edition
• HairTG - Surface, Feather Edition
• HairTG - Hair & Fur
• ParamCopy

Gumroad

Use discount code pumpkin.

• HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition v2
• HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition Extended v2pre
• HairTG - Surface, Facial Hair Edition
• HairTG - Surface, Feather Edition
• HairTG - Hair & Fur
• ParamCopy

FlippedNormals

• HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition v2
• HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition Extended v2pre
• HairTG - Hair & Fur

Questions? Ask them on the Discord!

In other news, I'm working on a bunch of stuffs, next year is going to be a busy one! Yesterday I launched Stager for the first time with a hair model I'm currently working on with Surface, Hair Edition in Painter. The one-click export from Painter is great as well as the ray-traced rendering. I am still looking for an "unlit" option though as to present hair it is better to have the rest of the model unlit.

For those not familiar with the HairTG - Surface tools, this hair model is not using hair cards, it is only a texture with displacement.

And last but not least, here's a pumpkin I grew this summer, which is going to end in soup(s) and pie soon:

Until next time, stay safe!

HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition v2.0 (formerly Hair Cover Edition) is out (as well as the Extended version) ! Finally, it only took about 9 months! This version is almost an entirely new tool, with updates at all levels, new generators, improved ease of use (simpler controls, many examples, new tutorials), capabilities and output quality. 

HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition for Substance 3D Painter is a procedural hair generator enabling to create hair as texture only directly on a head or scalp mesh without the need for additional geometry. It may be used as a base layer to place hair cards on, or without hair cards depending on the character design. It may also be used to generate fur even though a more complete tool around this topic is in the works.

The full release notes are enclosed in the package but here's an overview of what's new in v2 (+ overal features):

• Four fiber generators using two generation technique: Fragment-based (fast, for short hair or fur) and Per-hair based (each fiber is unique, long hair support).
• Paint or procedurally generate the hair direction and local adjustments to hair length, shape and other properties.
• Ease of use with a simplified short hair generator to get started with the tool, simplified parameter controls and follow along tutorial videos.
• A specific Long Hair generator where the hair shape follow the direction lines.
• Extensive set of coloring modes including color palettes, blend map combinations, per-hair coloring, local coloring, shadowing etc.
• Procedural mask and direction (flow) generator and filters to create accurate and easily modifiable masks and direction maps.
• Outputs the following PBR maps: Opacity, Depth (Height, Displacement), ID, Color (basecolor), Flow (Direction), Normal, Roughness, Ambient Occlusion, Anisotropy Angle and Level, up to 8K in resolution.
• 7 examples projects demonstrating all the generators including Painter projects, textures and Toolbag scenes (4 hair, 2 fur, 1 beard).
• A whole new set of tutorial videos in 17 parts (about 6h in total) organized in series: Basics (core topics), Design (follow along designs), Advanced (specific topics discussed in details), Overview (side topics). 

The Extended version also gets an update, it is now called HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition Extended v2pre and contrains the v2 of the Hair Edition, v1 of the Facial Hair Edition, Substance 3D Designer components for v1 and a preview/subset of those for v2. When the Facial Hair Edition v2 will be available, the Extended version will ne updated to the full set of v2 components.

Regarding pricing, this update is free to current owners of the Hair Cover and Extended versions, there is now a Personal license for HairTG - Surface, Hair Edition so you may get it at a reduced price if only for non-commercial use, and there is also a one-week launch offer on the Discord server!

If you wish to upgrade from either the Facial Hair or Hair/Hair Cover editions to Extended, please send an email with proof of purchase and license option to support@eyosido.com in order to have a rebate amounting to what you already paid.

Get it at:

Artstation: Hair Edition   -   Hair Edition, Extended

Gumroad:  Hair Edition   -   Hair Edition, Extended

Hi everyone!

The last few months have been a bit tough to find the proper route to the tool's evolution, but things are getting well in shape these days, so here's a development update. Basically I have a lot of efforts to make my tools simpler to use. At the same time they need to evolve in features, quality and performance. And conciliating all this is... not so simple! I also had ideas I wanted to experiment with, that may come along in future tools, and some took more time than others. All in all, I am late (!), well, relatively to my initial schedule anyway, so here's the current plan!

HairTG - Surface, Hair Editions v2

This will be a major update to the HairTG - Surface tools related to hair, I announced its development earlier this year and this is what will be released next. It will bring simplified usage, better performance, more features such as long hair support, better coloring etc. and still the procedural mask and flow generators introduced in 1.1 with a few additions.

For version 2, the Facial Hair, Hair Cover and Extended versions will be repurposed with hair as main topic. You will still be able to make fur with them, but there will be a new tool specialized for fur with additional functionalities such as pattern generation, see below.

Many things have changed since version 1 and I will make completely new tutorial videos for it. For those of you who voluntered to beta test v2, as mentioned above I am late :) but it should come in parts (not all components at once) in the next few weeks. Here's an example I've been working on with short hair at various lengths and slight gray colors (amount of gray can be modulated).

HairTG - Surface, Fur Edition

The Fur Edition, based on Surface 2, is also in the works and will complement the HairTG - Surface tool suite. In addition to fiber generation, it will also feature various tools to make fur patterns and specific samples. Here's an example below with zebras, which are fully procedural as well as the fur. This tool is scheduled to be released after the Hair Edition v2.

Last but not least, Artstation kindly added the HairTG tools to their software list with a distinctive icon! You may now list the HairTG tool used for a Portfolio or Blog entry. Do not hesitate to use it along with the hairtg tag ;)

Until next time, stay safe!

Hi everyone!

HairTG tools are 30% off at Artstation and Gumroad (using discount code SPRING) from May 20 to May 26! This is to celebrate a few things:  3K followers on Artstation (thanks very much!), Artstation lowering of commissions and the 1.1 Surface release.

• HairTG - Surface, Facial Hair Edition
• HairTG - Surface, Hair Cover Edition
• HairTG - Surface Extended  
  
• HairTG - Surface, Feather Edition 
• HairTG - Hair & Fur
• ParamCopy 

Free tools:

• HairTG - Surface, Facial Hair Edition DEMO
• Global Search

Also, I am currently looking for a Character Artist (paid work) to create or license visuals (AAA type) to illustrate upcoming Surface products. A good knowledge of Substance Painter and either Toolbag 4 or UE4 (for rendering only) is needed. If you are interested please message me!

Hi everyone!

I've been working on many components in the past few months, for Surface 2 but also another variant I hope I'll be able to talk about soon. This work has kinda delayed the Surface 2 release so instead of holding components that were already complete, I decided to make a (free) 1.1 update (for the Hair Cover and Extended versions of Surface) releasing some components that were initially planned for v2: procedural flow and masks generators/filters.

Procedural Flow and Mask generators

HairTG - Surface uses masks in Substance Painter to handle various hair properties such as location, growth  etc. as well as flow maps to drive hair direction. These masks and flows may be painted into Paint layers, this is however not always optimal with regard to accuracy, modifiability and sometimes reliability (flow). The new flow and mask generators enable to create flows and masks fully procedurally as an alternate mean to provide inputs to the hair generator. You may use them or paint maps as you wish, depending on your preferences and the context. For flow maps, you'll probably prefer the flow geneator as it enables to define partial flow maps accurately then expand them to fill the whole texture space.

Mask and flow expander filters also come as a complement to the generators enabling to expand either painted or procedurally generated maps.

Mask and shape creation toolboxes

The new mask and flow generators are packed with many functionalities to define your masks procedurally:

• Up to 5 components per generator  to create your shapes with up to 7 control points for each component, totaling up to 35 control points per generator.
• Components may use curves or segments, this is configurable globally and per component, so you may have a layout using curves for some components and segments for others.
• Components may be combined to create more complex shapes.
• Ability to close components joining their first and last control points.
• Global transforms: translation and scaling.
• Background level (Mask generator): this helps to set up mid-gray background for masks where the neutral value is mid-gray.
• Horizontal/vertical symmetry. The Flow generator not only mirrors the shape but also directions.
• Effets: filling up of closed shapes, blur, warp, invert, toning.
• Thickness setting: globally and per component.
• Expansion: create a parital mask or flow then expand it to fill up the whole texture space.
• Snapping to grid: globally or per component, grid unit configurable separately in X and Y.

Owners of the Extended version get additional components specific to Substance Designer with a few extra functionalities:

• Thickness profiles per component.
• Luminosity fade at start/end of component.
• Luminosity profiles per component.
• Control points positionning in the 2D view and well as selectors to display either control points of all components or per component.

In Substance Designer, the Flow generator can be used to drive nodes using an input vector map as demonstrated in the above video.

Mask and flow expander filters

You may use painted maps, either mask or flow, and still have usage of the new components: the mask and flow expander filters enable to paint partial maps and extend them to the whole texture space. For a flow map, you may paint only the main directions and they will be expanded to the whole texture with interpolated directions. Filters handle the potential blurriness or smoothness of input maps in order to extract the right portion to expand.

Filters also enable the expansion of multiple masks or flows: you may define a complex mask or flow using multiple generators and even painted maps, the filters will be able to expand them all at once.

Improved usage with non-transparent shaders

When using HairTG - Surface on a mesh whose shader does not support transparency (alpha-blending), the hair opacity can now be handled in the basecolor alpha channel, which helps in providing a better blend with the underlying surface.

This 1.1 update for HairTG - Surface, Hair Cover Edition and HairTG - Surface Extended also comes with 1 hour of tutorial video discussing the new features in this version.

If you have any question on the new update, you're welcome to join the Discord and its growing community!

PS: Thanks to Matthias Schmidt for having beta-tested the mask/flow generators and his great feedback, he's working now on a shape generator for Substance Designer so you may check his account and follow him if not already!

The HairTG - Surface tools have been updated to version 1.0.1, fixing a precision issue which may cause jagged hair drawing. This is a recommended update especially for the Hair Cover Edition/Extended users! You can get the updates at the following stores:

• HairTG - Surface, Facial Hair Edition: Artstation - Gumroad
• HairTG - Surface, Facial Hair Edition DEMO (free): Artstation - Gumroad
• HairTG - Surface, Hair Cover Edition: Artstation - Gumroad
• HairTG - Surface Extended Edition: Artstation - Gumroad

The Feather Edition has not been updated yet but will be later with more substantial changes, this precision issue was not critical for this edition though.

Working on HairTG - Surface 2

I've been working on many updates in Surface and I am glad to announce that a new major version V2 is around the corner! Here's a little funny animation made with the development build to celebrate :)

V2 will feature a rewritten hair drawing core, more efficient, accurate and flexible, support for long hair combing in Painter, reworked and simplified parameter organization, new tutorials dedicated to specialized usages (short hair, long hair, fur), actual Painter sample files, a new output map and several more changes aiming at improving usage and flexibility. 

I can't wait to complete this release! This should become a solid foundation for all Surface-based tools, the update will be free for users owning previous versions. So stay tuned for this release in a few weeks!

PS: I recently published a breakdown of ways to preview animations directly in Substance Designer (which I used for the above anim!), if interested you may check this page.