Read Issue 53 of Digital Art Live

Welcome to the “Hair and Fur” themed issue of your free Digital Art Live magazine!

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3D artists have always found hair to be ‘a bit hairy’, as we British say. Meaning it can be tricky stuff, and that popping a nice hairstyle on a figure can slow your render time to a crawl. The trend toward high-poly hair, and facial and body-hair for DAZ Studio, means hair can also gobble up precious RAM.

But now the world is seeing an unexpected benefit of the lockdowns… faster PCs, which can only be a good thing for tough 3D hair. Of course it’s often assumed that ‘nothing much changes for home freelancers’ in a lockdown, and that we just carry on as before. But many are using generous lockdown payouts for the self-employed (recently doubled, here in the UK) to upgrade to the latest PCs. Home office PCs are being swopped for workstations. Workstations are being replaced, and the old one made into a render-box. Employers are also buying new kit for employees forced to work from home. PC sales have consequently been booming. The PC industry now expects to see 300 million new PCs sold in 2021, some 30 million more than usual. All this means that many key PCs in home offices and studios have leapt a decade ahead of where they used to be. The joy of the PC is its easy expandability, and into these whirring purring new PCs will shortly go new graphics-cards and add-in boards with advanced ray-tracing capabilities. Plugged into the new PCs will be new motion-capture and 3D capture devices, draw-on-the-screen monitors, quality HD webcams, faster external drives, and possibly fab creative gear yet to be invented — I’ll take the quick-boil USB tea-maker unit!

All that said, Digital Art Live never forgets the budget hobbyist, and our in-depth survey of fur tools in this issue digs out some old 2D software that can give you quick 3D like fur very easily — and without the need to spend $10,000 on the latest workstation PC.

THE HIVEWIRE TEAM

We celebrate the recent launch of the superb Hivewire Tiger, with a big round-table interview with the development team.

3D FIGURE DEVELOPMENT

“I think the biggest challenge was in the Tiger’s mane ruff. We needed it to follow not only movement, but facial morphs as well. It was a painstakingly slow process of adjusting the weight maps point-by-point for each of the mane ruff panels of hair.”

ANDREW KRIVULYA

Andrew is a 3D hair ‘lookdev’ specialist, creating hair for high-end clients in advertising, TV and the movies.

3D HAIR | LOOKDEV

“Powerful PCs add comfort and have made it possible to implement interactive grooming, when — right in the viewport — we can see the result, do clumping, comb the coat or hair. It becomes easier to manage the form and control the entire process.”

“I’m convinced realistic contemporary hairstyles sell the best.  Not overstyled but they must be attractive, if not outright sexy, as on the cover of a magazine.  [But I still] hark back to my RPG roots — giant plaits, improbably long ponytails, overly cute curls.”

APRIL-YSH

April is a leading DAZ Store creator, specialising in making and selling a wide range of ready-made royalty-free 3D hair.

3D HAIR | DAZ STUDIO

“I’m convinced realistic contemporary hairstyles sell the best.  Not overstyled but they must be attractive, if not outright sexy, as on the cover of a magazine.  [But I still] hark back to my RPG roots — giant plaits, improbably long ponytails, overly cute curls.”

Also inside….

OUR LIVE WEBINARS!

VISNEWS

EDITORIAL

CONTESTS

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SURVEY OF 3D & 2D FUR TOOLS

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