Hair Tool for Blender 2.8x- 2.93

Hair Tool is addon for Blender 2.93  that will help you generate hair-card based on 3d curves in non destructive way. (For blender below 2.93 you can still use HT 2.27)

Some of the features:

• automated UV workflow (random uv region assignment per hair strand)
• texture preview directly on curve ribbons
• curve modeling tools (extend, shorten, cut, move hair with IK physics)
• hair library
• go back and forth between curve and mesh ribbons
• adjust ribbons profile (tapering radius, randomizing tilt, editing profile etc.)
• convert: Curves to Particle Hair, Particle Hair to Curve ribbons, Curve ribbons to mesh ribbons and so on.
• curve resampling and decimation (increase/decrease curve/ribbon points count)
• generating vertex color/weights gradients, transferring UVs and vertex weights from character to mesh haircards.
• texture baking (from curves or particle hair; supports: normal, ao, diffuse, tangent maps, ID maps, root map etc)
• build-in addon auto-updater
• and more

Hair tutorials for Blender 2.8 series:

• Introduction video
• Working with materials and uv in Hair Tool 2.1
• Example of making hair in Hair Tool 2.1

Hair Tool can be used to export hair to Character Creator.

• Check out CCreator Smart Hair system
• Hair Tool to Character Creator workflow video tutorial

• Smart Hair Shader Part 1 – Basic Parameters & Base Color in CC

• Smart Hair Shader Part 2 – Effects & Save Materials in CC

Past Updates:

Update 1.4:

• added ability to attach curves as particle hair system ‘Particle Hair from Curves‘ (this can be used to import zbrush fibermesh curves and use them as blender Particle Hair system)
• added ‘Generate ribbon weights’ – make vertex group with gradient from ribbon root to tip
• added ‘Generate ribbon vertex color‘ – make vertex color with gradient from ribbon root (black) to tip (white)

Update 1.5:

• added ability to draw multiple uv boxes when using ‘UV hair’ operator. Each ribbon will pick random uv box. It helps differ the texture look.
• Added ‘Curve Resample‘ – changes number of points the curve is made from.
• Added options ‘Select Tips’, ‘Select Roots‘ under Blender ‘Select’ menu (visible during curve edit mode, on bottom header bar)

Update 1.6:

• New option ‘Ribbons from particle hair with children’ – gives better result compared to child particles generated by build in blender child particles (more even distribution, better aligning of child ribbons to surface). Great for short Hair.
• Resample – more options, and keeps curve tilt and rotation.
• ‘Particle Hair From Grease Pencil’ strokes painted in grease pencil, can be converted to particle hair (with some options available under f6)
• ‘Flip UV’ option in preferences – if enabled random strands will have uv’s flipped in X-axis

Update 1.6.4:

• ability to add ‘random vertex color per ribbon’. Can be also used on non hair meshes, to add random ID vertex colors per loose mesh parts.
• ability to add presets for ‘Ribbons from particle hair with children’ operator

Update 1.6.5:

• added “Smooth scale” – similar to ‘Smooth Tilt’ but smooths the radius
• added ‘Edit curve profile’, ‘Close Curve Profile’ – if you want  to adjust curve bevel profile by hand
• ability to taper roots of curves ribbons (previously you could taper just tips)
• added ‘Placement jittering’  F6 option for ‘Ribbons from particle hair with children’ button – helps a bit to get more uniform child strands distribution.

Update 1.7

• ability to preview hair texture directly in curve ribbons stage. See video explaining new feature: https://youtu.be/gtbhmYEKGZE
• linear deformer tool – for curve modeling can be downloaded here: https://github.com/JoseConseco/mira_tools  (how this tool works is explained in video above)

Update 1.7.1

• hair resample and simplify operators preserve material order
• added options to remove, resize, reset – uv boxes when using “Draw uv area for Hair” operator in imaged editor window (found under spacebar).

Update 1.8:

• Particle Hair Combing with Interactive  Ribbons  see video –  https://youtu.be/r4da3J5omd8

Update 1.8.4:

• early support for texture baking. Baking panel is located in -> 3d View -> Tools -> Hair Baking panel. I will make short guide video soon. https://twitter.com/JoseConseco3/status/975484075841605633

Update 1.8.5 (11.04.2018):

• finished and polished hair baking in blender (ao, id, root mask, tangent map, normal, depth etc).
• added channel packing nodes (beta but should work 90% of time)
• video showing example worfklow and how baking works: https://youtu.be/0UAxl549pNA

Update 1.8.7 + 1.8.8  + 1.8.9(17.04.2018):

• added parameter – Output texture name – for hair baking
• changed ‘Randomize Curve Tilt’ operator – this change makes it now possible to make curly hair.

• added ‘Generate Braid’ Operator. See video below.

• In this video you will see who to create curly hair and Braid: https://youtu.be/iXjBCxesA_I