FiberMesh – how I do it
OK, I put this together to show how I use FiberMesh. I hope you can understand it, and that it is helpful. There are many steps to my process but I find that it gives me the type of fur that I am looking for. The settings that I used will probably not be the same on a model that you are making but at least you can see what I do . Again the best thing to do is just play around with it. Don’t forget that you can use different materials for your fibermesh. I used mostly toy plastic. You can also paint your fibermesh. Hope this was worth the time it took me to put it together.
Mask All, Erase mask where hair not wanted. Hit Preview. Where the arrows are are the things that I adjust the most.
With these settings I produced a base for the fur.
I hit Accept which gives me a SubTool of the base hair.
With the same mask, I adjust the settings to this and create this.
I hit Accept and now I have two FiberMesh SubTools –
One FiberMesh SubTool which is soft dark under-fur, and another which has longer, lighter, guard hairs.
I used Mask By Cavity to create this mask. The model had a texture on it. This gives me a mask which will create a thin, even distribution of hairs. Again, erasing the mask where I don’t want hairs.
With these settings I create yet another, longer, darker guard hairs SubTool.
The results of the four FiberMesh SubTools.
I masked this section of the face and generated some short darker fur for the middle of the face.
I used a texture to color the fur.
I decided that I needed yet another layer of hair so I masked off this part of the body and created another SubTool with these settings.
I then masked half of the face, adjusted the length and created another SubTool.
I then duplicated that SubTool and flipped it on the X axis to create the other side.
I carried on with this ridiculous method and made SubTools for the hair on the hands. I groomed each layer using mostly the GroomHair Toss brush.
I suggest you use Gravity to get your FiberMesh going in the basic direction that you want when you generate the FiberMesh.
I have found that if you use the Smooth brush it will trim or shorten the hairs which can be very useful.