Blender Addon | 3D Hair Brush | VFX Grace

3D Hair Brush is a powerful hair tool, including 3D brushes with Pie Menu, Use Radius Curve, Use Diameter Random, and Hair Modifier. 

3D brushes can distinguish complex muscle surfaces of models and provide artists with a wonderful experience of grooming hairstyles in Blender; With multiple well-designed brush presets, it gives efficient solutions to making varying hairstyles;

Use Radius Curve makes it convenient for us to control hair shape; 

Use Diameter Random makes it possible to randomize the thickness of hair in just one particle system.

Modifier gives us an opportunity to add modifiers layer by layer until we get a good result and it doesn't destroy any hair shape we created before.

Windows 10: Blender 2.93, 3.0, 3.1

Mac os 10.15: Blender 2.93, 3.0, 3.1

Ubunto 18.04&20.04: Blender 2.93, 3.0, 3.1

Click Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons -> Install, select the Zip file, and hit Install Add-on.

Uninstallation

1. Disable this add-on.

2. Save Preference settings, which is done automatically by default.

3. Restart Blender, and then remove this add-on.

• Options

• Comb brush

• Smooth Brush

• Add Brush

• Length Brush

• Puff Brush

• Weight Brush

• Orient Brush

• Bend Brush
• Attract Brush
• Noise Brush
• Part Brush
  Clone Brush
• Clone Source: Pick the source of the guides to be cloned.
• Clone Draw: Clone the guides at the position where this brush stays.
• Rotation Angle: The rotation angle of the clone brush which can also be achieved with shortcut—CTRL + MOUSE WHEEL

Modifier

Modifier is Children based. And there are 3 common modifiers—Length, Clump, and Noise.

Note: Please use the ABC Export (File -> Export -> Alembic HairModifier(.abc) ) when the works created by the Modifier need to be exported.

• Every modifier comes with these 3 parameters which are used to control：

• Influence: It determines the influence degree of this modifier.

• Seed: Random Seed, tweek it to find out a good result.

• Threshold: It controls the amount of hair that is affected by this modifier. The larger it is, the more the hair not affected by the current modifier will be.

  • When the Seed and the Threshold in a modifier are the same as in another modifier respectively, both modifiers will take effect on the same hairs.

  • There are 2 Threshold parameters in Clump modifier: one controls clumping, the other controls kink effect.
    
    

• There is Random by the side of many parameters. Enable it, there are 3 additional parameters below:

  • Seed: Random seed. We can modify it to randomize the effect of the current parameter.

  • Random Range: It controls the range of Random. Manual typing is required when it is greater than 1. The largest value is limited by each parameter itself. There is no effect when it’s 0.

  • Threshold: It controls how much hair is randomized. When it’s set to 1, there is no random effect.

• Vertex Group & Texture

  • Vertex Group: Assign a vertex group as the mask where the current parameter works, the usage is the same as the default function.

  • Texture: Set a Texture as the mask where the current parameter works.

Note: To ensure the accuracy of it, the texture needs to be in the Non-color color space, like Raw. Besides, unwrapped UV is required.

• Length Modifier: used to modify the length of hair。

  • Mode: Scale, scale up/down hair without hair shape change; Cut, cut hair off somewhat.

  • Scale: determine the scale

  • Cut: determine the length of hair after cutting.

Note: the steps of hair won’t be reduced.

• Noise Modifier: basically the same as Roughness.

  • Seed: Random seed of the noise.

  • Size: The size of the noise.

  • Magnitude: The magnitude of the noise. It can be controlled by a curve.

Tip: The Magnitude is gradually getting larger from 0 to 1 from roots to tips.

• Threshold: It controls the amount of hair affected by the Noise modifier, which is the same as the Threshold under Roughness.

• Preserve Length: Preserve the original length, to avoid being stretched.

• Clump Modifier

• Options:

  • Factor: It controls how much the clumping is. When reaching 0, there is no clumping, but with Kink effect.

  • Clump: it’s basically the same as the default parameter. Yet, there are some differences. No matter how much it is, the roots won’t be affected.

• Shape: It’s the same as the default parameter.

• Tip: It can be controlled by a curve. When the curve is disabled, it’s linearly getting larger from 0 to 1 from roots to tips.

• Preserve Length: Preserve the original length, to avoid being stretched.

• Clump Type

  • Parent: Clumps are generated according to the guides. Blender can run faster in this mode when a large amount of clumps are required.

    • Subdivision: Split the clumps into multiple parts.

    • Note: The integer is needed.

• Generated: Clumps can be generated randomly on the surface, and the amount is controllable without any influence of parent clumps. If you want to attract some clumps which have different parents, this type can help. Blender may run slower in this mode, and it’s recommended to use this type when only a few clumps are needed.

• Seed: Random seed.

• Randomness: The randomness of clump distribution.

• Density: The larger it is, the more but finer the clumps will be.

• 
  

• Kink: Basically the same as in Blender.

  • Kink Type: Curl, Radial, Wave, and Braid.

  • Curl: There are 2 types available.

  • Amplitude: The amplitude of the offset, which can be controlled by a curve.

  • Orient: An additional option under Wave that controls the orientation of the wave and randomizes the orientation of the wave.

• Frequency: Same as the default parameter.

• Shape: Same as the default parameter in Blender, and can be controlled by a curve.

3D Hair Brush v3.2 released