Blender Anime Hair Maker

learnasimakeit

PLEASE NOTE: version 1.5 and above has integrated blender new hair system, so blender 3.3 LTS or above is required.

The common process of making anime alike hair is to make a hair strand and duplicate all over the head. This addon offers additional ways to populate hair strands, for example, it utilizes blender new hair system to sculpt, plant hairs with modal operator, directly draw bezier hairs as well as convert from legacy particle hairs. In the mean time, bevel and taper profiles are taken care of with a click of button. Curve manipulating also made easy with included curve tools.

it provides 9 commonly used bevel shapes, curl hair and braids hair generation. plus you can add your own hair curve shape into the mix for future usage.

sculpt with the new hair system

turn new hair system into curves and fine tune it

one click to curly hair or braids hair ( choose from 2,3,4,5,6 strands variation)

Convert to Simple Hair. convert curl or braids hair into individual strand for further editing.

easily plant hair curves

Draw Bezier Hairs. tap back to object mode when done. scroll down to bottom update section for more info how it works and tricks.

adjust hair color

non destructive workflow, when doing hair conversion, backup is automatically created, hidden and placed in collections based on the type. enable more toggle options to show the original ones

apply commonly used bevel profiles

multi slider panel to quickly adjust the size of each hair strand segment from root to tip

adjust resolution

isolate selection / show all

hide selected

separate selection to new curve

previous and next curve point

bezier handle switching

convert particle hair to curve

edit bevel profile and convert curve hair to mesh object, with toggle options to merge pointy end, fill cap and create pin vertex group at root position for simulation.

create bones from curve points

one button click to append curve to source bevel profiles

move curve point: minimize mouse finger fatigue. (see update section for detail comparison)

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digital product does NOT offer refund.

******************** updates ********************

1.6 update:

reformat to meet blender 4.2 extension platform standard

1.5.4 update:

add compatibility for Blender 4.1

1.5.3 update:

fix compatibility with Blender 4.0

1.5.2 update:

what's new:

1. instead of appending to current scene, custom curve profile collection is moved to separate scene to clean up outliner.

2. added color material to all created hairs, use the color sub panel to adjust them or go to shader editor to add more.

3. instead of placing everything in same collection, there are now dedicated collections based on the hair type: any hair created from the new hair system is placed in "ANM_Curves" collection, drawn hair is placed in "ANM_Simple_Curve" collection, converted mesh is placed in "ANM_Mesh" collection.

4. workflow improvement: non destructive. when doing hair conversion, a backup is created and hidden, so that you can always go back to adjust if needed. enable more toggle option to show original hairs.

1.5.1 update:

what's new:

1. Use Taper Object. when this toggle is on, it uses a taper curve to control the overall profile, when it is off, you can manually adjust each curve point radius or use the Overall Size slider to control the radius uniformly.

2. Convert to Simple Hair. convert curl or braids hair into individual strand for further editing.

3. Make Unique. often after a hair is duplicated, some of the controls can effect both objects. this operator resolves it.

4. new hair system to basic curve hair workflow: first convert new hair system curves to regular curve, second make it simple hair, at this point it is poly curve, optionally you can convert it to bezier curve to be able to adjust length resolution.

if you need to have the final hair mesh with proper UV, now you can have mesh with square UV for further texturing etc.

1.5 update:

added: support new hair system to sculpt hairs.

added: curly hair and braids hair generation. for braids hairs, choose from 2-6 strands variation.

Important: if you have added your own custom curves before, please back it up before update.

the default addon path is :C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.3\scripts\addons\Anime Hair Maker

if you did not use the custom bevel blender file path in addon preference, please save the "Curves_Presets.blend" in a different location before update and overwrite files. after updating, copy your "Curves_Presets.blend" back to the addon path or use custom path instead.

do not overwrite and lose your own data.

1.4.3 update:

Fixed: issue when add curve to source file in blender 3x.

Added: user defined curve bevel file path

to avoid accidental file overwritten in default addon folder, under preference addon tab, I've added a new user defined path for the curve bevel profiles. if left empty, the default curve bevels inside addon folder will be used. otherwise, you can specify a folder outside addon folder to save the curve bevel file and use that instead.

Added: Refresh Bevel Profiles From File Path

during work, if you have multiple curve bevels files in different folders, after set new folder location, use "Refresh Bevel Profiles From File Path" to update the curve bevels collection inside scene.

1.4.2 update:

upon user request, a new Root_VG toggle is added. when turned on, a vertex group at root position is automatically created when Finalize hair. it could be useful to pin hair root while doing simulation.

added: new operator call "Move Curve Point". It is more of a personal habit. the default shortcut is "D". It can be changed in addon preference.

what it does: when shortcut key is pressed in curve edit mode, if nothing is selected, the curve point closest to mouse cursor will be selected and moved with mouse movement, if curve points are already selected, they will start to move with mouse movement, then left mouse click to confirm or right mouse click to cancel.

the purpose of this operator is to minimize index finger fatigue. for example, with the same goal of moving curve point from A to B, lets compare the following scenarios:

1. default blender control scheme:

move mouse over to a curve point and click.
press "G" and move mouse to new location.
left click to confirm.

2. industrial standard control scheme:

move mouse over to a curve point and click.
press "W" and click & hold gizmo and move mouse to new location.

3. move curve point:

move mouse over to a curve point
press "D" and move mouse to new location.
left click to confirm.

It saves 50% of the left mouse button click, thus minimize the index finger fatigue in the long run. With proportional editing, it can adjust overall hair shapes quickly.

1.4.1 update:

added: new operator "Draw Bezier Hairs", it is viewing angle dependent, rotate the 3d view if the drawing is not as expected. tap back to object mode when done.

here is a short video explain how it works and tips & tricks:

added: Auto Merge Toggle: if it is on, when finalizing a hair curve, pointy tip or root vertices will be merged.

added: Fill Cap toggle: offer the option to fill cap when hair does not have pointy tip or root.

optimized: after you adjust the hair resolution, hair overall size, taper root - tip values, all hairs created afterward will respect these settings, instead of adjusting them every time they are created.

WARNING: if you have added your own bevel profiles, back it up before update, and overwrite the blend file in the addon folder with your own afterward.

This update has one zip file, it works with all blender releases.

1.4 update:

added: modal operator to quickly plant hair strand on mesh surface for editing.

added: finalize hair. convert curve hair to mesh object and clean up un-used curves.

added: create chain of bones from curve points, useful for bone dynamics.

added: one button click to append selected curve to source bevel profiles for future usage.

1.3.1 update:

this minor update is mainly for organization purpose.

added user defined tab rename. when choose same tab name as others, they will merge together. save preference and restart blender to take effect.

merge all panels into one. using toggles to show/hide controls

1.3 update:

added: convert visible particle hairs to curve.

a collection of handy operators to manipulate curves with ease.

1.2 update: simplify the process to one button click to apply hair shape.

remove the drop down list of selecting hair shape, instead, there are previous and next

button to cycle through the hair shapes. added the ability to append your own hair shapes into the mix.

1.1 update: added two sliders to adjust curve resolution.

1.0: initial release:

****************** Documentation****************

see Youtube videos above for each update version and its added functionality.

here is the written version:

1. installation:

After you download the addon zip file, open blender, go to "Edit - Preference - Addons tab - Install" locate the zip file and press "Install Addon"

you can rename the addon tab name to something you like, so that it can group with other addons to save space. (restart blender to take effect). change folder path of the custom bevel profile (more on that later), default location is in addon folder. enable/disable operators and change shortcut keys.

2. Setup scale:

the hair strand size is based on real world scale.

the default monkey head is about 2 meters high, so scale your head mesh accordingly

3. hair distribution:

there are 4 ways to add hairs:

one: draw bezier curve, take a look at this short video for some tips.

two: create new hair curves and use various hair tools to comb/sculpt hairs, make sure head mesh has proper UV.

three: plant hair. pick from bezier or nurbs and use standard modeling tool to shape the hair. this is a model operator, see shortcuts at the bottom left during the operation.

four: for legacy particle hairs, you can convert it to regular curve and add profile to it.

4. hair color:

once you added hairs, you can change the color. to add more color, go to shader editor and adjust the color ramp node.

5. hair shape adjustment:

depends on how the hair strand shape is generated, the adjustment panel shows differently. for hairs that use the new hair system as well as braid/curl hair, they use geometry node to control the shape. everything else is simply a curve with custom bevel shape.

if the select object is CURVE type. you can convert between simple hair and braid hair at any time.

if its CURVES (from the new hair system), first convert it to CURVE then you can switch between simple hair and braid hair

let's adjust the strand shape, starting from simple hair.

"Prev Hair" and "Next Hair" change the curve bevel object, "Curve Res" and "Bevel Res" adjust the resolution, "Overall Size" adjust the whole strand size, and "Taper Sliders" adjust size of each section. if you turn off "Use Custom Profile" it will use default circle as bevel shape. if you turn off "User Taper Object" you can manually tweak each curve point size using Blender "Radius" tool.

"Make Unique" is used after you manually duplicate a hair object, if you adjust the shape using any slider, both the duplicate and the original will change. "Make Unique" breaks the link and make them independent from each other.

use "Edit Bevel Curve Shape" to edit the bevel object, and press "Restore" when done

when you are happy with the hair shape and density, you can convert it to mesh object. if "Auto Merge" is on, for pointy hair tip, the vertices will merged together. if "Fill Cap" is on, any open holes are filled. if "Root VG" is on, the root part of vertices is assign to a vertex group "Root_Pin"

for braid hair, it uses geometry node, so the adjustment panel shows differently.

"Frequency" adjust segment repetition, "Length Resolution" adjust the mesh density, lower the number, higher the density. if frequency is high, higher density is required to properly display the high frequency. "Per Strand Resolution" adjust each generated strand resolution. "Per Strand Radius" adjust each generated strand size. "Stretch 1" and "Stretch 2" adjust the scale of Y and Z direction where X is the follow along hair direction. "Scale" uniformly adjust Y and Z direction. "Subdivision" to subdivide the mesh,

if you want to have custom bevel shape for the generated hair strand, turn "Use Custom Profile" on, and use "Prev" and "Next" to change the look, "Custom Profile Res" to change the resolution. "Per Strand Tilt" and "Per Strand Radius" to change the strand tilt and size.

for braid hair, you can convert to simple curve and edit each strand manually.

for CURVES object that use the new hair system. it has similar controls as above.

6. MISC Tools:

after using Blender's "Tilt" and "Radius" Tools, "Reset Tilt" and "Reset Radius" will reset selected curve point to default value. "Create Bones" will create a new armature object and position its bones based on the curve points location. "Separate" "Hide" "Isolate Curves" works as it states. "Prev Curve Point" "Next Curve Point" "Left Handle" "Main Handle" "Right Handle" provide quick ways to switch between the control point for faster shape modification.

"Move Curve Point" is designed to be used with hotkey to quickly move curve point under mouse cursor. set the key in addon preference.

the purpose of this operator is to minimize index finger fatigue. for example, with the same goal of moving curve point from A to B, lets compare the following scenarios:

1. default blender control scheme:

move mouse over to a curve point and click.
press "G" and move mouse to new location.
left click to confirm.

2. industrial standard control scheme:

move mouse over to a curve point and click.
press "W" and click & hold gizmo and move mouse to new location.

3. move curve point:

move mouse near a curve point
press "D" and move mouse to new location.
left click to confirm.

It saves 50% of the left mouse button click, thus minimize the index finger fatigue in the long run. With proportional editing, it can adjust overall hair shapes quickly.

custom bevel profile is saved in Curves_Presets.blend in addon folder, you may choose to save it in a different folder, and the folder path can be set and addon preference. if you have a custom bevel shape that you like, you can append it directly into the source blender file without leaving the scene you are working on.

7. Finishing Thoughts:

depends on the hair type (CURVE, CURVES, MESH), they are put into relevant collections. when doing hair conversion, backup is automatically created, hidden and placed in collections based on the type. enable more toggle options to show the original ones

if your target platform is in Blender, such as rendering, 3d printing, the addon should cover the basic, create the shape, adjust the color.

if you plan to use in game engines, you should also consider retopology. using Blender remesh, decimate modifier, manual retopo or other automatic tools to create low poly and bake the high details as normal map.

in any case, Blender's curve is a fast and efficient way to create hairs compare to manually sculpted mesh.

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