If you donвЂ™t see the shader applied, close the current Scene View and open a new one:

To visualize the material click the Texture iconВ on the Scene View right toolbar: To overcome this you have to build a native Houdini material in the material network: RenderMan shader color is not visible in the Scene View and when applied the model appears grey. Once IвЂ™m happy, I'll build the final ones. With these I can quickly check my hair and the tone difference helps me identify gaps or other problems in my groom. Shop is the place where you usually build your shaders.Д«efore building the final shaders I usually use two simple grayВ ones: To better understand how lights affect your model, isolate them one at a time. I usually start with a three point lighting setup (key, fill, back) and then add other lights to make sure all angles work well: If you want to render a turntable itвЂ™s important that your model renders in an appealing way in 360В°. Light setup is very important because it lets you check the hair flow and the general appearance. Now that we got the hair style we were looking for, itвЂ™s time to put some lightsВ and start shadingВ the model. The only differences are in the modifier settings, so get creative!

We can apply the same techniques to the moustache and the beard as well. Sometimes itвЂ™s subtle, but every small detail counts. Very low values work well in most situations. One last tip for hair realism is the Curl option in the Clump node. Setting the Effect PositionВ and Range MinВ and Max you can decide which part (red) will be affected (check Visualize MasksВ to see it). I divided the grooming in different parts and gave them separate guides and density maps: You can easily bake this node nondestructively, giving you the ability to share your scene with someone who does not have this plugin, or an online render farm. This toolset is amazing and lets you style hair very quickly. I love Houdini for its procedural workflow and even though the grooming tools are effective, I used (and normally use) Groombear, by Kamil WacЕ‚awiak. Finding 360В° hair references wasn't very easy, so I used the BeardbrandВ Youtube channel where at the end of each video the barber turns the client 360В°. GroomingДЇor a groomer (and as a general rule for photorealism) references are fundamental. You can also easily control the shadow softness by manipulating the Sun Size value.ДЄs you can see, the light has no transform because itвЂ™s an omni light meaning, where it is placed does not affect the result. To change light direction, you can use the rotation tool or manipulate the Basic controls (Latitude, Longitude etc) of the light. You only need to adjust intensity and orientation. To place objects in the middle of the scene press the ctrlВ + icon on the shelfДЄs you can see, PxrEnvDayLight is very interactive, which allows for great feedback during this master-lighting stage.

This allows you to move the perspective cam and always have your model framed (by the camera you created) in a consistent way. ItвЂ™s also useful to create a new cameraВ for rendering final frames. Simplicity and realism are key features of this light. This is very important since hair is very thin and the way light interacts with it is crucial for the styling and look development process.ДЇor this first step (lighting setup will be covered later) a Pxr Environment Day LightВ is perfect. Both Houdini projects (вЂњBefore and AfterвЂќ versions)В are fully textured and ready to be rendered in turntable mode with RenderMan.ДЄs the first step, we have to import our model into Houdini and build a very simple light setup to check our groom.

Renderman tutorial textures