Easy to Use ..
The above image is a normal Attribute Editor Presets window with some of the presets we include. These swatches get rendered for you whenever you save a preset.

So Real..
Not Just for Hair and Grass You can actually replace hairs with any geometry you can model.

Integrates with Maya's render and 2D post effects Shave's render, built into a volumetric plug-in, obviously integrates tightly with Maya's own. Unlike Maya Fur, it even supports objects with transparency Additionally, it integrates with Maya 2D post process effects like depth of field.

Ray Trace Effects with the Maya render (and other neat tricks) Additionally, if you want to render the secondary rays with Maya's render, we handle that as well. Just turn the option on and adjust the detail level. You'll actually see ray traced cast shadows and hair will show up reflections and refractions.

Go Texture CRAAZY ..
The above swatches are just a few of Maya's procedurals applied to various channels, the combinations are limitless. You can also (obviously) paint these textures too. Even animate them.

Texturing your hairy object all happens inside Maya, You can apply any kind of 2D/3D shader to almost any channel, you can apply textures, even separate UV sets. You can Even texture dynamics properties like Stiffness or Dampening.

DISPLACEMENT PARAMETERS
Before (or after) you've even touched a hair guide or a brush tool, you can apply displacement parameters which can have a great deal of effect on the hair's look. Using mult/splay/friz/kink we make the same set of hair go from wet to dry in the above sample.

GUIDE FIELDS
Shave works from a 3 dimensional flow field bounded by something called 'hair guides' (left). When guides are emitted from a surface ( nurb or poly), a whole field of them are created. The number of guides relate directly to the number of CV's in the emitting surface. They define the general shape of the hair.

The actual hair (right), which can be previewed at lower counts in the viewer, is an even distribution across the emission surface, and has nothing to do with how many guides you have. Initially the hair is grown as a straight interpolation of the guides, and then displaced by parameters such as 'kink' and 'frizz'.

SMOOTH DENSITY
Our density equalizer balances hair population so that regardless of the density of the underlying surface or number of guides, you still get a uniform distribution of hair as a base line. If you want to fiddle with that balance you can assign maps and shaders to our density channel. Unlike other solutions, we do a world-space barycentric lookup, which is just a fancy way of saying it doesn't require special UV's and will work on polygons, nurbs , or any other type of surface emitter.

SPLINE MODE
An other types of guides are ' spline guides'. For each Maya spline you select, Shave creates a duplicate guide. Hair is then evenly interpolated between the guides (above) , interpolation can be turned off as well.

THE BRUSH TOOL & RECOMB
Combing hair is quick and easy. With the brush tool and . recomb ', brushing along complicated contours is as easy as petting a dog (the above example was just a few interactive strokes of the tool).

STYLING INTERFACE
Creating so many guides assures good local control on hair shape, and steady dynamics. But controlling and combing so many guides comes with it's challenges too, which is why we include a custom interface just for combing. Each little guide is actually a kinematic chain, it can either be modeled into place, it can be just sha ken around, or it can be dragged en-masse with a soft hairbrush tool.

Shave's guides have our dynamics engine built in . From the moment you create a guide you can dynamically grab it, move it, shake it around... no complicated mazes of menus and modes.

Skin Driven Dynamics
Shave's dynamics engine inherits all its inertia directly from the skin of your critter, NOT from general transformation. This means that if you morph, move, or deform - the dynamics of the hair that is emitted from that surface will accurately reflect the resultant motion.

Integrated Surface Collision Engine Shave's dynamics engine also includes full, lightning fast, surface collision.

Forces
We actually utilize Maya's own force fields and add them into ours.

Dynamic Constraints
In addition to letting hair flow free, you can also constrain any guide vertex to the orientation of a surface. This is not only useful for doing things like making pony-tails, but is also a powerful modeling too for things like braids. You can bend shave's hair into any shape you can model.

http://www.joealter.com

Download File Size:2.5 MB

---