mental ray XGen hair physical

Use the xgen_hair_physical to easily customize the look of your hair via a single node.

Note: This feature is only available when the mental ray Mayatomr.mll plug-in is loaded (Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager).

By default, an xgen_hair_physical shader is assigned to XGen Descriptions. See Create hair or fur using spline primitives.

To customize the look of your hair, use the attributes below. You can find these attributes in the xgen_hair_physical Attribute Editor.

Tube Shade

Select this option so that the shading normal is modified to make flat hair look tubular. Hair is treated like a single sided flat ribbon with the ability to modulate the normal for more rounded, tube like hair edge behavior.

Color
Color for the diffuse component of the illumination model. XGen can override this color on a per hair basis when adding the root_color and tip_color parameters in the XGen Custom Shader Parameters (in the XGen Editor, Preview/Output tab). If only root_color is specified, each hair is colored using a single color. If both root_color and tip_color are specified, the hair color is interpolated from root_color at the root of the hair to tip_color at the tip of the hair.
Roughness
Controls the width of the glossy lobes in U and V. Increasing roughness widens the highlight. U is the direction of the hair Tangent and V is the direction of the hair width, perpendicular to the normal (bitangent). A value of 1 gives a diffuse response. A value of 0 gives a highly specular response. Roughness defaults to 0.7
Weight
The hair physical shader is an energy conserving Marschner type model, so all weights are a 0-1 representation of the 0-100% factors of the weight remaining. The weights are taken in this order:
  • Primary Reflection Weight (multiplied by directional dependency)
  • Transmission Weight
  • Secondary Glint Weight (reflection)
Reflection Color/Specular Color
The color of the Primary (specular) highlight.
Reflection Weight/Specular Color 2
The PrimaryReflection Weight is multiplied by a directionally dependent Fresnel weighting factor using an IOR of 1.55, taken from the measured Marschner data.
Reflection Roughness/Specular Color 2
Size of the Primary Highlight in U and V
Highlight Separation
The shift applied to both Primary (reflection) and Secondary (Glint) highlights in opposing directions (Primary backwards and Secondary forwards) with a scaling factor of 1.5, as recommended by the Marschner model.
Glint Color
Secondary Highlight color.
Glint Weight
Secondary reflection weight.
Glint Roughness
Secondary Highlight Size in U and V.
Transmission Color
Basic (straight ray line) transparency coloration for light coming through the hair in shadow shaders and direct light glossy transmission.
Transmission Roughness
Size of the transmission response.
Transmission Weight
Transmission response weighting.
Indirect
Include indirect lighting in the calculations.

Related topics