Shape primitives using XGen guides

If you created a guides-based Description, you can place XGen guides on the mesh surface and use them to shape and scale primitives. When you preview the Description, the guide shapes are applied to the primitives. Use guides to shape and groom spline primitives for all styles of hair and fur including long, short, and curly. They are also useful for creating grasses, vines, and other types of objects for landscapes and environments. See XGen guides.

If you have not yet created a guides-based Description, see Create hair or fur with spline curves or Instance primitive and archive geometry.

Add guides to your mesh object

Use the Add or Move Guides tool to place guides on the surface your mesh object. You can use guides to position and shape all primitive types, including archive geometry.

To add guides to your mesh object

1. With your guides-based Description selected in the XGen Editor, select the Add or Move Guides tool:.

   When you hover the cursor over the selected surface, a circle icon appears, indicating that you can add guides to the mesh.

2. Click the surface to place guides.

   Guides appear on the surface of the selected mesh.

3. (Optional) To increase or decrease the radius of the Add or Moves Guides tool, press the B key while dragging.
   
4. Preview the Description. See Preview hair, fur, and instanced geometry.

Shape and scale guides using the Sculpt Guides Tool

Use the Sculpt Guides Tool to shape and scale guides for spline primitives. It cannot be used with other primitive types.

Tip: If you have selected one or more guides using the Maya Select Tool, the Sculpt Guides Tool will only affect those guides. To enure you sculpt all the guides within the radius of the tool, deselect (Select > Deselect All) all guides before you begin sculpting.

To shape with the Sculpt Guides Tool

1. Activate the Sculpt Guides Tool by clicking this icon in the In the XGen Shelf.
2. Drag across the guides to shape and pose them.
   Note: Some guides outside the current view, such as guides on the back side of mesh objects, can be affected by the Sculpt Guides Tool. Select, and then hide (Display > Hide > Hide Selection) the guides you do not want affected by the Sculpt Guides Tool.
3. In the Tool Settings window that appears, edit the settings to modify how the sculpting tool affects the guides.

   See Sculpt Guides Tool settings.

4. Preview the Description to apply the guide shape to the spline primitives. See Preview hair, fur, and instanced geometry.
   Tip: To create more complex and interesting shapes as you sculpt, you may need to add more control vertices to the guides. See Work with XGen guides.

To scale guides with the Sculpt Guides Tool

1. Activate the Sculpt Guides Tool by clicking this icon in the In the XGen Shelf.
2. In the Tool Settings window that appears, under Brush Settings, turn off Lock Length.

   When Lock Length is off, you can change the guide length by sculpting.

3. Drag guides to scale them.
4. Preview the Description to see the scaled splines. See Preview hair, fur, and instanced geometry.

Shape and scale guides by editing guide CVs

You can modify the shape of XGen guides by selecting, and then editing the guide CVs. You can use also Utilities, such as Guides As Curves, Reshape Guide and Straighten Guide, to edit guide shape.

To shape guides by editing CV's

1. -click the guides you want to shape, and select Guide Control Points from the marking menu that appears.
2. Maya switches to component-selection mode, which lets you select CVs on the guides.
3. Use the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools to shape the guide.
   

   If you have problems getting the shape you want, add control vertices to the guides.

4. (optional) To add control vertices to the guides, in the XGen Editor, click the Primitives tab.
5. (optional) In the Primitives Attributes section, click Rebuild and increase the CV Count value in the Rebuild Guides window. See Work with XGen guides.
6. Return to object-selection mode by -clicking a guide and selecting Object Mode from the marking menu that appears.