Create hair and fur using interactive grooming splines

You can create an interactive groom splines description, and then select a grooming tool from the Generate menu and begin styling you character's hair or fur.

1. Select the character mesh or faces of the character mesh you want to populate with interactive groom hairs.
2. Do one of the following:
   • From the Modeling menu set, select Generate > Create Interactive Groom Splines > .
   • Click this icon from the XGen shelf.
3. In the Create Interactive Groom Spline Options window, adjust the creation options to suit the type of hair or fur you want to generate.
4. Click Create.
Maya populates the selected mesh with interactive groom splines and creates a description, which consists of the following nodes:
• descriptionShape, which contains the settings for shaping, displaying, and rendering the hairs.
• description_base, which controls the generation of the hairs on the bound mesh.
• Scale modifier node, which lets you globally scale the length of the hairs.

  By default, this modifier is at the bottom of the modifier stack. Here, it scales the hairs before they get modified by the grooming brushes or other modifiers. You can move the modifier up in the stack or add more Scale modifiers to scale the hairs at different points of your groom.

• Sculpt modifier node. Sculpt modifiers contain sculpt layers which store and apply the grooming effects of the Interactive Grooming Tool brushes. By default, Sculpt modifiers have one sculpt layer, but you can add more.
• Default hair shader node.
5. Select an Interactive Grooming Tool from the XGen shelf or Generate > Interactive Grooming Tools menu.

As you groom your hair and fur, consider doing the following:

• Add sculpt layers to blend the effects of the interactive grooming tools. See Work with sculpting layers.
• Add interactive grooming modifiers to shape the hairs globally, generate guides, or animate the hairs. See Work with interactive grooming modifiers.