Hair Tube Builder

HAIR TUBE BUILDER

Hair Tube Builder is a tool designed to create more detailed hair tube geometries. Unlike the current curves-to-proxy tools, this tool allows for individual strand shaping, providing enhanced control for generating groom-to-geometry proxies for animation/CFX or creating geometry-based hair for 2D styles.
The tool incorporates existing layer systems from the curve-to-proxy tools, maintaining full control over layer organization.
Features include options to modify root and tip shapes, adjust curve strands with a comprehensive set of control sliders, and the ability to use Interactive Curve Tools for dynamic control. For 2D hairstyles, the tool also offers crease options to define specific points on the root curve, applying creases on edges before export.

Last updated: V.13.06

Things To Know Before Starting

This tool locks the hair geometry when it is created. If you wish to further edit the geometry, please extract them first. Extracted geometry can not be bind back to the path curve system.
This tool locks the path curve to prevent deletion using the keyboard "delete". This is because each tube strand is constructed by a series of nodes and naming conventions. To properly delete a strand, please use the 'Delete' button on the main UI.
To edit a hair tube strand, please select directly on the path curve. You can use the Toggle Curves button on the main UI to better see the selected path curves.

Hair Tube Builder UI
Info:

Displays the layer name of current selected curves.

S-M-L:

Size of the UI. Small, Medium, or Large.

Refresh Button:

Sometimes a layer is deleted or when a new Maya scene is opened, click on this button to refresh the layer list so it can pick up correct layers in current scene.

Create Layer:

Creates a layer. It offers two scenarios:
- When curve(s) are selected, clicking on this button will create a new layer and a tube will be created
- When nothing is selected, clicking on this button will create an empty layer.

Separate Layers:

When this is turned on, a layer will be created for each selected curve.

Strand Editor:

This is the main control window for the tube strand.

Toggle Curve(s)

Toggles on/off the path curve when curve(s) are selected

Re-Cal All Curves

When lock length option is turned off, and when you move a curve point, sometimes the length value will go out of sync with the indicated length value. Click on this button to recalibrate all curve lengths.

Copy

Select a curve to copy the curve setting

Paste

After a tube strand is copied, you will have two options
- Left-click directly on the Paste button will:
  - Paste both the profile curve shape and the attributes
- Right-click on the Paste button and select "Paste Only Attributes" will:
  - Paste only the attributes.
  - Sometimes you may want this, as you may want to keep the orientation of the profile curve (example - when you use a duplicate mirror).

Duplicate

Select a curve and click on this button to duplicate a strand. Duplicated strand will be put in the same layer as the original selected curve.
Right-click on the Duplicate button will give you the option to mirror across x, y, or z

Delete

Cleanly delete selected tubes. Please delete a tube by using this button instead of the 'delete' key on your keyboard.

Extract Selected Strand(s):

Makes a duplicate of strand tubes from selected strands.

Extract Selected Layer(s):

Makes a duplicate of strand tubes from selected layers.

Extract All Layer(s):

Makes a duplicate of strand tubes from all layers.

Remove Empty Layers:

Delete all layers that do not have any members in them.

Remove All Layers:

Delete all layers and the setup.

Layer Name Button -

Left Click:
- selects the tubes in the layer
Right Click:
- shows the menu for create add/move tubes to a layer, or rename the layer.
- Create Tube(s) And Add to This Layer:
  - From selected Maya curves, the tool will create a tube, and add it into this layer
- Move Selected Tube(s) To This Layer:
  - From selected Hair Tube Builder curves, the tool will move those tubes into this layer.
- Rename Layer:
  - Renames the layer and all its members
Ctrl + Click or Shift + Click:
- select multiple layers

Color Swatches:

Change the color of tubes by clicking on the color swatch.

Layer visibility (V):

Like Maya Display Layers, turn on/off tubes in that layer. When multiple layers are selected, all will be toggled

Layer Lock (L):

Like Maya Display Layers, set template/lock on tubes in that layer to keep them from being selected. When multiple layers are selected, all will be toggled

Move (>):

Moves a selected curve and its strand setup to this layer.

Add Selected Curves (+):

Add and create strands from selected curves into this layer. The tool will apply a default setting for initial creation. When multiple layers are selected, curves will ONLY be added to the layer that was clicked on.

Delete Layer (x):

Delete entire layer.

The tool comes with Visibility, Lock and Up/Down buttons:
1. Toggle all layer Visibility ON
2. Toggle all layer Visibility OFF
3. Invert current layers Visibility states
4. Toggle all layer Lock ON
5. Toggle all layer Lock OFF
6. Invert current layers Lock States
7. Move selected Layer(s) Up
8. Move selected Layer(s) Down
9. Move selected Layer(s) to the top
10. Move selected Layer(s) to the bottom

Strand Editor
Top Bar:

shows the name of current strand curve, clicking on the top bar will select the curve.

Profile Curve Shaping Window:

Modify your profile curves in this window, you can display the profile curves by selecting Root, Tip, or Both. When 'Both' are displayed, chances are you will still see just one shape, that is because the root and the tip curves are right on top of each other.

Presets:

Presets for different profile curve shapes. Selecting a shape will apply and override both root and tip curves.
Custom Selected: to apply a custom shape:
- The custom curve need to be positioned at the origin [0,0,0]
- The custom curve need to be 'closed' curve.
- Select the custom curve, and then click on 'Custom Selected'

Add Points:
To add more edge loops to the width:

Have the root curve enabled in the shaping window, then, select the root curve and hold down right mouse button, and choose "Curve Points".
Start adding points by clicking on the profile curves. Yellow dots will appear on the root curve.
When done, click on Add Points button to add these points to the profile. You only need to do it on the root curve as the tool will automatically add those points to the tip curve as well.
*Deleting Points: At the moment, deletion of points need to be manual. If you wish to delete points (edgeloops), please make sure to have the corresponding points on both the 'root' and the 'tip' curve deleted.

Path Curve CVs:

Changes the CV count on the path curve.

Strand Controls

SubD Len: Controls the length subdivision.
Scale: Controls the size of the strand.
Scale X: Controls the scaling in the X-axis of the strand.
Scale Z: Controls the scaling in the Z-axis the strand.
Lock Curve Length Influence:
- When enabled, the strand geometry will align all the way from root to tip of a curve.
- When disabled, you can choose a percentage to apply to the strand.
Length %: When Lock Curve Length Influence is disabled, you can enter a percentage for the strand.
Rotation: Rotates the strand based on the ramp.
Twist: Twists strands around the central curve axis. This setting needs to be coupled with the twist ramp.

Crease Controls:

Crease Geometry Checkbox
- When this is on, the tool will automatically apply a crease operation to the tube using the CV index numbers in the Crease CVs box.
Crease CVs: CV index list for creasing.
Set: Sets CV list from selected root curve CVs
Add: Adds selected CVs to existing CV list.
Clear: Clears all CV index from the Crease CV list.

Aim Curve Controls:

Aim Curve Offset: When a strand is created, it automatically calculates the aim position so that the strand is always facing up. This can be a value of 0.5 or -0.5.
Use Given Normal: Default is set to off. For more complicated curves that twist, or curls around, twisting geometry can occur. In this case, you may want to use a custom normal to fix the issue.
Toggle Aim Curve: To further adjust the facing orientation along a strand, you can also display the aim curve and move the vertices.
Reset Aim Curve: resets the aim curve back to its initial state.

Presets: Custom Selected (the curve must be an enclosed NURB).

Add Points: Adding edge loops to tube.

Note: If you do not have the Hair Tube Builder available anymore, to delete the xgt_tube2_grp, please run the following command in a Python Tab in your script editor, and then you can delete the xgt_tube2_grp.