Creating Strand Based Hair (SBH Editor)

Last updated: September 22, 2024

Introduction

Presented here are some study notes on creating Strand Based Hair (SBH) using the SBH Editor in Daz Studio.

Some of this information was gleaned empirically, some of it was pilfered directly from various threads on the Daz forums.  Let me know if I have left anything out, made something unclear, or if you have any questions.

These notes apply (as of April 2023) only to the SBH Editor that all Daz users have access to, and I do not take into consideration any additional tools that Daz PA's may be privy to.

Brief History

The SBH Editor was adapted from the old Garibaldi plugin , which was developed by James Leaning in 2012. Since 2019, the SBH Editor has been included with all installations of Daz Studio by default and is free to use.

Several updates since 2019 have made the SBH Editor more stable, and it has been complemented by features such as the blended dual lobe shader, NVIDIA iray curves, and the omnihair shader.  With that said, given the old architecture and slow rate of improvements, SBH cannot easily achieve the quality you can get from other industry leading hair tools like Ornitrix, Xgen, or Blender's new hair tools. In my opinion, it would be better to just use Xgen if you intend to take hair creation seriously. Bringing hair from Blender to Daz Studio is documented here.

But all the same, if you are frustrated by the quality of available hairstyles for Daz Studio or want to quickly add some hair or fur to a figure, the SBH Editor may be a good option. Some features of the SBH Editor are also relatively good compared to competitor tools. For example, the SBH Editor comb tool on the Style tab is very responsive, which is not the case when trying to comb multiple guide strands in Blender, for example.

Use Case

SBH Editor can be used to make hairstyles with high strand density (which will correlate with realism). You also have flexibility to adjust the hair by restyling it, which can be useful if you need to flatten the hair for a hat, or pose the hair, or have the hair interact with objects.  But there are some limitations.

Can you make morphs and add rigging for SBH with SBH Editor?

Yes and No.  See the Saving section (Section 10 and 11 for further details).  We cannot make morphs for editable SBH, but we can morph SBH hair that has been converted to polyline hair. This statement applies if you you are a PA or not a PA.

Can you simulate (dForce) hair with SBH Editor?

SBH Editor is for creating hair, not simulating it. In Daz Studio, dForce is used to simulate hair.

The script to add a dForce SBH modifier to hair strands is only available to Daz Studio official vendors (Published Artists).

You could technically convert SBH to geometry and add dForce to the geometry, just like you can with any geometry, but this type of cloth sim is not recommended for high density meshes like strand hair because the simulation would be too complex and liable to fail. This is why Daz Published Artists apply the dForce Modifier only to the guide strands, not to all the hair strands of the hairstyle.

The approach used in pretty much all software for simulating dense hair is that only some of the strands are simulated (guide strands), while the rest are recruited to follow the simulated proxy hairs. Simulating all hairs at once simply requires too much computation.

Can you save and distribute SBH made by SBH Editor?

Yes, but there are limits. See the final sections (Section 10 and 11) below for saving options.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of SBH Editor?

As mentioned above, the SBH Editor can:

1. Create dense hairstyles that can approach realism (compared to card hair)

2. Can be edited in the SBH Editor by any Daz Studio user, unlike most of the SBH hair purchased from Daz3d.com, which usually cannot be edited unless you are a Published Artist.  This allows for combing and reshaping as desired.

3. It's fairly easy to access and use within Daz Studio.

However, compared to a hair system like Xgen or Blender, SBH Editor can be more to get enough control over hair styling because it is lacking some key features, such as:

1. Ability to add/delete guide strands as needed (in SBH Editor, guide strands are spawned only at vertices of the haircap)

2. Better tools to easily control and manipulate the flow of guide strands (however to be fair the comb tool in SBH Editor feels better than in most other software)

3. More procedural layers to control clumping, noise, and add fly-aways (however in SBH editor you do still have 2 clumping layers and you can still control noise and flyaways with a mask)

4. Ability to visualize other active grooms when editing a groom in SBH Editor*

5. Ability to use iray preview render while editing*

*I have crossed out 4 and 5 because Daz Studio 2025 is expected to allow you to visualise SBH grooms in the viewport.

1. Creating SBH Hair

To create a SBH:

1. Select the object you want the hairs to grow from

2. Click Create>New Strand-Based Hair

Note: A hairstyle may be comprised of just a single SBH item or may be multiple different SBH grooms where each one has been created for different parts of the hairstyle (e.g., one SBH for bangs/fringe, one for back, one for sides, one for sideburns, etc).

Haircaps: It is recommended to create hair on haircaps/scalps rather than, say, a Genesis figure directly as it will give you more flexibility, e.g., ability to transfer the haircap between generations, and ability to easily save the haircap+SBH as a Wearable preset.  (Note however that you can still save a SBH as a Wearable preset even if it is not on a haircap.  See section 10 of this guide for instructions on saving SBH.)

2. Setup tab

In this tab, you select which surfaces of the object will be involved in the SBH groom.  This includes areas that the hairs will grow from, and also those surfaces that you would like to be involved in collisions. For example, if you are creating long hair, you may want to include shoulders so that the hair can be styled against/collide with the body.

Warning: SBH hair can never be fitted or transferred to a different geometry than the one it was created on (while still maintaining editability), so ensure that the geometry/figure/haircap/scalp you are creating the hair on is finalized before you begin.

Note: The surface shown in the SBH Editor will reflect the shape and pose of the surface at the time of the SBH creation. To update to the current shape, click "Update Surfaces" button.

3. Paint Tab

In this tab, grayscale maps/masks are painted such that white color will represent areas where the effect is applied 100% and black will represent where there is zero effect, while gray will represent values in-between.

These maps can be plugged into different parameters in the SBH Editor (on the subsequent tabs).  E.g., a map can be plugged into the Density parameter to control hair growth (hair will grow on white areas, and will be bald on black areas) or a map can be plugged into the Clumping parameter (white will reflect areas where there is clumping and black where there is no clumping).

Tip: if not already customized, it is best to configure the Daz Studio workspace (Window>Workspace>Customize) such that the viewport 'orbit' and 'pan' settings are changed to an efficient shortcut. For instance, you could set orbit to use the middle mouse button, pan to use shift+middle mouse (this is one common setup seen in other 3D software like Blender).

4. Distribute Tab

On this tab, hair density and size are set using the parameters.

Very high densities can significantly slow down the viewport in Daz Studio and also lead to longer render time.  Finding a balance between density and render time will need to be considered.

Tip: While in the initial stages of blocking out and styling the hair, you can use a lower hair density and large strand-size, then move to using a high density and small strand-size (which will be more realistic) when finalizing the hair for rendering.

The default 0.2mm - 0.1mm thickness is a medium-thick size hair strand, so doubling or tripling this to get a very thick strand could provide a good working size when initially styling the hair.  For final render, you may want to create thin strands by going below the default value.

5. Style Tab

In this tab, style curves are adjusted using various tools to create the shape of the overall hairstyle/haircut.

What are style curves and what are interpolated hairs?

'Style curves' are spawned at the vertices of the haircap and their shape can be edited by the user to achieve the desired hairstyle.  Style curves are effectively guides that control the hair shape, flow, and length.  The actual hairs that make up how the SBH looks when rendered will be 'interpolated hairs'. These interpolated hairs are spawned across the surface between style curves. The density of interpolated hairs is defined by the Distribute tab settings and their shape and length is influenced by the surrounding style curves.

Interpolated hairs will follow nearby style curves, where 'nearby' is determined by proximity of the root of the interpolated hair to the root of the style curves. The total influence felt by interpolated hairs, in both their length and shape, will be a combination of all the nearby style curve guide strands (the relative effects of nearby style curves can be tweaked in the Interpolation settings, i.e., Single Guide and Autoparting settings).

Styling the hair: Styling the hair may often be a time-consuming and iterative process, of styling, reassessing, restyling etc.  To start with, block out the major shapes and then progressively work toward adding finer details.  An example workflow may be the following:

1. Scale the hair to roughly the desired length (using either the Scale tool or the Comb tool with 'Preserve Length' deselected)

2. Change the Segment Length to a small size (this will make smoother, less jagged style curves, and will improve surface collision)

3. Use Comb tool (with 'Preserve Length' selected) to shape the hair

4. Use selection tools to isolate sections of hair, then fine tune, manipulate, and resize with other tools as needed

Parting the hair: Creating a part in the hair can be difficult because interpolated hairs within the parted area will be under the influence of style curves going in completely opposing directions.  The interpolated hairs in this region can end up pointing upwards as the adjacent style curves compete for influence of the hair between them.  There are two ways to correct this:

1. The 'Autoparting' and 'Single Guide' settings could potentially be used to counteract this problem. Success with creating a part using the 'Autoparting' and 'Single Guide' settings will depend on the distribution of Style curves on your haircap.  Also, be warned that changing these settings from their default may lead to spiky hair glitching in the area you apply this setting, whereupon these settings will need to be restored to defaults to correct the glitch.  Another problem with using autoparting or single guide is that Clumping settings  can interfere with them and it may be impossible to have both clumping and autoparting/single guide active for a given hair section/masked area.

2. An alternative approach which removes the problems described above is to split the parted hair into separate SBH grooms, one for each section of parted hair.

3. A third approach is to embed the "part" into the haircap. For example, you would create a narrow channel in the haircap where the part will be situated.

Tip: Remember to "save" intermittently.  This can be done by clicking 'Accept' and then saving the Scene file.  You can resume editing SBH under Edit>Object>Strand-Based Hair

6. Clump Tab

In this tab, the basic hair style can be further refined to look more realistic by adding clumping effects. There are two clumping layers, one for large clumps (low density), and a second layer for breaking up the large clumps (higher density).

7. Tweak Tab

On the Tweak tab, a final layer of parameters can be adjusted to introduce randomness, noise, and imperfections to the hair.  Much of these parameters (scraggle, frizz, etc) are highly dependent on the segment length of the interpolated hairs, which is a value set under the 'Interpolation' section on the Style tab.  Therefore, on the Style tab you must reduce the Interpolated Segment Length to a low value (i.e., 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, 0.05 etc.) in order to fully appreciate the effect of the Tweak parameters.

Warning: some of the tweak settings can interfere with the clumping effect, so should be used in full consideration of how it will reduce the effect of clumping.  E.g., high values of random root angle will completely destroy any clumping effect.

Using Noise Masks: The tweak settings can be applied under the influence of a mask, which is to say you can use a mask to limit where and how much each of the tweak settings are applied. It is a good idea to create some basic noise masks on the Paint tab and then use these masks for parameters like Random Root Angle such that the Random Root Angle is only being applied to a small number of hairs. In this way, you will still maintain the Clumping effect which would otherwise be completely destroyed if Random Root Angle was applied to all hairs. This method can be used to create 'flyaway strands'. A noise mask for flyways should be mostly black, punctated by small white dots.

In other hair systems like Blender and Xgen, you can more easily layer noise effects to influence a small number of strands for making flyaways, but in SBH Editor it is best to use a noise mask on the Random Root Angle or to make the flyways on a new groom entirely.

8. SBH Parameter Settings

Important parameters to adjust:

1. Render Tessellation sides: this parameter defines the geometry of the hair strands. E.g., value of 3 will convert hair to 3-sided geometry.  A value of 1 will convert the hair to iray curves (not geometry). A value of 1 is recommended for most scenarios.

2. Preview PR Hairs: without selecting this option, hair strands will not show up in the viewport.

Iray curves / fibers:

1. Initiated by using Render Tessellation Sides value of 1

2. Requires Daz Studio version 4.20.1.19 or later

3. Renders much faster than geometry/fibermesh hair

4. Renders as smooth strand compared to sometimes jagged fiber mesh

5. Not appropriate for render engines other than iray (e.g., Filament).

6. Compliant with OmniHair shader, but has reduced options for the blended dual lobe shader (see below section about Shader Settings)

7. Generally, pros outweigh cons when rendering in Daz Studio Iray.

9. SBH Shader Settings

There are two main SBH shaders:

1. Omnihair: As of 1st of March, 2024, Daz have released a version of the Omni Hair shader for SBH. This shader uses some of the same principles as my earlier Gossamer Hair Shader. Omnihair is free and is included with the Daz Default Resources. (You can otherwise purchase my Gossamer Hair Shader for SBH).

2. Blended Dual Lobe: The Blended Dual Lobe shader is included with the Default Resources and is the shader that is applied by default to hairs created in the SBH Editor, however it has been superseded by Omnihair for most use cases. Most people will be using the OmniHair shader now for SBH. If using Iray curves (Render Tessellation Sides value of 1), the Blended Dual Lobe shader's Transmission Color settings will have no effect and the Glossy Layer Weight value must be set to a high value in order for the the root/tip hair color to have any impact.

10. Saving SBH (Option 1: Saving an Editable SBH)

Important: There are two ways to save SBH, one way maintains the editability of the SBH in SBH Editor (Section 10) and the other way bakes the SBH so it can no longer be edited (Section 11). Both methods have pros and cons. The benefit of saving as an "Editable SBH" is that users can readjust the hair as needed but the drawbacks are quite significant, so users should be aware of them:

1. With Editable SBH, the hair will never scale properly with figure size.  This can be a major issue if using the SBH on a large or small figure.

2. You cannot add morphs to Editable SBH

3. Editable SBH should always remain unparented from the figure it is fitted to, otherwise the SBH hairs will be additionally transformed whenever the parent object is translated or posed.

 See Section 11 for instructions on how to save the SBH as non-editable/baked version.

Considerations: when saving an 'Editable SBH' asset, you have another factor to consider. You can save as a figure/prop asset first, or save it is a Wearable preset right away.  Technically it is considered to be standard practice to save any Daz assets as figure/prop assets before creating Wearable Presets but, in the case of SBH, you could argue that it is better to not save as figure/prop asset. You should understand that there are  pros and cons here to weigh up when saving SBH as a figure/prop asset vs embedding the data in a Wearable preset.

Specifically, when saving a Wearable preset without first creating a figure/prop asset for the SBH, the pros and cons are:

• Pro: Any edits made to the SBH after loading the Preset into a Scene file will save with the Scene file.  So if a user restyles the hair in the scene file using the SBH Editor, saves, and loads the scene again, the restyling of the hair will be preserved.  This is not the case if the SBH is called from a figure/prop asset.

• Con: The SBH geometry will be embedded in the Wearable preset and Scene files, which is typically not best/standard practice.  Usually you would want the preset to merely call the SBH as an asset from its respective data folder in the content directory so as to avoid embedding the data in the Scene and increasing the Scene file size. Embedding data in a wearable preset is typically something that Daz would say violates quality assurance testing.

  
  

Saving Wearable Preset with Haircap: If you have created the SBH on a haircap/scalp, then you have the option to save as a one-click Wearable preset very easily:

1. First ensure the haircap is saved as a figure/prop asset, which will create the necessary data assets in your /data folder of your content library. You can also optionally save the SBH as a figure/prop asset (see above comments on pros and cons of this)

2. Create a new Group (selecting the 'default options' in the popup), and rename the Group to a suitable name for the hairstyle (e.g., "Long Curly Hair")

3. Place both the SBH and scalp into the Group

4. Select the figure that the scalp is fitted to (e.g., the Genesis figure) in the scene tab

5. File>Save as...> Wearable Preset

6. In the popup dialog, select the whole Group to save as Preset

Saving Wearable Preset without Haircap: If you have not created the SBH on a separate haircap/scalp, then you can still save as a one-click Wearable preset, but it involves a workaround:

1. Optional: consider saving the the SBH as a figure/prop asset (see above comments on pros and cons of this)

2. Create a new Group using the default options, and rename the Group to a suitable name for the hairstyle (e.g., "Long Curly Hair")

3. Place the SBH into the Group

4. Place any fitted item into the Group (a fitted item could be a random clothing item, a random hair cap, anatomy, it does not matter so long as it allows you the option to save a Wearable preset in step 5)

5. Select the figure that the fitted item and SBH are fitted to (e.g., the Genesis figure) in the scene tab

6. File>Save as...> Wearable Preset

7. In the popup dialog, select the whole Group to save as your preset and also deselect the fitted item from step 3.

11. Saving SBH (Option 2: Saving as baked SBH or Polyline hair)

Note: There are again pros and cons with this method:

• Cons:

  • Does not preserve the target surface UV's, which means you cannot use a texture map that relates to the UV of the fitted surface.  However, note that hair colour can still be varied on a per-strand basis via shader options (randomize settings) or with a noise texture map.

  • Baking out SBH to polyline hair will mean the hair does not have a modifier for curve deformation along attached surface anymore. Actual SBH curves made in SBH Editor will deform with the haircap surface as the surface curvature changes. Having the curve deformation option allows you to put a smoothing/collision modifier on the haircap so that it fits very tightly to the figure surface, and the SBH will follow the haircap almost exactly, which can help to avoid any hair/body clipping when morphs are applied, particularly HD morphs.

  • Baking means that the parameters are no longer adjustable. For example, you will no longer be able to adjust density, styling, clump, and tweak parameters. The only parameter you can adjust is strand radius in the Surfaces tab.

• Pros:

  • Solves the issue with correct scaling of parent (mentioned earlier)

  • Hair can be parented

  • Allows you to add morphs

Briefly, the steps are:

1. Export SBH as an .OBJ file at Render Tessellation Sides = 1. Ensure "write polylines" is checked on export dialogue.

2. Import the .OBJ file back into Daz Studio

3. Add rigging as needed (i.e., by using the Transfer Utility) to transfer the Source rigging of the haircap/figure to your Target hair

4. Add morphs as needed (you can morph polylines by using morph loader pro just like any other standard mesh)

5. Save separately the scalp and then the hair as figure/prop assets. This will create the relevant /data/ folder and file structure in your proposed content directory. (You only need the /data/ contents, so you can delete the .duf preset for the hair and cap created via this method if you do not need them)

6. Save a new wearable preset (.duf) that loads both the scalp and the hair.

Appendix

Downloadable Example

Some of my hair products come with versions which you can open in the SBH Editor. For example Angelus Hair for Genesis 9.

Garibaldi tutorial

Old video from Garibaldi Express (SBH Editor predecessor)