Introduction to XGen - Quick Start Guide
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- Опубліковано 13 сер 2024
- In this FlippedNormals Quick Start to Xgen video, you'll get familiar with all the tools you need to know in order to get started with XGen for Maya.
Learn Maya with this 12 hour Introduction to Maya series!
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We cover setting up collections, creating guides, sculpting guides, using modifiers, using XGen grooms in Arnold for Maya and how to assign shaders (aiStandardHair) to our groom in XGen.
Xgen Quirks - 01:00
Set Project - 02:34
Clean Model and Scene - 03:55
Setting up Descriptions - 04:41
Creating Guides - 06:43
Deletiong Guide - 08:22
Hide Show Groom - 09:22
Longer and shorter guides - 10:15
Sculpt Guides Tool - 11:16
Density - 13:07
Hair Width - 14:30
Tapering - 14:47
Curve Segments - 15:26
Density Mask - 17:14
Region/Parting Maps - 23:26
Modifiers - 25:59
Clumping Modifier - 26:05
Noise Modifier - 32:04
Connecting Arnold and Xgen - 34:45
Assigning shaders (aiStandardHair) - 36:23
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All tutorials of this kind should start with a clear explanation of the scale of the scene we are working with.
Great tut, just what I needed for a refresher on xgen without it being a 1000 hr long course.
Keep crushing it, guys! Your content has proplled my 3D art so much. Can't thank you enough 💯
Thats awesome to hear! Thanks a lot TJ
@@FlippedNormals Please help, hair not visible in viewport 2.0, the guides are visible...Followed everything you said but the hair preview is simply not working...something to do with the shader? I didn't do anything with the shaders.
Also, guys make sure you're not renaming your object the Xgen is applied to after you applied Xgen! Do it before applying and never ever rename it again. Otherwise, it will not render because it will lose the connection/path between the object and Xgen. Thanks for the tutorial!
Thankss i kept searching for what that error means
Thank you for breaking this up into a cohesive tutorial. It's such a mess to get into xGen with all the different tools and techniques, I always find your videos super useful so keep the awesome work going
Most helpful content found on youtube about xgen till now
Would love a video from you guys on taking something like this from xgen and making Hair cards out of it for games/realtime render
OMG!! This video was sent by the gods!! From all UA-cam I wouldn´t ask anyone else but you to see a tutorial of XGen (or anything 3D related honestly).
THANK YOU FOR THIS!!
Yes! You answered my prayers. Thank you for the tutorial!
thank you very much for creating great tutorials, you are awesome greetings from Armenia 🇦🇲
Thanks for watching Amas! :)
this is so helpful cants believe im watching it two years after🤣
Gays your style of teaching is outstanding, please upload a video about render passes and compositing tips
Clear and not boring explanation
Thanks! We tried keeping this one really focused.
First i would like to say every tutorial i have watched of FlippedNormals is always very in depth. That out of the way, 5 seconds into this I had a headache, 1 minute into it a migrain. By 2 minutes i could see this tool would be more of a hassle to use then simply manually doing all the work by hand.
I greatly despise Xgen because of the naming conventions. I tried it for like a year and couldn't get it.. it's extremely frustrating to use,
I made the switch to ornatrix and I love it, as it works correctly. I havent tried yeti yet but I think I'll give that a go sometime.
Edit: also idk if this will help people but I found it extremely useful to create curves first then apply the hair ontop of them with Xgen, Ornatrix or Yeti. That way you dont have to worry about sculpting the hair position. Because it should follow the position of the curves/Guides
Thanks A lot man, this was very Helpful, your way of explaining things is awesome much apreciated
Hi Henning !! Thanks for the Video. One small thing, while painting the maps using the 3D paint tool, it is not required to 'Save textures' on both, in the Tool settings and in the Xgen Primitives tabs. Hitting the 'save' icon on the Xgen Primitives tab is enough and the maps work 100% correctly. Just to clarify:) Thanks!!
Thanks for the comment! Technically you dont have to save both places: When you his save in the XGen tab, this converts the paint data to ptex. The reason we save both places in the tutorial is so that when you open the scene again, you can keep painting on your maps as it actually saves the texture map.
@@FlippedNormals Hi Henning!! Thank you for the reply. No Henning, it is not like that, Saving on the Xgen Primitives tab is enough as I have mentioned earlier. Your maps will be saved in both the formats, .ptex and in Maya IFF.. You can find the .ptex maps in 'XGen' folder of your project directory and .IFF file in your 'sourceimages' folder of your project directory. When you hit that save icon, you can notice that in the script editor as well as when you open your hypershade, under 'Textures' tab, you can see a file node created as well. All we have to do, as you mentioned in the video, when we open the file, we need to 'set project' without fail and thats it. So :) saving once, on the Xgen Primitives tab is enough :) Thanks
i told Henning last week that another head sculpt of his for flippednormals = kinda boring. I asked him to do something else other than sculpting, but i didnt see that he had already done this super wonderful xgen intro. I am moving out of Modo, Henning! Modo = for basic modeling tools and UV peeling only for me now. Blender = had a hard time with user interface. So i am back to Maya and your tutorials are the most wonderful tuts i have found so far. You really compete head to head with the big boys like CGMA , Gnomon , FXPHD...
wish list = vray next tutorial and maybe redshift. also phoenix FD.
It's like you knew exactly what I needed! thanks again guys!!
:D Thank you!
Not sure if anyone has had any issues, but just a couple things I ran into.
Firstly, maya didn't like painting with an object that has an Arnold standard material on it. I had to apply a regular blinn for the density map painting to work.
Second, it would not render the hair if I renamed the geo to something different than what it was called when the description was created. Make sure the geo that the hair is applied to name stays the same.
Hope this helps anyone that runs into any quirky problems.
FINALLY!!!✌️✌️ Thank you so much for this!
Youre welcome! We'll have more XGen content in the future.
@@FlippedNormals cant wait for more!
Hey! I've had an issue where the hair preview will not show in the viewport. It shows up in the render, but haven't been able to figure out why I cannot see it.
the most awesome tutorial I've seen in a while!! where'd the time go!!
...thank you...it is better than 1000tutorial... Thank you sir❤️❤️
Pls do a tutorial on crowd animation..golem or miarmy ....u are doing an awesome job... dnt mind about negative commands here.. I am multimedia specialist and a instructor for decades long..you are super instructor I have ever seen in my life.. crystal clear deep explanation.. keep it up
38:17 my quarantine haircut
4:44 This is my quarantine haircut
/H
@@FlippedNormals hahahahahahahaha LOL
@@FlippedNormals AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Omg been waiting for this for long time xD its finally here thanks so much !!
Yay! Happy to help.
Great tutorial! But if you say xGen is "buggy", how about Ornatrix, which is using xGen, just giving a better UI and grooming history (afaik)? I heard it makes it easier, but I'm only beginner, so it would be really great to hear your opinion about this in comparison. Thx
thank you so much mate you just save lot of my time in hair work in maya.
It's cool, but when I save and reopen the guides are no longer in the viewport, just in the outliner, but can't select them. Is there a way to fix it? Please help me
Hi henning i tried xgen soooooooooooo mannnyyyyyy times but then i tried the xgen interactive grooming thnank you for your videos❤️
Thank you so much for this tutorial! Awesome like always! :)
Very nicely paced for an intro, great work!
Cheers Michael!
Many many many thanks.
Hey, so, why use the traditional xgen instead of the interactive groom? Is there disadvatage and advantages with each?
core xgen has better modifiers than Interactive Grooming, but has't that useful comb, clump, grab, etc. brushes, so I think it's really good if you can combine both of those methods of hair creation
Core has an easier method to groom guides. I convert back and forth between the 2. Core for blocking, Interactive for detail and polish. Interactive is also safer since it packs all files into the maya scene, no dependencies and less likely to break.
one of the best videos ever
Not sure if I'm in love with you or your voice.... either way I'm in love 😍😍😍
11:45 ahaha! Talk about isolation xD
damn.. and just after doing this, I used Ctrl+Shift+MMB to drag him away (it copied it instead of moving....) and I clicked on it. Undo only deselects. Now we all know, lol.
15:34 adding more segmetns to guides
"There are probably gonna be more weird error messages and weird issues in Xgen than in any other software" I feel you, so much, Xgen is a pipe's nightmare and I can't understand how it's the industry standard. How do you deal with errors like the one that's showing when you say that, where it complains the path doesn't exist when it clearly does, the project is set properly and there are no spaces or weird stuff that could be causing problems?
I'm having the SAME exact problem now with XGEN. Set project, but it refuses to save my .iff 3d paint file!!
@@NinaMariePhoto did you ever find a solutio
@@Rendou I had to start from scratch, I deleted my preferences and I made sure my project file was saved where I wanted it to be, and my XGen collection file - before starting the xgen process. That seemed to have fix the issue
@@NinaMariePhoto alright thanks!
I was waiting for this tutorial, great video!
Thank you! Hoping you like it.
Very nice video. I have a problem creating hair it's growing everywhere and getting through the mesh, it's not following spline. Please advise me, thank you
Great video Henning! Worth to mention is that if you’re setting the stray percentage for the description, beware of the ”delete description” button. Happened to me recently and somehow undo didn’t work. 😆
F
Thank you for all of these great tips ! Awesome! :)
The best channel on youtube!! I feel like giving XGen a second chance. Any plans for a XGen course?
Thank you so much! We might
You guys are UA-cam awesomeness for 3D. Please make a similar one for Blender hair particle. Blunderer would crash the subscribe button for sure.
Dude’s really making the case against X-Gen
16:31 scale sculpt brush size
Thanks for this great tutorial !
Thank you so much, this is extremely helpful!
Happy to help!
This is a pure 24 karat Gold for a beginner like me ....thanks a ton for making this.
Thank you so much for giving such information about Xgen but can you explain how to make any character hair properly and how to render in marmoset tool bag
I have a hard time getting the interpolation of the hair to follow my guides to how I want it to be, say, if I want to sculpt a long hairstyle with a ponytail. I've seen examples where people are able to almost have the hair glued to the shape of their guides, but I cannot for the life of me figure it out.
I’m really excited to try this out 😍
Awesome! XGen is really powerful.
hi,i need you help.i create guide on the scalpe and when i generate the vizualization from hair the xgen is creating hair inside the mesh ,the same ay when i create the spline to convert to guide the xgen is creating hair inside the mesh,i am face this big problem all time i use xgen.hy this is happening?when i create guide one by one happen the same problem and the hair scale automatically.
Very good thanks!
I have no idea how youre not getting hair everywhere. Whether I have one guide or 100 hair is growing from the whole mesh. I thought Bounds might solve it, but seems not.
Anyone have any ideas?
I know I can use a density mask, but its currently like 'whats the point of placing guides if its just going to go everywhere?'.
This is a great tutorial. Thank you!
it was so useful.
thanks
really cool tutorial it is very helpful to me in my university only teaches modeling and really really little basic of rigging.... I want to make fur but my professors doesn't know about that :( really really thank you :)
Thank you for this tutorial. very helpful. I am working on a female with a long hair project. I build the hair on a duplicate mesh without ear and face, it is a scalp. When a guide close to the character's body, the hair cut into her shoulder and the ear. Could you tell me how to avoid this problem? Thank you very much
I know it been a while since this video was made n maya's xgen has been updated n all. But can someone tell me what to do when the "Add or move guides" doesn't really add up anythin? Also it creates hair automatically n place em on random places n I don't really know how to prevent it from doin that. So if anyone here has dealt with that issue, please give me a tip on how to get rid of this mess.
17:15 creating density mask
Allright, that was so cool and hell yeah
Hello! OliMSZ my name and there is a problem with Autodesk Maya 2022, specifically the XGen Plug-In. The problem is that XGen doesn't work. The scripteditor prints that a procedure, xgmAddExpressions, is missing from the xgCreateDescription.py file. The same procedure is missing in the xgDescriptionEditor.py file ... although it's interestingly included because I checked it in both files using Total Commander. although the letter s was forgotten in xgCreateDescription, I corrected it, but to no avail. It is present in both py files but does not work. Something that is perhaps more important. the scripteditor first prints the specific error message that: Error line 1: Cannot find procedure "xgmLockTransform". //
I write this and then I send the detailed error message.
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmLockTransform”. //
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmLockTransform”. //
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmLockTransform”. //
# XGen: Use the Add/Move Guides Tool to add guides to the surface (⌨️:\⌨️\Autodesk Maya 2022\Maya2022\plug-ins\xgen\scripts\xgenm\ui\dialogs\xgCreateDescription.py:89)
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmAddExressions”. //
// Error: RuntimeError: file ⌨️:\⌨️\Autodesk Maya 2022\Maya2022\plug-ins\xgen\scripts\xgenm\ui\xgmDescriptionEditor.py line 1529: Error occurred during execution of MEL script line 1: line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmAddExpressions”. //
After I correct the xgmAddExpression to xgmAddExpressions in xgCreateDescription.py, same error came whitout the first errot line:
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmLockTransform”. //
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmLockTransform”. //
# XGen: Use the Add/Move Guides Tool to add guides to the surface (⌨️:\⌨️\Autodesk Maya 2022\Maya2022\plug-ins\xgen\scripts\xgenm\ui\dialogs\xgCreateDescription.py:89)
// Error line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmAddExressions”. //
// Error: RuntimeError: file ⌨️:\⌨️\Autodesk Maya 2022\Maya2022\plug-ins\xgen\scripts\xgenm\ui\xgmDescriptionEditor.py line 1529: Error occurred during execution of MEL script line 1: line 1: Cannot find procedure “xgmAddExpressions”. //
Thats it unfortunatly. Could you help me to fix this bug, thank you in advance. Hello.
"Save our scene, remember Xgen being xgen" I kid you not, the second he said that my project crashed >_>
My hair always go through the mesh and No matter what I try it keeps happening can you pls help
I have some problems with scale in maya, i set correct scale for head in c4d ( so SS works good) and exported it to maya, in maya the head is so small so its rly hard to navigate and when i want to create guides in xgen they are really big, any solution ?
5:24 The dog grooming truck from Dumb & Dumber, perhaps? 🐶
How do I change the preset length when adding new guides?
17:30 density maps
Super, informed tutorial.
Glad you liked it!
Hi i'd like to know how to reduce the thickness of the guides in the viewport, if i need some thin guides in little area space. Thank you.
Is it possible to animate this one either adding key frames or with physics , may be to make a scene were the character are running then the movement and wind move the hair ?
That's an awsome tutorial! Leaned a lot.
I am wondering, if I made a hair with this method, there seems to be too much exposure of skin (like in the middle). How do you deal with that?
perfect tutorial! I have a question, what video card are you using? I am using one with 24 GB and it starts to become very slow when making changes on Clumping modifiers and noise
i recently made eyelashes... i didnt update or do anything... when i opened my file all hair was gone
how do i avoid this
what i love you
We love you too Sk
I love this tutorial.
Can I just stick with zBrush fibermesh for now or am I losing much? I've been thinking about xgen for a very long time but got used to zBrush.
You know all these hair/foliage plugins all do single hair meshes but I have yet to see an actual polygon plane hair plugin for video game developing.
Omg that will be legendary
:D Thanks
Hello, thanks for the tutorial. Is there a way to control the exact spot of each strand of hair?
As soon as I selected the start color to white for the density map to create the mask, 90 percent of the splines vanished and showing a script error that part of the file path doesn't exist. Can anyone tell me why this happened or what would solve this? I would very much appreciate it. :)
Is there need to add more layers of clumps if we can manage in one layer itself? and if no then why?
I was just looking for an xgen tutorial yesterday! Thanks so much for this tutorial!
Happy to help!
hey guys just wondering, in maya 2022 how can I get the guides to get the color of the region they are in? I saw other people doing it, but I cant figure it out, but I can tell how useful it will be :)
Thank you so much !
Hey Henning, thanks a lot for the tutorial. Prolly the best beginner xgen tutorial on UA-cam out there. I just came across one problem and I don't really know if its a bug or am I doing something wrong but after the groom if I scale the model and refresh the hairs, it shows that the guides have scaled down too but when I try rendering it, it shows the previous unscaled hairs. Thanks in advance for the help.
sorry! i have a problem that i can't select the single direction of the hair by dragging select
Wonder if you so work with governed fibermesh in zbrush first if that will help?
Question what are the guided snapping to? Just the normal surface or the uv shell? I just want to know if the mesh's resolution matters prior to starting
You rescue me everyday! Thanks!! Maybe you can help also with this problem:
What is wrong if you can see the guides, the hair in the arnold render, but in the viewport the hair isnt visible although you press the "eyebutton"?
Ah never mind! I found the problem: you have to turn off "use default material"...
34:15 rendering
awesome, thank you very much for content
you guys are so great!
Do you guys like this method over the interactive sculpting option?
YOU ARE EPIC MY MANS
the preview tool isnt working for me, doe anyone have any clue as to why?
good video. Thanks
When doing this with a character should you create a seperate scalp first?
Yes - thats a generally a good idea. You dont technically have to, but it makes it a lot cleaner.