Is there a easy way to shape mesh hair strands using nurbs

[punipe]

Hi i use Autodesk maya 2012 and I've been trying to figure out a easier way to shape my mesh hair strands using nurbs without having to manually select the nurbs vertices by hand which can become pretty tedious and time connsuming and sometimes i select vertices i don't want by accident due to nurbs having so many vertex rows.

If there is a easier way or another tool in maya to help speed up the process of sculpting/moving my nurbs how i wish with out selecting all those vertices, please do let me know as i'd rlly appreciate it.

[arton Rotaru]

The Lattice Deformer might be your friend.

[Cathy Foil]

Hi Punipe,
I haven't modelled hair yet and I just tried a few quick experiments to see if I could come up with a quick easy way to adjust individual hair strands.

You could extrude a Nurb Circle along a path.  I would extrude it as a Polygon instead of a Nurb.  With a Polygon extrusion you can edit the parameters of the extrude more like adding subdivisions in the Input "nurbsTessellate" settings.  Funny they call it a nurbsTessellate even when you extrude a polygon.

This way you can edit the path by editing the Control Vertex of the curve to easily adjust your individual position.

Another way I tried, which I think I like better, was to create a generic strand of straight hair.  Then create some joints going straight up the middle of the hair from one end to the other and smooth bind the hair strand to the joints.  The longer the strand of hair the more joints you would want.

I had to edit the weights of the hair so when I rotated or moved one the joints the hair would bend smoothly.  This was pretty easy to do in Paint Skin Weights tool by flood smoothing each joint a bit.  Once you get the generic hair to move nice save it as its own Maya binary file so you can import the hair strand multiple times.

You could also do what is called Subdivision Modeling.  With this technique you create a very low poly low rez model and it generates a nice higher rez model automatically.  Best thing is you can simply edit the low poly model and the high poly version updates automatically.

I have a few customers who use my MayaStar to rig their hair in Maya.  Next time I chat with them I will see what method they use.  Of course they may prefer to keep their modeling techniques a secret so I can't promise anything.

Hope that helps.
Cathy