Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

[ngc7293]

I am using Blender 2.78a and I have exported a character with MHX2 with default skeleton. I added hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes.

In Cycles mode I have not been able to get the hair or any of the hair items to look like hair. I have looked at a youtube video called "Blender Cycles The Fast Way" where the user was using MH 1.0.7a (I think). He showed how to use nodes to get hair to look like strands.

I have tried what he used but it didn't work. I have searched online and found what some have used to success but it hasn't worked (Invert Node, Add Node Transparent Node along with Diffuse and Material (and the image Texture Node)).

The eyelashes look more like planes. Since MH didn't provide a black texture, I made up one. I'm not sure if that is causing an issue.

I should note that everything works fine in Blender Render. But I plan to use Cycles for other things.

Ultimately, what am I missing? What is the node combination that I should be using?

[ngc7293]

I know I should wait a few days before posting again but I remembered that I should put in something descriptive. The first picture comes from my computer. An attempt with the eyelashes in Cycles mode. I got the eyes to work, but the hair, brows and lashes, not so much.

This is one attempt with eyelashes with nodes

This is one of the eye lashes suggestions that I found online. It's from a site called CG Cookie Community. Someone had roughly the same problem I am having and they suggested the below Node setup. I tried it but I couldn't get it to work.

Found online

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[loki1950]

This is the node setup that is the default from mhx2 on import for both lashes and brows works very well for me.

Enjoy the Choice

[Aranuvir]

Too slow........

[ngc7293]

Okay thanks for the reply. I tried that but as you can see no change. I used the eyelashes FROM Make Human. I have OSX and went into the contents and found the file. I notice that you have the UV editor up but there isn't anything on it. Also Image Texture is connected to UV. Does that mean it needs to be connected have a UV map?

What am I missing?

@Aranuvir, what is to slow?

[loki1950]

That is not the UV editor but just an image viewer it can show any image format the UV map it actually saved as part of the .obj file of the item that is where the Texture Coordinates node gets it's info from from your setup try playing with the roughness value of the Diffuse BSDF node you have yours at .408 while mine is 0.0 that should make each hair visible and brighter lighting will also have an effect you notice that I use image based lighting just hdr skybox from a blender addon called scenesskies.

Enjoy the Choice

[ngc7293]

Sorry, it just looked like the UV editor.
I uploaded this file. I promise I'm not making this up. I had this NOT working for a while. I had a black texture for the eye lashes (the wrong thing to use obviously) and then I used the correct thing as I tried different node set ups and they didn't work so I would exit without saving (no point)

This time, however, was different. I noticed that I had changed the eye brows with your Node setup. I went down the Eyelashes and changed to the eyelash texture and before I could change the nodes it was fixed as below.

Fixed?

This is that node setup for Hair from a youtube video. I used it for the eyebrows and it worked just fine.

I then tried it for the hair (after all, it worked in the video) but it doesn't work

I think I have had programs like this. I'm going to have to reload this several times until it works. I know it's all free but it's annoying.

[punkduck]

Hi there ...

I did the same ... I started with blender render, everything was fine (I used Z-transparency instead of raytrace for the lashed but anyway). Then I switched to cycles render and NOTHING worked. I needed two weeks to get all that running again. I googled half the internet ...

As you may see in this forum I did not gave up. I'm also using OSX and okay, I've an older version of Blender running (I've to see if I can install 2 versions of Blender on OSX, before I throw away the old one, I must be sure that the new one works correctly ... ).

Back to the topic: In the first picture a small digit "3" appears in the image texture node. Normally this indicates that you have 3 "users" of this texture. So I believe you've done Blender render and then you switched to cylces ...

So first: Simply start blender, switch to cycles before(!) you import the character ... the setup of loki1950 is created by the importer. At least I was shocked, after doing all the work, that the MH-importer does create a setup, which was better than mine in those times.

It should work for OSX, your Blender version and for MH. If not, the MH team has to do some work, then the new Blender 2.78 on OSX might not be compatible to MH (hopefully not!)

Texture: The exporter in MH generates its textures in "Documents/MakeHuman/v1/exports/textures" on my OSX. Normally all textures have different names, at least if you have not created own clothes. But since that is not a MUST there is also a chance that one texture overwrites the other. So I copy them normally in another folder and change the path of the image texture node. The path then might be accessed relatively from where I put my .blend files. This is also good when you export or exchange your work.

I hope, that I was not completely wrong with this answer --- but as I said, I did not regret working with GIMP, Blender and MH.

[Aranuvir]

[...]
It should work for OSX, your Blender version and for MH. If not, the MH team has to do some work, then the new Blender 2.78 on OSX might not be compatible to MH (hopefully not!)

MHX2 is compatible up to Blender 2.78a on Linux, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work on OSX. BTW, MHX2 is currently developed outside MakeHuman ...

Texture: The exporter in MH generates its textures in "Documents/MakeHuman/v1/exports/textures" on my OSX. Normally all textures have different names, at least if you have not created own clothes. But since that is not a MUST there is also a chance that one texture overwrites the other. So I copy them normally in another folder and change the path of the image texture node. The path then might be accessed relatively from where I put my .blend files. This is also good when you export or exchange your work.
[...]

On export you can choose or create another folder to which you want to export your model. I use this for each model to avoid texture overwriting, though it could be sometimes convenient to use the same folder if models share textures.

[ngc7293]

Thanks for the information. I am using OSX Sierra (Mini with 4gig or ram). I will make sure to have cycles running before I load my characters.

Maybe that will fix the "Bowtie hair". As I said most recently, the lashes and brows are fixed but the hair doesn't seem so. On the other hand, I tried one that you uploaded "long alpha7" and the node setup that I used took away that Star-Wars-Blast-Shield-look and the back looks fine.

The Bow tie one uses a Normal Map. I tried a Node configuration that used the Node Map but no luck......however that was before what you have just said. But I would still like to know if things like clothes and hair that use extra images Normal map, etc need an extra texture node.

Thanks again for the help