Creating lifelike hair

Realistic hair has always been hard for a computer to simulate and despite huge advances in software, it’s still a complicated business. Feature films like Monsters Inc. and Brother Bear demonstrate what’s possible these days, but who’s got two years to spend on perfecting the technique? Shave and a Haircut is a powerful 3D plug-in that has a cult-following among animators. Developed by Joe Alter, this rendering system for creating all types of fur and hair plugs right into Cinema 4D or Maya and has been used in films such as X-Men 2.

While a plug-in such as Shave and a Haircut makes the hair-creating process a lot easier, the styling and rendering of realistic hair still remains an involved task for you and your computer. Luckily, we have some handy guidelines to help you follow this process, but we have to assume a certain degree of experience with Cinema 4D's most basic tasks, as well as some basic knowledge of the Shave Editor. In this tutorial we use Cinema 4D R8.5 and Shave 2.5, though most things work similarly in any version.