how to draw a hair texture: a tutorial

[furbyq]

note: you will need nvidia's dds plugins for photoshop for part of this tutorial. 


step 01: create a new document in photoshop. i use one that is the same size as pooklet's standard v3 texture, as it is a good basic size for a texture. this size is w300 x h634.



step 02: change your foreground color to a bright-ish yellow color. select the line tool and make sure stroke is disabled, as you only need fill. hold down shift and draw a line from top to bottom. select the line in your layers tab and increase the line width to 4px, as holding shift to make straight lines always yields a 1px line and that's way too small.



step 03: drag your line to the very left of the document. duplicate it and change the color of it to a noticably darker shade of yellow, then drag it so that it is right next to the previous line.



step 04: repeat step 03 with differing shades of yellow across the entire document. my typical pattern is original/darker/lighter/original/lighter/darker/lighter repeated across the page. you can, of course, create this 7 line pattern and then duplicate all of the lines at once to make the process faster than placing one at a time.



step 05: merge the lines together. next, squish the lines horizontally to make them finer, like hair. rasterize the lines before merging them, or they will all turn the same color. after merging and squishing, duplicate your result enough times to fill the document back up horizontally.



step 06: merge all this stuff. for clarity, i'll refer to this layer as "base layer". duplicate the base layer. set it to soft light 50%. use the arrow keys to move the soft light layer 3 or 4 pixels to the right or left. duplicate the original again and put it over the soft light layer, set it to multiply 50%, and move it 3 or 4 pixels in the opposite direction as the last layer.



step 07: merge again. duplicate base layer again. using image>adjustments>levels, make this duplicate significantly lighter. then, flip it horizontally.



step 08: add a layer mask. fill the layer mask with black to make the lighter layer invisible. then, select a large, soft brush, change the color to white, and draw two highlights areas into the layer mask. adjust the color of the lighter layer to really contrast with the base, and blur the layer mask to blend the highlights in. (if you get weird color bleeding with the blur effect, ctrl+a to select the document and image>crop before blurring.)



step 09: duplicate the base layer again, drag it to the top of the layers, and use image>adjustments>levels to significantly darken it. add a layer mask, black out the layer mask, and use your brush to draw lines between the highlights. blur this mask as well.





step 10: hide your highlight and shadow layers, because we are about to get crazy. duplicate the base again and flip it horizontally. add a layer mask and black it out. make your brush smaller (i used 75px) and draw stripes on the layer mask. next, add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. screw with the contrast to make the lines pop, then add a hue/saturation mask to tone down the saturation.



step 11: merge these layers together without disturbing your hidden highlight or shadow layers. now copy your texture and paste it into a new document of the same size. go to filter>nvidia normal map filter and change the settings so that the following options are the only things selected.

general: add height to normal map
height generation: du/dv + min Z 0 + scale 2.2
3d view options: animate light
alternate conversions: max (r,g,b)
alpha field: unchanged

you'll end up with a funky gray/red/blue texture.



step 12: select your channels tab. if you cannot find it, go to "window" and make sure "channels" is checked. select the red channel, or whichever channel of the three is closest to the image below. ctrl+a + ctrl+c to copy this channel. then go back to layers and paste this channel onto your regular document.





step 13: use image>adjustments>brightness/contrast to make the image nearly black and white. in newer versions of photoshop, check "use legacy" to make the contrast sharper. you may need to use brightness/contrast more than once to make it look similar to mine. select one small section of the image and expand it vertically, possibly applying some horizontal squish. duplicate and horizontally flip it. copy the original or the duplicate.



step 14: return to your original image. duplicate your base layer. again. make it somewhat darker. add a layer mask. with the layer mask selected, go to the channels tab. click the eye next to the "layer mask" channel to reveal it and paste the black/white image onto this channel. then duplicate the base again. make this texture lighter. add another layer mask. go to your other document and copy the one flipped the other direction. return to your texture and go to the channel tab and paste this one into the layer mask channel on this layer.



step 15: you can duplicate and move the darker and lighter layers around to create more strand depth. it depends on how much realism you want your texture to have.



step 16: MERGE. DUPLICATE BASE LAYER. ADD A LAYER MASK. flip the duplicate horizontally. use a big brush on the layer mask to add large stripes in the same places as your hidden shadow layer. blur the layer mask to blend. set the layer to darken anywhere between 60 and 90%.





step 17: unhide your shadow layer. set it to multiply between 45 and 60%. unhide your highlight layer. duplicate it. set the lower one to divide and the upper one to soft light. at this point, i usually add a hue/saturation adjustment layer to make the saturation less harsh.



step 18: i would suggest duplicating all your layers as a backup before merging this time. then use dodge and burn to make the texture more 3d.





step 19: duplicate. add a layer mask. select the layer mask, use the selection tool + the shift button to select lines of the texture vertically. ctrl+x to delete the selected lines. blur the layer mask somewhat. use the move tool with the texture selected (not the mask) to drag it downwards. use a big soft eraser to erase the very bottom of the stretched layer. do this step again with smaller line selections. then merge this shit.



step 20: duplicate. layer mask. flip horizontally. squish vertically. draw layer mask stripes. blur. merge.




(ignore the 3, this was supposed to be a gif but i messed it up. ._.)

step 21: d u pl ic a te. tilt this duplicate a little. add a layer mask. use the select tool to select vertical stripes again and cut them out of the layer mask. blur the layer mask. duplicate this layer and flip it horizontally.



step 22: you didn't delete those original layers, right? select that really old liney texture from before. overlay it over everything at 100% hard light. merge. duplicate. soft light 20%. use a hue/saturation layer to calm the saturation.



step 23 (optional extras): use duplications and layer masks or the eraser to take care of spots that are too lined. use dodge/burn and sponge to color correct.



and here's our result! using this method seems to produce a different result every time, so try experimenting. :>