Texturing hair and fur

Sample hair materials

• You can download from here some nice fur and hair materials to start with (all material files are compatible with Maxwell 2.7.20 and above): 

Name	Sample	Material file
Blonde hair		blonde_hair_MXM.zip
Giraffe fur		giraffe_fur_MXM.zip
Leopard fur		leopard_fur_MXM.zip
Tiger fur		tiger_fur_MXM.zip
Zebra fur		zebra_fur_MXM.zip
Generic fur (the one described in the example below)		generic_fur_MXM.zip

For most situations, a simple lambert textured material for fur is sufficient, with maybe the addition of a shine BSDF to provide a shiny-greasy look. But an essential element to provide a natural look is the texture. Natural hair has different colors both across the surface and along the fibers. Maxwell allows you to apply both texture maps to your fur/hair using two UV channels: 

• Channel 0: defines the UV along each fiber length 
• Channel 1: defines the UV across the object surface 

Mapping root to tip

To produce a hair that varies its color along the fiber length, create a texture map containing the root-to-tip color variation you want and map it on the Channel 0. Only the first column of pixels will be considered, so you could even use a 1x500 rectangular image, but we recommend using square textures for easier visualization. 

A texture applied on Channel 0 to define the hair color along the fiber length

The root-to-tip texture is read vertically (only the first column matters)

Mapping surface

To produce variations in the hair color across the hair surface, create a texture map containing the color variation you want and map it on the Channel 1. 

A texture applied on Channel 1 to define the hair color across the surface

Blending two surface maps with a root to tip gradient

Real hair varies not only along the length or across the surface, but in both at the time, so the next step would be mapping the root colors across the surface and the tip colors across surface as well, to get a more complete result.

How? Easy, just create a material with two layers: one with the root texture and another with the tip texture, and use a mask to control the visibility of the layer above: 

• Layer 2: tip material using a texture map for the distribution of the tip colors across the surface (on Channel 1) 
• Layer 1: root material using a texture map for the distribution of the root colors across the surface (on Channel 1) 

And can use a gradient greyscale map as an opacity mask as a Layer weight (applied in Channel 0), or by lowering it's weight value from 100 to 50 for example. 

A two-layers material applied to assign different color maps for root and tip