Hazel Brown shows us how to create long hair in Unreal Engine 5 and Maya, sharing useful tips for achieving natural-looking waves and clumps while maintaining a balance between realism and stylization.
Introduction
I’m Hazel Brown, and I’m a Lead Hair Artist at Roarty Digital. I started my journey into 3D whilst studying Game Art at De Montfort University in the UK. I was originally working towards becoming a Concept Artist, but something about 3D character art clicked for me. I then worked as a Character Artist for five years on Dead Island 2 before switching to specializing in Hair at Roarty Digital, where I’ve worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the upcoming Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, and other unannounced titles.
I have always found myself drawn to hair after struggling with it for so long in my early career. At first, it was a persistence to get good, and eventually, it became the most relaxing and rewarding part of the character for me.
About the Long Hair Re-Render Project
I had a hairstyle like this on my to-do list for a while. There’s something about the flow and the volume that’s just so aesthetically pleasing. I had a long weekend and decided to take on a challenge for myself and see how much I could get done in a short period of time. I had recorded the process with the intention of releasing a tutorial about how to make a hairstyle like this look more realistic when the temptation would be to lean more stylized with it. I never got around to it, but I’ll hit some of the key points here!
As mentioned, I had a style like this on my reference board already, so using that as a starting point, I found other similar styles. I usually try to find different elements of different styles that I like so I can combine them.
My initial reference images are sometimes quite limited, and I pull more images as I find more questions whilst working. Sometimes, a reference doesn’t have a flow that I like, but I like the clumping or frizz on it. Or sometimes, as I work, I realize that the images I have don’t inform how the front of the hair should look, etc. Pulling references can be a fluid process.
I was careful to consider what styles were fresh out of the salon and which were more natural and “worn-in”. I wanted to strike the balance of a meticulously styled hair, but with those realistic “faults” that a salon would try to hide.
How To Achieve A Natural Look
For this style, I actually reused the textures I made during my hair tutorial. I usually advise creating a new texture set for each hair you make, as there are usually lots of nuances to consider. However, given the timeframe and the hairstyle similarities, I worked with the same textures. This is a common process for game development, too.
From there, I started my usual process using GS Curve Tools, building a base layer with the simple forms, adding a secondary layer that starts to refine the clumping, then a tertiary layer with more detailed shapes, and finally, flyaways, etc.
I saved a daily update at the end of each day, and you can see clearly how those layers developed:
Here, you can see I’m figuring out the shape and laying my groundwork. I make sure the hair is mostly solid — you can’t really see through to the head or through the main volume of the hair. I find this to be very important for creating convincing depth in the hair — we’ll use this as a backdrop for the interesting clumps.
This is the most enjoyable part of the hair for me — I’m looking for the shapes that break away from the main flow ever so slightly and create interesting clumps within themselves. I’m also creating physical space between this layer and the previous. This way, I can get nice shadows, which give the hair depth and realism. It’s a balancing act of making sure your base layer gives you the volume you need without coming out too far, which then allows you to give space to the layers and build up the rest of the style appropriately.
For a hairstyle like this, the key to bringing out more realism is making sure you don’t lay the cards repetitively alongside each other. We’re looking for faults in the perfection of the hairstyle. At this stage, I’m looking at my various references for ideas of how to create visual interest with the clumps.
By now, the hair should read as finished from a reasonable distance, similar to impressionist art. This way, you’re making sure the hair isn’t muddied with too much detail too soon.
Now we can start to add the finishing touches, gently building up flyaways and subtle clumps that come away from the flow even further. I emphasize gentle build-up, as you may find yourself getting carried away and making the hair look frizzy or muddying up the readability you crafted in the secondary layer.
Rendering & Lighting
For the initial pass at this hair, I rendered in Marmoset 3; however, for the most recent update, I used Unreal 5. I stripped back my lighting and went for a “less is more” approach. A trap I often find myself falling into is “over-lighting” my hair (and characters) because I want to show off my hard work, but this often ends up flattening the image.
Because I ensured that I left physical space between my layers of hair, the light bounces across the raised areas and instantly gives it depth and volume; had I laid the cards too close together, there would be nothing for the light to play off.
This time around, I made sure to keep the lighting simple and allow the hair to read as one full piece, rather than trying to emphasize whichever little details I felt I worked hard on; this was the benefit of coming back to the piece after a while — I was a little more detached.
I rendered using the level sequencer with a few settings for optimal results:
For post-processing, I simply made some adjustments to the levels, just to make it pop. I tend to stay away from too much post-processing in my work.
Summary
It took me around three days to complete this project. There were certainly a few corners cut, and not every area holds up to scrutiny, but it was a fun challenge to see exactly what I could get done in that time limit. As I mentioned, the second stage, where I’m adding all my interesting clumps and breaking up the flow, was the most enjoyable for me. It’s also the most rewarding, as there’s a moment when you’re confident that the hair will turn out well.
I learned the strength of presentation with this hair — as you can see with the previous version, the hair can be a great piece, but it is being held back by its presentation. Its also a nice reminder that I may be a lead, but I’m always still learning how to improve my work.
As for tutorials, I will shamelessly promote my own!
I did my best to cover extensively everything I know and how I approach hair. It has been a few years since that tutorial, so I want to create a new one that builds on that, goes into some really nitty-gritty stuff, and hopefully helps people take their hair to the next level. So stay tuned for that!