Mastering Guide Distribution in Ornatrix 9: The Create Brush Pipeline (3ds Max Tutorial Part 3)

 Introduction: The "Bald Spot" Problem

One of the most common issues in 3D hair grooming is uneven density. When you create your initial guides from the mesh, you often end up with gaps or "bald spots" that ruin the final interpolation.

Many junior artists try to fix this by manually creating single guides and dragging them into place. Stop doing this. It leads to "crossing" artifacts where the new guide doesn't match the flow of its neighbors.

In Part 3 of my Introduction to Ornatrix 9 series, I am going to show you the engineered approach using the Create Brush pipeline.



The Workflow: Math Over Manual Labor

Here is the breakdown of the techniques demonstrated in the video:

1. The Plant Tool
Instead of guessing where a guide should go, use the "Plant" tool. It calculates the vector interpolation between two selected existing guides. This ensures that the new hair root inherits the exact direction and curvature of the surrounding flow.

2. Strand Interpolation (Critical Step)
At 00:48, you will see me switch the interpolation mode in the Edit Guides modifier to "Strand". Do not skip this. By default, the software might use linear or barycentric interpolation, which can result in stiff, straight guides. "Strand" mode forces the new guide to respect the complex curves of the parents.

3. Layering with Groups
As your groom gets denser, it becomes impossible to comb without messing up the layers underneath. In this lesson, we assign the upper hair layer to Group 4. This allows us to use "Isolate Selected" to refine the surface shape while keeping the volume structure intact.

Hardware Spotlight: Real-Time Grooming

Grooming is resource-intensive. You need single-core speed for calculations and massive GPU power for viewport anti-aliasing.

This tutorial was recorded on my MSI Titan 18 HX AI.

Thanks to this setup, I can use the brush tool on thousands of interpolated guides with zero lag. The RTX 5090 handles the viewport smoothing effortlessly, allowing me to make artistic decisions instantly without waiting for the frame to update.

Conclusion

A clean guide topology is the secret to a realistic simulation. Take the time to "plant" your guides correctly, and the rest of the grooming process will be smooth sailing.

If you found this helpful, check out the full playlist on my YouTube channel.

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