Ornatrix 3dsmax V9 Masks Pipeline, Episode 4: Fill Gaps with Plant Guides
How to Fill Gaps Between Hair Guides in Ornatrix for 3ds Max
In this episode of the Ornatrix 3dsmax V9 Masks Pipeline series, I, Andrew Krivulya, continue working on the back of the head. I sort the upper guides into a new strand group, fill the gaps with interpolated guides using Plant and fix the lower guides that no longer line up. If you missed it, start with Episode 3.
Sorting the upper guides
With Select by Group switched off, you can pick exactly the guides you need and hide the rest. The latest version of Ornatrix also dims everything else in the viewport when you select something, which makes this kind of work easier. I assign the new set of guides to its own strand group, in this case group 15.
Why Plant ignores your edits
Before adding interpolated guides, there is one important thing to keep in mind. Plant inside the current Edit Guides only takes into account what happened before that modifier, so the guides you moved or combed in that same Edit Guides are not considered.
How to make new guides follow your edits
- Add another Ox Edit Guides on top of the stack.
- Set Change Tracking to Strand. This step is very important.
- Go to Roots and select two guides.
- Press Plant and click between them to create an interpolated guide.
The Create brush can do the same without a selection, but in the video I continue with Plant.
Combing and refining the guides
The new guides stay in their strand group, so Select by Group still works in the new Edit Guides. I comb them with Affect Selected Only and the Legacy comb algorithm. After that, I refine each guide one by one: combing, aligning and editing the length. This part is sped up in the video.
Two ways to fix misplaced lower guides
Because the upper part moved slightly, some lower guides no longer match it. There are two ways to correct this:
- Legacy brush: isolate the guides you need, switch to the Legacy algorithm and comb them.
- Create brush: delete the problem guides, comb one guide into place, add another Edit Guides above to save that placement, then use the Create brush so new guides remember it.
The Create brush result is not always perfect, so in those cases it is better to use Plant between two selected guides. Finally, I collapse the extra Edit Guides and continue working on the bottom guides.
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