#hair tutorial

this tutorial uses:

blender 4.3

sims4studio (1.4.5.5)

adobe photoshop (optional, for step 15) you'll also need an adobe photoshop DDS plugin! download for mac | download for pc

important! you will need your own hair textures. i've uploaded 24 of my own swatches (to cover all of EA's colors) as well as a normal and specular map. feel free to use and recolor but if you make a hair for sharing and you use my texture, please credit me! DOWNLOAD (google drive)

also, the tutorial will not show you how to download and install sims4studio and blender 4.3 so make sure you already have these two programs installed.

parts covered in this tutorial: 1: making the package file in sims4studio 2: blender basics + preparing the strand 3: adding all the strands (speed meshing) 4: converting strands to mesh 5: make uv_0 - texturing the hair 6: apply vertex paint 7: apply weight paint 8: making a uv_1 map 9: decimate to lower polygons 10: import back into sims4studio and preparing the package file 11: correcting gaps in mesh 12: 1st in game testing 13: correcting mesh 14: making hat chops 15: making a shadow map 16: making LOD 1-3 additional help/tutorials: alerii's full hair tutorial (the one i followed to learn myself!)

especially recommended if you're using blender 2.79 or older

shows you how to do weight transfer from another hair and uv_1 data transfer (instead of doing the uv_1 manually)

also has some good tips on batch importing/exporting inside sims4studio

pocket-posies hair tutorials:

weight paint + here highly recommended!!!:

hat chops

other tutorials:

mauvemorn on the sims4studio' forum full guide for every step, except meshing the hair, with good explanations on why each step is needed

also, i highly recommend making a user at the sims4studio forum, to be able to ask for help and troubleshooting in the "creator help" section.

also, this tumblr post has further hair tutorial links

Step1: Get your characters

Our victims today are April, CJ and Donnie (human version from Nuclear Family)

Step 2: Draw the hair

Easier said than done, right? Dont worry, we're going slow

Step 2.1: Identify the hairline

We all have hairlines. Some are receding, some are not, theyre different shapes, but getting an idea of where hair comes from is good to know the general direction

Step 2.2: Think of the shapes

Hair tends to be divided in 3 parts: Bangs, top half and bottom half. Then theres also side burns and more complex stuff, but lets keep it simple

Its easier to think of hair in terms of general shapes and volumes than individual strands. Lets get this to our subjects

just realized maybe these werent The Best characters to choose but its too late we're comiting to it

Straight hair tends to blend in together better. If the hair has more volume, you may needa add more shapes

fuck it we adding bad hair day Leo

Step3: Lineart and color

We not gonna stop for long here because the fun part here is the rendering process

hurray

Step4: Shadows

We are gonna use the same process that we used over here, but imma focus on the hair aspect a lil more

April (very curly hair):

As mentioned, we're treating the hair as an object, a mass. This type of hair forms puffs, and you need to identify the main volumes of it. As we talked before, errase the areas that are hit by light

for the second layer of shadow, we're adding to the volume information by darkening the areas further from the light

This just helps to diferenciate between volumes

CJ (straight hair):

Exact same concept. CJ's hair is very straight and stays together a lot, so his hair is very straightforward (hah). Identify main areas stuck by light, darken parts that arent

Donnie (locs):

Same concept all over. Only part that makes locs "harder" (they arent actually harder) is the fact that, unlike the other two, locs are separated into more volumes and more strands. However, they follow the exact same logic

Leo (wavy hair):

You guessed it: same concept. Id argue this hair might be harder than the curlier types. Very tight curls, if more afro like, act like one main mass and are easier to follow, same with locs. Wavy hair is defined enough so that you needa pay more attention to the sections, but not uniform like straight hair. However, again, same logic: Identify main areas hit by light, darken parts that are not there

As you can see, all hairtypes follow the same logic. Its all about identifying main volumes and shapes and following acordingly

Step5: General Lights

First pass of light is just there to lighten up the drawing, you can check my rendering tutorial for more info, its not very important. Just a soft overlay over general areas to add faint glow

As I said, not very hair relevant

Step 6: Main Hair Highlights

Heres where things start getting interesting. First, identify the main areas where the light hits. There, add a big highlight shape (overlay, light yellow)

Now, this is a bit too harsh; time to soften it. Not much, just a lil

Now its time to errase. We wanna focus on the highlight area, and by errasing you get to focus more on the shape. With straighter hairs you follow the direction of the hair, while with curlier ones you errase away from the general shape

taking away from it helps add some volume and definition to the shape of the hair. After this i lower the opacity because I dont wanna overwhelm the drawing too much. We are slowly building layers, it helps, trust

Step 7: More Highlights

Did i mention I like highlights? Anyways, here is when we finally break from the "one main shape" mentality and add some strand-shaped highlights. This is just a few highlight strands, and just around the areas we highlighted in the previous step. We dont wanna go crazy just yet

Depending on the hair texture, these highlights will be curly, wavy, or straight

If you notice in Aprils hair, I did small curved lines, but not actual curls. Why?

in a ringlet of curly hair, only one bit of the curl is exposed to the light. This way of drawing hair is very much not defined, but we still follow this logic by implying the shape of the curl through the highlight

I like to soften these highlights too and lower the opacity again so they dont overwhelm the rest of the drawing

Step 8: Details!!

Heres where you can go crazy and have fun drawing extra individual strands. now, you needa take into account, the more you do, the messier the hair will look. If you want messy hair, you'll get a lot of flyaways. If the hair is purpesfully styled, you'll get less

The method I use is colorpick from different parts and draw the hairs with different colors depending on where they are. Its best to work from dark to light, in my experience

(reaching the image limit fuck)

April: Because here we are doing individual strands, you can go for drawing the curl shape better

CJ: His hair is slicked back and looked kinda greasy. The greasier the hair is, the more it'll clump together

Donnie: When doing locs, follow the shape of the loc with the details. I like doing details particularly with locs because it makes them seem fluffier, and I really like the look of them

Leo: His hair is freer and fluffier than Casey's, so he has a lot more flyaways

And we're finished!!

As we've seen, theres no one hair texture thats easier or harder than the other- its all practice, really, and finidng a method that works out. I've been experimenting for a while and my process isnt foolproof yet, but hopefully this can help some of yall out :D

i used to use these brushes when i had my old ts3 acc: photoshop brushes these are super good if you might be be able to draw the individual strands, now i just use 3 brushes from samdoesart patreon:

round brush: has some hard edges air brush: better for curly hair as it's soft syrup brush : i use this more for straight/wavy hair

procreate does have FREE brushes so alternatives for the brushes i use are found in: calligraphy - 'script', airbrushing - 'hard blend' & 'soft brush'.

step1: i'll gather reference on pinterest for curly/wavy hair as straight hair is more simple to draw, this help me to understand how the hair falls and where to put highlight/shadows

step2: *create new layer* pick the brush and colour pick the hair, i like a lot of loose strands and messy looking hair, start drawing your strands lightly and build up. The only thing that differs with sims 3 is that when drawing the strands i use a bigger brush size to start with then go in with smaller strands later.

step3: *create new layer* blending mode: multiply opacity: 50-60% i'll add shadows to the parts of the hair that 'bend' to add more depth. (remember shadows are never usually completely black, so if the sim has blue hair make the shadow a dark blue)

step4: *create new layer* blending mode: add. opacity 20-30%. i'll add highlight by using the selection tool and similar to how anime hair looks with the hair higlight ill add zig zag lines going around the hair, then go in with my brush lightly making the centre more intense. Once done ill get the eraser and make sure the edges aren't too harsh

step5: *create new layer* blending mode: normal (place under shadows layer. i'll add colour highlights, (for black hair i'll use a littie bit of brown as no ones hair is really completely black)

step 6: *create new layer* blending mode: add. this one is for lighting purposes. for the rest of the screenshot then i'll add extra shine to hair & add shadows to the body

step 7: once i'm done. *create new layer* blending mode: overlay and i'll go over the parts that are in the light. merge all layers together and add some grain so the hair drawing blends in with the rest of the screenshot.