This week, we're going to show you 10 excellent tutorials that will help you get more confident when it comes to hair creation in XGen.
Almost any Character Artist at one point has to deal with the hair creation, and discovering XGen can be a real game-changer for you in this area. So, in today's 80 Level Rating, we have selected a list of great YouTube tutorials that will help you get more confident when it comes to hair creation for characters and encourage you to get to know XGen by learning the fundamentals of working with the tool and creating your first grooms, or find out some new useful techniques that you can apply in your future works.
Let's start our today's rating with a tutorial that will be useful for those who are not yet familiar with XGen. The video is super beginner-friendly and introduces all the tools you need to know in order to get started with XGen for Maya. The in-depth tutorial covers setting up collections, creating guides, sculpting guides, using modifiers, and using XGen grooms in Arnold for Maya, and tells you how to assign shaders to your groom in XGen. The authors of the tutorial help you to get through a mess you might get into while learning all the different tools and techniques.
Next up is a cool tutorial made by J Hill, a professional Character Artist in the games industry. In the video, the author offers a step-by-step tutorial on how to create realistic CG hair using XGen. In this tutorial, you'll learn all the XGen fundamentals and see the detailed workflow of hair creation. The author teaches you not only how to create the hair, but also the brows and eyelashes, and reveals some useful techniques like the clumping technique and noise technique. J Hill explains everything in a very clear and concise way, so you can easily understand everything and incorporate the things he teaches in your workflow.
Here is one more brilliant tutorial on hair creation using XGen. The author of this video, Hadi Karimi, offers you an extensive two-hour-long tutorial explaining every little detail of his workflow. He shares the tips and tricks of how to create the hair for a character at a professional level of photorealism. The author thoroughly explains how to create long hair and even transition hair which helps the hairline look smoother and more realistic in the render.
Annabelle Sémaan's tutorial is an easy way to learn how to use Maya's XGen. The video can be useful for beginners as the author provides the instructions and tricks in a simple and clear way. She reminds viewers about setting a project and checking that the scale is correct as it is very common for those who are just getting to know the tool to forget that. This is an amazing tutorial for newbies, so if you're just starting to learn XGen, we highly recommend watching this video.
This tutorial will suit those who are already acquainted with XGen. The author will show you a very simple way of using the tool for creating abstract hair, beard, and other types of hair in Maya. The video will also teach you how to set up a nice lighting system and a background using Arnold in Maya. But if you're a beginner in using XGen, you can start learning by watching the first part of the Maya XGen tutorial where the author introduces the basics of using the tool.
The author of the channel, Daryl Obert, offers you a comprehensive Maya XGen tutorial in three parts, the first two parts of which are dedicated to hair creation using the tool. In Part 1, you will get to know how to create long hair, and Part 2 will demonstrate the workflow behind short hair creation and fur. Daryl Obert and his co-host Michael Todd discuss every step of the workflow in detail, so both parts of the tutorial are packed with a number of great tips on using XGen.
In this tutorial, you'll see the detailed workflow behind the hair creation of Marvel's Natasha Romanoff. In this hour-long video, the artist demonstrates only the start of the hair groom for the character but he shows every little step of his working process. What he gets at the end of the video is not a final version of Black Widow's hair, so you might as well check out two more parts where the author demonstrates how he creates curly hair for the character. You can find the next two tutorials here and here.
If you'd like to create a character with realistic African hair, this tutorial might be of good use. The video is beginner-friendly as it includes the first steps of setting up an XGen project and covers important settings to consider. The author tells about basic steps and adjustments in a super clear way. Plus, this is probably the only tutorial that covers African hair creation.
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create curly hair for your character. The video covers various tools needed for the creation of this type of hair including clumping, curl, noise, and more. The author provides a clear and thorough explanation making everything really easy to understand, no matter how difficult it is.
Again, if you don't want to make ordinary hair for your character, this tutorial is a great find. In this video, the author demonstrates a short breakdown of his artwork and then follows all the steps that are necessary to create dreadlocks: from concept to rendering. You'll see how to use modifiers and guides to drive the main shapes, how to convert them to interactive groom, and do the final edits.
These were our today's picks for the great tutorials on hair creation using XGen. Do you agree with our list? What channels would you have added here? Share your thoughts in the comments below and don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.