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Hair Layers

Create and organize the procedural Hair Layers that every later stage depends on: modifiers, baked texture maps, UV cards and grooming.

Stage 1 is where the hair actually comes from. Everything downstream — the bake, the cards, the groom — reads from what you build here, so it is worth organising deliberately.

Layers

Work with layers

The Hair panel has two modes: the Layers tab for the layer hierarchy, and the Root Map tab for root placement and group assignment. Use layers to keep hairstyle components — bangs, crown, sides — in separate procedural streams.

The Hair Layers panel. Each row is an independent procedural stream with its own visibility toggle, and only visible layers reach the bake in Stage 3. · select to enlarge

  1. Add a layer

    Click + Add Layer in the Hair panel to instantiate a new procedural strand stream. Duplicating an existing layer clones its settings.

  2. Set root count and radius

    Choose how many strands the layer emits and how wide the generation footprint is. The defaults are 500 roots across a 5 cm radius.

    Root Settings. Patch, hair, segment and pattern controls all feed the same generator, so changing one changes the strand distribution. · select to enlarge

  3. Choose a root pattern

    Pattern and root controls decide how roots are distributed inside that footprint.

    Pattern and root controls in the Hair panel. · select to enlarge

  4. Assign a group ID

    Group IDs from 0 to 15 let you scope modifiers later — clumping group 1 while leaving group 2 straight, for example — and they drive the ID bake map.

    Group settings. The name and the root and tip colours here are what you see in the viewport when ID debug view is active. · select to enlarge
Guides

Draw and edit guides

Roots, root maps and the modifier stack are scoped to the selected layer. Switch the viewport to 2D mode and press B for the Draw Hair Brush to paint guide curves directly on the canvas.

Draw Hair parameters in the toolbar: patch width, patch height and density govern what a single stroke produces. · select to enlarge
Redrawing a guide path. The existing strand distribution follows the new path, so you can reshape a section without rebuilding the layer. · select to enlarge
Dragging control points for finer adjustment than a redraw gives. · select to enlarge
Strand display options, for switching between the representations that make shape and density problems visible. · select to enlarge
The vertical strand toolbar, alongside the viewport. · select to enlarge
Roots and groups

Roots, groups and maps

Use the Root Map tab to paint root density and group masks. Group IDs sort strands into sets you can target individually in Stage 2.

The Root Map view. Inspect where roots actually landed before committing to a shape, since the bake reads this distribution. · select to enlarge
Width profile controls, which set how strand thickness varies from root to tip. · select to enlarge
Profile presets and reset-to-default, for getting back to a known state quickly. · select to enlarge
Shading presets. These affect how the layer looks in the viewport while you work. · select to enlarge
Per-layer or per-group shading sliders for finer control than a preset. · select to enlarge
Advanced randomness settings, which break up the mechanical regularity of a procedural layer. · select to enlarge
Reference

Parameter reference

Every control on a Hair Layer, with its range and default.

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Hair Layer & Group Parameters
Parameter Control Type Range / Default Technical Effect
Layer Name Text Input String ("Hair Layer") Identifier used in project tree and viewport overlays.
Layer Visibility Toggle Switch On / Off (On) Controls viewport rendering and inclusion in texture baking.
Group ID Integer Selector 0 to 15 (0) Assigns root strands to group IDs for modifier scoping and ID bake map generation.
Group Display Color Color Picker RGB Palette Viewport color overlay used when ID debug view or group masking is active.
Root Count Numeric Slider 10 to 10,000 (500) Sets total procedural strand count emitted across the layer root bounds.
Random Seed Numeric Input 0 to 65535 (1234) Seeds the pseudo-random generator for root jitter and initial strand orientation.
Generation Radius Slider / CM 0.1 to 20.0 cm (5.0 cm) Defines circular footprint radius for procedural root distribution.

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Hair Layer actions
Action Workflow Result Workflow purpose
Add or duplicate layer Creates a new procedural layer or clones the active layer. Separate major hair sections before applying layer-specific modifiers.
Rename & reorder Updates layer name and changes its position in the layer stack. Maintain logical organization for complex multi-group grooms.
Toggle visibility Toggles layer visibility state. Only visible layers are rendered and processed during the Bake Maps stage. Hidden layers are excluded from baked texture maps and UV card topology.