Hi, I'm working on a game, and I want a feature to control the dispersion of the card issuing model to achieve a lower face count, I want to have more segments in the curve bend and fewer faces in the straight curve.

Hi. There are a few things you can do: 1. Change the color of the CVs in Maya (Windows->Settings/Preferences->Color Settings->Active->Highlight Components). I find that white color works very well. 2. Enable Advanced Visibility in the Curve Control Window: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/advanced-visibility.html 3. Change the default curve thickness in the GS CurveTools->Options->Global Curve Thickness: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/options.html#global-curve-thickness 4. Use X-Ray mode from Maya. I hope this helps. Cheers!

Hi, The most likely cause of this issue is that you accidentally (or intentionally) cleared the construction history of the entire scene. GS CurveTools uses node connections (history) to make the cards procedural and dynamic. When you clear the history, it deletes all the nodes and their connections, leaving only the curve and the geometry behind. You CAN clear the history on the curves themselves, but not on the scene, geometry or groups. Only ever use this: Edit -> Delete by Type -> History. Never clear the history of the entire scene when you work with GS CurveTools. As for how to solve this there are two possible ways: 1. You can just use Curve Card command on the "broken" curves to get the geometry back. This will generate new geometry, so make sure to delete the old detached one. It will inherit most of the parameters (twist, orientation, etc.) from the original objects as those parameters are stored on the curve itself. You will have to apply the material again. 2. Use a backup file if you have one. I hope this helps.

Hi. What do you mean by "clipping"? If you mean the cards are intersecting and it is visible - it can be fixed by repositioning the cards a bit. However, intersections are unavoidable and good-looking hair cards will always have them. They add randomness and complexity. You just need to make sure there's no visible seams, like when you intersect two cards right on top of each other. Also, check your normals. If you use two-sided lighting in Maya, make sure everything is set up properly in Unreal as well. There's also camera "Far/Near Clip Plane" in Maya that can cause clipping when you go too far from the mesh.

Hello, When you use Bind it will keep the original card/geometry deformation when attaching it to the curve. That is intentional, as you can bind various shapes to a curve (braid, clump, etc). So no, you can't attach a deformed geometry to a curve and expect it to be somehow straightened in the process. More about Bind here: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/bind-unbind.html Cheers

Hi. You can use the Width Curve Graph to modify the card along the curve, similar to Twist Curve Graph: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_images/twist-curve-graph-demo.gif gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_images/curve_width_demo.png gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/attributes.html However, you can't scale the CVs themselves to achieve this effect, you need to use the provided graph.

@@GeorgeSladkovsky is this control point specific? Or does it scale the whole curve thank you

@@francisconikotian2326 It has its own control points. Basically, the Graph represents the entire length of the curve and depending on where you put your control point on the graph (or tweak the existing one) it will change the width of the geometry card in that spot along the curve. I hope this makes sense.

You can change the UVs horizontally or vertically: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/uv-editor.html#select-move-rotate-scale-and-draw

If you are trying to resize the card itself - use "Width" slider or "Width Curve Graph": gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/attributes.html#main-attributes

@@GeorgeSladkovsky Thank you very much for your answer, it helped me! But it would be nice if you added one slider that is responsible for scaling the entire card. It takes quite a long time to jump from one menu to another to set up scaling. But thanks anyway!

Hi. No, it has no diffuse, alpha or normal map material built in. You will have to render them yourself. You can do that easily with X-Gen in Maya or use some third-party program to do that. You can even hand-paint the hair textures, as some people do for stylized work.

Thank you dear for replying and I will buy it soon :)@@GeorgeSladkovsky

Hi! To bind something you need to have two things: 1. A regular Maya curve (that you can create using Create -> Curve Tools -> Pencil Curve Tools or any other tool from that menu) 2. One or multiple cards/tubes created in GS CurveTools. You select both the "empty" curve from Maya and the curves from GS CurveTools and click Bind. This will bind those Curves (and their geometry components) to the "empty" curve from Maya. Here's the online documentation on the topic: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/bind-unbind.html

@@GeorgeSladkovsky i figured it out! i was using a saved template for a different maya scene, somehow binding was not working, but it did with a new card set created from the start.. i dont know if it's a bug or if i didnt export it properly.. thank you anyway

This might be a bug. I will check it. Thanks!

Hi. You need to enable Advanced Visibility in the Curve Control Window. gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/advanced-visibility.html You can also use X-Ray mode in Maya to see your curve better.

thank you!! much better@@GeorgeSladkovsky

Hello! The best way to optimize the hair after it is finished in Maya is to use Maya's built-in Reduce function (Mesh -> Reduce). It will keep the UVs intact and do exactly what you are asking, removing polygons where there's straight planar hair cards and keeping the curvature on other parts. You can also choose the target poly count, or percentage of polygons removed. This function is much better than any other optimization tools I've tried, so I highly recommend it.

@@GeorgeSladkovsky Thank you. That's a big help

@@GeorgeSladkovsky I tried your method, although it is useful, but the effect is not so controllable, so I still hope to have a perfect control of the hair density function.

Hi, The error indicates that what you selected is not the correct curve. Maybe you accidentally duplicated one of the pathCurves and didn't notice (Ctrl+D). Please make absolutely sure that what you are trying to mirror is the Warp/Extrude Card/Tube.

Best way to check is to create a "fresh" Warp Card and try to mirror it.

@@GeorgeSladkovsky I have tried and it does work with a new warp card, I also cleaned every control curve that was duplicated. After that, I tried to mirror individual hair cards, some mirror and some won't for some reason. I appreciate your help, I will probably try to re-make the other part from scratch

Hey. Yes, all you need is to increase the Scale Factor in the Options -> Scale Factor and Precision: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/scale-factor-and-precision.html#scale-factor-and-precision This will only change the new cards, not the old ones.

Hi Samuel, You can manually adjust the UVs on the geometry; however, I will warn you that some of the procedural functionality will stop working properly after that. Length Divisions (and Auto Divisions) and Width Divisions will not work after the adjustment. So, how do you do that? Option 1: 1. You enable the geometry selection on the layer where your card is. Hold RMB on the layer and select Toggle Geometry Edit: gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/layers.html#marking-menu 2. Select the geometry card directly and use Maya UV editor to adjust the UVs. Option 2: 1. Create a normal maya geometry card in the shape that you want. 2. Adjust the UVs normally (Maya UV editor) 3. Bind the card to an empty curve using Bind. All these options are trade-offs, as you will inevitably lose some functionality this way. However, in some specific cases those options can be quite handy. Cheers!

I did try converting my haird cards into curves using Geo to Curve but that still rectangularize them, what you mean Binding the card to an empty curve using Bind? Specifically what do you mean with empty curve? @@GeorgeSladkovsky

Empty curve means just the regular maya NURBS curve without anything attached to it. Bind is just a function used to bind geometry or other procedural cards to a single curve to create clumps. gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/bind-unbind.html Geo to Curve will not work with custom UVs, it will approximate them to the rectangles during the conversion. gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/edge-to-curve-card-to-curve.html

Check your material setup. It is important to have compatible texture formats for both color (diffuse) and alpha texture files. Currently supported formats are: PNG, JPG/JPEG or TIF/TIFF (LZW or No Compression) texture file is recommended. TGA (24bit and no RLE) is also supported. gs-curvetools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/uv-editor.html#material-setup Note the bit depth and compression, it is VERY important.

@@GeorgeSladkovsky Apparently it was TGA that was the problem. I re-exported my haircards to JPG and it worked for some reason. Probably had the wrong bit depth for TGA, idk - but jpg def worked. Thanks

Here's the export window of Photoshop with the correct TGA settings: i.imgur.com/dkpNVk7.png Just as an example.

@@GeorgeSladkovsky Appreciate it. I exported straight from Fibershop, didn't pay attention to if their export options had the option to export at 24. For next time I'll keep that in mind

Hi. Yes, there is a blog post about it: www.artstation.com/blogs/sladkovsky3d/EKQeW