As I already had a base model created in zbrush to start from, I decided to transfer that shape to a new topology ready for animation. In this case the new topology also had a good UV, with a UDIM for the head, so it wasn't necessary to do the UV work this time. If I had to do it RizomUV is my program of choice for this task.

After hours of modelling in zbrush you can get a reasonable resemblance to the model, the hair in this case was placed just to see the features of the character better, it's amazing how much the human face changes with or without eyebrows. It is important to pay a lot of attention to the low and medium frequency shapes which is really where you get the best resemblance to the reference model.

Although it is common to project textures (like texturesxyz) on the models to achieve perfectly realistic high frequency detail, in this case all the detail is hand sculpted using different alphas and paying attention to the size and directionality of pores and wrinkles, each area of the face has its own high frequency detail. From this detail will come the displacement map.

5 separate channels have been created for each hair type: eyelashes, eyebrows, peachfuzz, bear, headhair (you can see different colours in nodegraph). In this template I have created, you can use a hybrid system of procedural and manually assisted guide creation in the areas where you need to control more detail.

In order to make the task of hair generation easier, I have created a custom HDA that allows me to control the amount of clumps and subclumps as well as a whole series of noise and shape modifiers to give a better look to the hair fibres. It has also been possible to add the headband as a guide and fibre collider to avoid unwanted intersections. Undoubtedly one of the most complex parts of the whole project.

In this image you can see the structure proposed to develop the lookdev process in Solaris. Two routes can be seen, the one on the left where all the solid surfaces are worked on and the right one where only the character's hair is worked on. In the end both end up in a custom HDA to carry out the lookdev process.

I also wanted to make it compatible with different render engines, Renderman, Arnold, Redshift and Karma. It is possible to take advantage of Hydra and the automatic replacement of materials when changing render engines. The whole lighting and camera system is controlled from this HDA.