Blender 4’s Geometry nodes hair system my first look

I used to work on small projects that required creating digital hair. I typically used software like 3Ds Max and Ornatrix and within Cinema 4D the native hair system (see the tiger cubs in the previous post). These tools are quite good for making hair, and there’s now-a-day also an Ornatrix plugin available for Cinema 4D.

Now that I’m shifting more towards using Blender, I wanted to check out their new way of creating hair using Geometry Nodes. In the past, in Blender, we used a particle system for hair, but this new geometry nodes system offers more flexibility and creativity.

For my first attempt, I decided to create hair for a cute little creature. I found that the new system is stable and quite fast. To make things easier, I used a preset for fur and added just a few curve guides to help style the hair’s direction. On top of the fur system I added a secundairy system for the more spikey parts by using the clumping and frizz nodes.

I’m excited to see how this system performs when I animate the character and deform the mesh. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting journey!