A hair card is a strip of mesh with a hair image on it. Transparent parts of the image hide the empty space between hairs. Several shaped, overlapping cards create the impression of a full hairstyle.
The parts of a hair-card project
Scroll horizontally to view all columns.
| Term | What it means in HairStorm |
|---|---|
| Source strands | The individual hairs you generate and style on the canvas. |
| Hair layer | A source bundle with its own settings and modifiers. |
| Root group | Assigned roots inside a source layer, useful for giving part of a bundle a different treatment. |
| Bake | Capture the visible source hair as texture images. |
| Atlas | The texture layout containing bundles you can reuse on cards. |
| UV card | A flat card and its texture mapping, edited in UV Layout. |
| Groom card | A card placed and shaped on the character in Groom. |
| Groom block | A way to organize placed cards into manageable sections. |
The source strands are not automatically the hairstyle on the head. You bake useful bundles first, then reuse their cards to build the character's hair.
When to use cards
Cards are useful when your character workflow calls for textured meshes: game characters, stylized hair, or assets that must be edited in a conventional mesh application.
You control their shape through placement, width, twist, and layering. The trade-off is that close views can reveal flat surfaces or repeated textures. Review the hair at the camera distances that matter to your project.
Cards are not automatically lightweight. A dense, heavily overlapping groom can still be costly in its destination scene. Test the actual asset rather than relying on a universal card-count rule.
When you need a strand workflow
A strand-based hairstyle keeps individual curves or hairs as the final asset. Choose that route when the destination needs its own strand-groom format, or when close-up motion and individual hairs are central to the result.
Choose a learning path
- I need hair textures: Follow Your first hair texture, then build a varied source collection.
- I will place cards in another application: Create the atlas and UV cards, then export the flat cards.
- I want to build the hairstyle in HairStorm: Create the atlas and cards, then follow Groom cards on a character.
You can learn the texture workflow on Free. UV card creation needs Personal or higher, and grooming on a character needs Professional or Studio.