A useful hairstyle reads clearly before it has fine detail. Work in passes: cover what needs covering, establish the broad shape, add a few smaller locks, then finish the edges. This is one practical method, not a required four-layer preset.
Plan four placement passes
Choose reference images for the front, side, and back. Mark the parting, direction of growth, and the outline you want. Then prepare source bundles with different jobs.
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| Pass | What it solves | Useful source hair |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Unwanted gaps showing the scalp. | Broad, relatively dense bundles. |
| Main shape | Volume, parting, fringe, and silhouette. | Readable locks with the intended flow and taper. |
| Smaller locks | Overly uniform surfaces and repeated card edges. | Narrower variations of the main bundles. |
| Flyaways | Very hard edges at the hairline or silhouette. | Sparse bundles with a few clearly visible strands. |
Make these in Hair layers and bake them into the atlas. A texture bundle can be reused by many placed cards; you do not need a unique source layer for each card on the head.
Cover the visible scalp
- Choose a dense source bundle in Groom.
- Draw broad cards that follow the local flow of the hairstyle.
- Keep roots close to the head without pushing cards through the surface.
- Orbit the head and fill unintended gaps, leaving any deliberate parting visible.
This pass is an underlayer of cards, not an automatically generated scalp cap. A separate painted scalp or cap mesh, if your character uses one, belongs to the character's wider workflow.
Establish the main shape
Place the locks that define the hairstyle: the fringe, crown, side sections, and back. Work from your reference rather than filling every available surface.
Review broad coverage before adding small locks and flyaways. This unfinished main-coverage study deliberately exposes gaps and stepped ends to fix; it is not a finished hairstyle or a recommended hairline.
- 1Judge the broad crown flow
The unselected cards sweep over the crown toward the side. Check the outside shape without selection handles hiding it.
- 2Fix coverage before adding details
The front openings and stepped ends remain visible in this study. Adjust overlap and the base shape before using smaller detail cards.
- Use Draw Strips for a new lock and Redraw Strip to change its path.
- Use Width Size to control fullness and tip taper.
- Use Twist so the card reads from the important camera angles.
- Check front, side, and back silhouettes after each small region.
Stop this pass when the hairstyle is recognizable without flyaways. If its main shape is wrong, extra detail will not fix it.
Add smaller locks
Add narrower cards only where the main form looks too regular. Vary the paths and lengths while retaining the overall flow. Use a separate groom block when you want to review this pass on its own.
Fill Gap (Shift+G) can add cards between compatible boundary cards. Redraw Strip edits an existing card; it does not create a new secondary lock.
Keep overlapping surfaces slightly separated and inspect from the side. There is no fixed spacing value that works for every head size or hairstyle.
Finish with flyaways
Choose sparse source bundles and place a few wisps at the hairline, parting, crown, or outside the silhouette. Add them where they change what the viewer sees, not uniformly over the whole head.
Zoom to the intended viewing distance. If a flyaway disappears immediately, check its source thickness and Alpha before adding many more cards. If the outline becomes fuzzy or cluttered, hide this pass and add back only the useful wisps.
Keep the project organized
Use source layer names such as Dense base, Main wave, andSparse wisp. Use groom blocks for placed regions or passes such asBack coverage, Fringe, and Hairline detail.
These are different kinds of organization. Source hair layers build the textures; groom blocks contain cards placed on the character. Root groups within a source layer are not a replacement for the groom's placement structure.
Save a project version before a large layout or styling change. Use isolation to work in a dense area, then restore the whole groom before judging the result.
Review before adding more
- Does the main shape match the reference from the important angles?
- Which cards make no visible difference when hidden?
- Do repeated textures or identical card widths stand out?
- Are there gaps, floating roots, or intersecting surfaces?
- Does the hair still read at its final viewing distance?
Use the project or destination application's limits rather than a universal card-count target. Make a test export early and check it in the scene where the hair will be used.