Tips and tricks for creating dynamic hair mods (1 Viewer)

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Hello

If you haven't already done so, read K Konashion 's Dynamic Hair Tutorial first.

Drawing dynamic hair mods is pretty straightforward, it just requires patience, but small errors often spoil the best mods.
Here are a few tips to make the process easier and quicker:

1. Draw the half-circles quickly and neatly
2. Cut your segments cleverly
3. Use settings to your advantage
4. Position dynamic hair layers through trial and error

 

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Draw the half-circles quickly and neatly​

In his tutorial, konashion explains a quick method for drawing the half-circles at the top of segments using the Selection Tool (default shortcut V) and scaling them manually.
But you'll soon discover that they are frequently misplaced, making little dents.
To avoid this, it is better to use coordinates to place your half-circles, so they'll be perfectly located and sized.
You'll even see after a few tries that this method is faster than the manual one.

1. Go into the segment symbol.
2. Add a layer above the one containing the hair and lock the hair layer.
3. Drag the Quarter Circles symbol located in the Helpers folder of the library and break it apart (Ctrl+B).
   
   
   
   I find it helpful to change their colour to sky blue or bright pink, so they stand out on the hair colours.
   
   
4. Draw the centre line (0.1px wide), as explained in konashion's tutorial.
   
   
5. Draw vertical lines (holding Shift) downwards at each corner of the shapes.
   
   
6. Open the Properties panel, select a vertical line and copy its X value.
   
   
7. Select the appropriate half-circle.
   • For half-circles on the left of the centre line, paste the X value in X, Y, and L/H (you'll need to remove the minus sign for the L/H value, L and H values should be linked).
     
     
   • For half-circles on the right of the centre line, put 0 for X, paste the X value and add a minus sign to it for Y, and paste the X value in L/H.
     
     
8. Repeat for every half-circles.
   
   
9. When they are all drawn, copy and paste them into the layer containing the hair, fill them in with the corresponding colours, select everything and delete the lines by giving them no colour.
   
   
10. That's all, your half-circles now correspond perfectly to the hair segment below.
    Change the layer containing the half-circle lines to a Guide, as it may be useful in later editions.

 

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Cut your segments cleverly​

Hair strands divided in segments is the base of how dynamic hair works. As konashion said, dividing a strand in three to five segments usually work well (for shorter strands, you may only need two, or even one).
But if they're going to be similar in size, there's no need to make them exactly the same height.
You can eyeball it, and even make the cut a bit higher or lower to use the shape of the strands to your advantage.

As dynamic segments require half-circles at their top to dangle seamlessly, it works fine if the strand thins downwards (i.e. V-shaped).

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But sometimes, it is the opposite (i.e. the strand is A-shaped).
Then, the sides of the half-circles will overlap the segment above, making bulges like this:

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This example is a bit extreme, but it clearly shows the issue.

Here are some ways to avoid this:

1. Trim the half-circles​

1. Make the layer half-transparent in the desired symbol (Shift-click the visibility icon of the layer in the Timeline).​
2. Draw a 0.1 px line where the half-circles meet the outline of the segment above to create anchor points in the correct positions:​
   
   
   
3. Move the lines so that they line up with those of the segment above.​
   

This method is the fastest, but it is not perfect, because even if the bulges have disappeared, the outlines of the hair strand will look broken when they move.

2. Cut the segments differently​

It may be better to cut the segments only in the V-shaped sections, leaving the A-shaped sections in one segment:

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3. Use the hair spikes​

The best method – although not applicable everywhere – is to use spikes along the sides of the hair, leaving them in the upper segment to hide the half-circles:

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This is Rikku's hair from the base game (I've replaced the shade and highlight colours with the fill one to give a better view in the middle and right images).
Notice how the left spikes of the upper segment hide the junction between the segments.
This can also be done in V-shaped sections, to create more realistic hair movements, as konashion did here at the bottom of the second segment.

 

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Use settings to your advantage
​

All dynamic hair layers have additional settings that are often overlooked, but that can help you make better looking hair mods.
They are located in the Action panel, in the individual Settings of each dynamic hair 'templates' (i.e. symbols).

Three of them can be useful in specific situations (remove the // at the beginning of the line to enable them):

1. var damping:Number = XXXXX;
   Damping: Movement amount multiplier. Smaller numbers mean the hair moves less. Range: 0–1. Default: 0.595.
   This is how much all the segments of this part of the hair will swing.
   Zero or negative values do not mean that this part of the hair will not move relative to the others, but that these segments will not move relative to their registration point. Meaning that they will remain perfectly vertical, but will still rotate around the top segment registration point.
   • Reducing this value can help if the strand of hair looks broken when moving too much.
     It will still be dynamic, as it will still move relative to the rest of the hair and the head, but it will appear straighter.
2. var topDamping:Number = YYYYY;
   Top damping: Additional damping multiplier for the first hair section. Useful for hair strands where the top needs to stay fairly still. Range: 0 - 1. Default: 0.25.
   This is how much the top segment of this part of the hair will swing.
   Here again, zero or negative values will cause the segment to remain perfectly vertical relative to its registration point, while still moving relative to other parts of the hair.
   • It can be useful to limit the movement of the upper segment of a strand.
     Even if the lower segments move more, it will make the whole hairstyle look more harmonious.
3. var gravityAngle:Number = ZZZZZ;
   Gravity angle: Adjusts the direction the hair will fall, in degrees. Default: 0.
   • This is very useful for angled strands, as it is very difficult, if not impossible, to draw the half-circles if the edges are not close to the vertical. Here is an example:
     1. This strand, highlighted in cyan, points to the left, so it is preferable to rotate it vertically.
        
        
     2. It is best not to do this manually, as the angle value will be useful later on.
        Use the Rotate function in the Transform panel (CTRL+T, or look in the Window tab if you don't have it in your workspace).
        
        
     3. Find the right value by trial and error, note it down somewhere for later, and cut your dynamic segments as usual.
        
        
     4. When your hair strand is ready, import its template/symbol in the Main stage, and go into its Settings in the Action panel.
        Remove the // before var gravityAngle:Number and put the angle value you chose earlier (angles can be negative).
        
        
     5. Now, this strand will swing in this direction.
        It will probably still not be in the right position relative to the rest of the hair, so we will see how to fix that in the next post.

Note that this applies to Vanilla mods (and therefore obviously also to Loader mods).
stuntcock designed Dynamic Hair Extender that works only with the Loader, which allows more precise control of dynamic segments, but I cannot help you with that as I have never used it. Rudimentary documentation can be found here.
Bear in mind that it is very complex to use, as even stuntcock encountered challenges working with it. You will not be able to get any help from him, as he has not been seen since 2018, and no one around here has in-depth knowledge of this add-on.

 

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Position dynamic hair layers through trial and error​

A known issue when creating dynamic hair mods is that the placement of dynamic symbols in Animate does not match their position in the game, but appears lower.
You will have to try placing them higher in Animate so that they are positioned correctly in the game.

I have run some tests, but I cannot draw any definitive conclusions, as the symbols seem to change position in the game if they are modified in Animate (without changing the position of their registration point).
You can try placing the segments 8 pixels higher in Animate, but this may not work.

This is a bit strange, and is probably why konashion has not fixed it.

You will need to experiment a bit before finding the right position...
Welcome to the world of SDT dynamic hair modding!

 

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There is much more to say, but I have tried to keep it concise.
If you have any other tips on creating dynamic hair, feel free to share them below.

In any case, the best way to create good mods is to try, make mistakes, and try again (and again!).
You'll discover what works and what doesn't, as well as how you prefer to work.

Good luck, create great dynamic hair mods, and share them with us!