MEDUSA NODES - Procedural Hair System for Blender (Beta)

IMPORTANT:
Keep in mind that this addon is not production-ready yet and has lots of issues! You will most certainly encounter some bugs. It is not a finished product yet.
Feel free to contact me via DMs on Twitter or Blenderartists.org. If you have any issues, I will try to do my best to solve them.

Medusa Nodes - Procedural Hair System for Blender

The addon features Geometry Nodes node groups, which are purposely made to achieve realistic deformations and visualization of hair.

The node groups are streamlined by the help of addon's own Medusa Nodes Hierarchy panel, where one can easily view, and edit all of the different nodes and their parameters.

For more information you can visit the blenderartists.org or documentation page. The documentation page is in progress.

You will get all of the future updates after the one-time purchase.

Check out the release notes.

Version 1.1.5 is compatible with Blender version 4.2.

Key Features

Custom Physical Dynamics Solver

A new Dynamics node utilizing a physical dynamics solver using Verlet Integration. While not entirely realistic, it provides functionality comparable to simpler game physics engines.

Freezing System

Manual freezing of generated splines (hair follicles) within the Generator now minimizes redundant calculations, providing a substantial performance boost by eliminating the need for repeated spline generation on each dependency graph update. The Freezing System extends to Guide, Noise, Curl, and Curves to Splines nodes, making the hair deformation during sculpting and procedural modeling faster.

Overview

• The addon features several nodes, including deformers such as Guide, Clump, Noise, Curl, Braid, Children, and Trim.

• Mask Groups for masking purposes, which are pretty simple but crucial in achieving realistic hairstyles in my opinion.

• The “Region” maps, also known as “Parting” maps are supported by Guide and Clump deformers. (Image Texture node should be set to Closest type of interpolation!).

• The Braid deformer is not set in stone and will improve. The fishbone braids, where side hairs automatically find the place they can feed into the main braid, are far from being perfect, but maybe some of you can find them useful. I will try to improve its usability as well, because its parameters are needlessly overcomplicated at the moment.

Addons UI

Addon has its own hierarchy viewer.

• Add Deformer button, which will add the desired deformer right on top of the currently selected deformer.

• Addon can also expose "ColorRamp" and "FloatCurve" widgets for quick access.

Nodes
Generator

Deformers

Guide

Clump

Noise

Curl

Braid

Trim

Children

Development

v1.1.5 (08/08/24):

• The operators Apply Selected Deformer and Apply All Deformers have been fixed and work as intended.

v1.1.4 (07/08/24):

• Addon is now compatible with Blender 4.2

• Braid modifier has been refactored:
  • The modifier is now overall more consistent then its previous version.
  • Region maps are now supported. Region Map coming from the Guide modifier can be used as well, if the new Use Region Map from Guide Deformer option is enabled.
  • Braid Frequency and Braid Thickness parameters are now internally tied to the guide radius. Users can manually adjust the guide radius in the Edit mode using Alt+S shortcut, to see the effect.
  • Braid Rotation Alignment to Surface Factor is a new parameter which can be used when the braids' facing direction needs to be aligned to the Emitter Geometry. It can be used in combination with the Fishbone braids.
  • Braid Root Rotation controls only the rotation perpendicular to the normal of the emitter geometry. It helps to reshape the clumps at the base of the braid without changing the braid itself.
  • Fishbone braid Sections (previously Sides) now feed into the braid more consistent with smoother transition.
  • Sections offset from Emitter Profile helps to define the offset of the strand sections from the Emitter Geometry.
• Guide modifier got two new options:
  • Distance to Guides which mimics the behavior of the equally named parameter on the blenders Interpolate Hair Curves node.
  • Direct Interpolation option enables the algorithm, which gives more control for hair styles, where long hair needs to be formed in a more precise way (Longer slicked back hair style and similar).
• Clump modifier supports twisting effects:
  • Twist parameter will rotate the hair splines along the guide.
  • Twist Profile defines the influence of the twisting effect along the clump.
  
  

v1.1.3 (03/07/24):

• Weight Paint Mask Group was added. (Not all of the parameters will support this new mask group)
• Weight Paint Mode Toggle button was added.
• Braid deformer is reverted to its pre-1.1.0 state. (The new Braid deformer requires some additional development time.)

v1.1.2 (26/06/24):

• Fixed the Surface deformation on the Curves to Splines node.
• The curves objects created by the Curves to Splines node are now automatically parented to the Emitter Geometry ("scalp" geometry).

v1.1.1 (13/06/24):

• Fixed the automatic updater.
• Fixed issue where the second clump modifier would not follow the first one.

v1.1.0 (29/02/24):

• Release Notes

v1.0.7 (22/11/23):

• Paint Mode Toggle fix. (You will encounter a warning when the initial switch happens, because no tool is selected. It looks like it is the new Blender bug.)

v1.0.6 (16/11/23):

• Addon is now compatible with Blender 4.0. Please keep in mind that the current version is not backward compatible with previous Blender versions.
• Clump deformer is now more reliable when working with Region Maps.
• Regular Curves connected to the Guides Object support masking with painted textures.

v1.0.5 (05/05/23):

• Bug when starting a new groom in the 3.5 Blender is eliminated. This makes Medusa Nodes compatible with Blenders 3.5.0 version.

v1.0.4 (06/02/23):

• Fixed bug where the Clump deformers Mask input would not get affected by the painted textures.

v1.0.3 (03/02/23):

• The new "Duplicate Groom" menu was added. Now the user is able to duplicate either the entire groom with all of its groom parts or duplicate only a specific groom part for the specific groom. Note: Older grooms will require a custom object integer property "MedusaGroom" on the main hair object to work with this new duplicate operator.
• "New Groom" pop-up menu now includes the sub panel - "Groom Data" where user can define Control Point Count, Density and Seed parameters of the groom before it's initialization. Defining Density beforehand should avoid crashes when working with larger emitter objects.
• Guide deformer now has Region Mask, for masking out the Region Map parameter. The parameter makes the deformer considerably slower, hence it should be first enabled manually.
• Addon preferences got a new updater module. Users will be able to download the latest update directly from inside of the Blender. (Requires a blender restart after the update.).

v1.0.2 (29/01/23):

• The bug where hierarchy would not update after the manual switch from sculpt or paint modes is now fixed. It was causing most of the hierarchy update issues.
• Materials are now also visible in the object's material slot. This makes Shader Editor accessible for editing. Note: when switching the material, the new material should be added to both - the hair object's material slot and the material slot of the Visualizer node.

v1.0.1 (22/01/23):

• Bug where the textures would become darker and darker with each new save action is now fixed.
• Main hair material for Eevee was not connected, it is now connected and cleaned up.
• The Logo is updated.

v1.0.0 (20/01/23):

• Release

You can submit the bugs and issues regarding the addon here:

https://github.com/ikakupa/medusa-nodes-bug-reports

Thank you for your interest and support!