HairWorks Viewer - ERROR: hair asset does not have growth mesh face

Vincent_Lo · January 27, 2017, 12:11am

Hello,

I’ve been trying to get an .apx file exported correctly from Maya 2016.5.
However, when I bring the .apx file into HairWorks Viewer, it gives me the following error:

“ERROR: hair asset does not have growth mesh face. At least one triangle is needed.
ERROR: LoadHairAsset() - Hair asset descriptor is not valid.”

Here are the steps I took…

In my Maya file I have a simple rig.
I created a growth mesh and bound it to the same rig that has my graphics mesh.
I drew out some CV curves as my guide curves and grouped them.
I selected my growth mesh and selected in the Menu, HairWorks → Create Hairworks.
I clicked “Pick Guides” then picked my group that has all my curves.
I finally used Export All… with the HairWorks file type.

What step am I missing?

To create my hair curves, I just used the CV curve tool to draw out some curves. Is that okay? Do I HAVE to use Shave and a Haircut and go through all those steps to generate my curves? I noticed in the tutorials that any splines that were generated from the Hair tools were eventually converted to curves anyway, so I figured just drawing the curves out by hand would work the same way.

As there something wrong with my growth mesh…?

Thanks in advance,
-Vincent

Vincent_Lo · January 31, 2017, 5:20pm

I figured it out. Apparently, you need to have a guide curve for every single vertex in your growth mesh.

As a test, I created a cube with a joint, skinned it, created 8 guide curves (one for each vertex), and exported all as a Hairworks file. I brought the Hairworks file into Hairworks Viewer and I didn’t receive the error anymore.

I could see the cube and hairs.

I didn’t realize you needed BOTH a skinned growth mesh AND a guide curve for every vertex on the growth mesh. Once I got those two things down, I was able to import my Hairworks files into the viewer without any errors.

-Vincent

viennapitts · February 1, 2017, 11:28pm

Hi, I’m not having that same issue but maybe something similar. I’m trying to export my FBX and APX files from 3Ds Max, however I consistently get this weird thing where my growth mesh is way too big and doesn’t match the graphic mesh as it does when I view it in 3ds max. I’m a mid-level noob with this.

You can see in this screenshot that the growth mesh is way off. I also experimented with Manjaladon and as you can see in the screenshot, the growth mesh is much bigger with the graphic mesh of the manjaladon nested inside.

azrarmedia · August 28, 2019, 6:19am

Hi, How you created 8 guide curves on x gen