The Braid primitive was introduced to make it easier to create pony tails, beards and any other hairstyle that might need braiding of some sort. Like with Feathers it consists of a Maya node for visual creation and the ability to import the result into a Yeti graph for rendering or conversion into Fibres for additional tweaks.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Creating Braids
Braids require an input curve which acts as the spine of the braid, so the first step is to create a curve in Maya which can eventually be rigged for animation/simulation purposes.
With the curve selected you can use the Create Braid icon from the tool shelf which will isntanciate a new Braid ndoe and you will see the default output in the viewport.
As the Braid is completely procedural you can move the input curve and the Braid geometry will update accordingly.
Once you’ve created the input curve and it’s in the shape you want, you can use Save Guides Rest Position to bake it’s current length and reference position onto the shape so the braid’s geometry maintains it’s desired shape when deforming.
Attributes
Once the Braid geometry has been created the braid can be editing via the Attribute Editor for more details.
Topology
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Diameter | Controls the overall diameter of the Braid, this also affects the number of generated fibres as the larger the overall diameter the more fibres are needed to fill the volume. |
| Density | How many fibres are created to fill the Braid volume, this is tied to the Diameter parameter. |
| Barb Base Width | Width at the base of the barb, if left at 1 the barb will use the computed packed width. |
| Step Size | The segment size for the generated fibres. |
| Length Variation | How much each generated fibres length may vary. |
| Phase | Defines the phase, or how “long” each wrap in the Braid will be. |
Attributes
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Profile | Defines the shape of the Braid profile along the length of the input curve. |
| Rotation | Controls how much the Braid components wrap along the length of the input curve. |
Curves
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Width | The overall width of the generated fibres. |
| Width Ramp | A curve used to define how the width of the generated fibres will change along the length of the fibre. |
Rendering
To render a Braid you will need to import it into a Yeti graph and use the Convert node to convert it to fibres, a second input can be used to define a base mesh to support any deformation that may be applied to the Braid. Once converted the resulting fibres may be modified with any downstream nodes.