In this interview, Pixar shading and grooming artist Markus Kranzler discusses work on Hoppers after Elemental, including time in Pixar’s Tools Department, a layered approach for wet fur, and how design readability can trump anatomical accuracy when deadlines exist and the cameras cut fast.

Markus Kranzler is a Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios, with credits as a character shading and groom artist on Inside Out 2, Elemental, Turning Red, Luca, and Soul, plus earlier Pixar work including volumetric clouds on The Good Dinosaur and set dressing on Finding Dory.

Before joining Pixar in 2015, Kranzler worked in lighting, lookdev and rendering roles at MPC and Trixter, with film credits including Skyfall, Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel.

DP: Hi Markus, it’s been a while since Elemental. What did you do on Hoppers, and why the role change?

Markus Kranzler: One of the main differences was that I was working on solid characters that weren’t dynamic fluids. :D  One of the first projects I worked on this show was actually not in my department, but in the “Tools Department”. That is where all the geniuses sit that create our software, plugins and shaders.

Since a big part of the movie shows animals in and out of water, I was helping them figure out a simpler way to make fur look wet without having to adjust each character’s shader to make it look wet. We ended up achieving that by layering a wet shader on top, which then affects certain lighting lobes on the fur shader. 

Also on this show, besides shading, I was grooming some of the animals. That’s what we call creating and styling the hair or fur on a character. I had done some grooming in the past, on my graduation short “The Present”, but this was the first time I actually got to groom at Pixar. 

Another difference was that I wrapped and rejoined the show about six times. Most people come on for a single stint and move on, but they kept bringing me back for a couple of weeks at a time. This was mostly after the majority of the shading and grooming artists had wrapped, so I would help crank through new assets or tackle larger waves of fixes as they came in.

DP: With Hoppers being set in a natural environment, how did that change your approach to grooming? 

Markus Kranzler: Even though the looks are different, the characters in Hoppers are strongly stylised in their own way. For us, it’s always about looks that are believable, not necessarily physically correct. Similar to most of our movies we take nature as inspiration, but we put our own spin on it. This can affect certain departments differently from others. In this film because the story heavily depends on comedic timing, I would say that the environment had controlled detail to guide the viewer’s eyes and the characters were built out of simple, readable shapes with a tactile feel similar to felted toys. 

DP: In a stylised film like Hoppers, you’re always balancing plausible physics with deliberate exaggeration. How do you decide how “real” hair and fur should behave versus how “cartoon” it should read?

Markus Kranzler: It’s all about the story! The first question we ask is: Does it serve the story better if things behave and look more realistic, or more stylised? Then we go from there. On Hoppers, the main criteria were to make the characters look endearing, comedic, but also instantly recognisable for the fast cuts. 

DP: How much of that balance is determined by art direction, and how much do you discover later through animation and shot work?

Markus Kranzler: It is usually a very collaborative and fluid process. In most cases, we have a pretty solid foundation coming from art direction, but as we move from 2D into 3D we adjust as we explore and learn things.

DP: How early were you involved in character preparation and design decisions for the protagonists and key characters?

Markus Kranzler: On this film, I joined fairly late. So most of the key characters were already being worked on. Most workflows and the design language had been figured out at that point. 

DP: On the design side, did grooming constraints ever influence decisions like hair length, density, silhouette, or “how much the hair is allowed to move”?

Markus Kranzler: Actually, yes. I worked on the skunks, and they are a great example of such a decision. One of the main features of a skunk (besides it’s smell) is its big bushy tail. In nature, the anatomical part of the tail is very skinny and the whole volume comes from it’s fluffy fur. But simulating that would not only be more expensive, but maintaining a fluffy, instantly recognisable shape would also be trickier. So we “cheated” and increased the tail’s volume to grow the hair by quite a bit. Thereby reducing the length of the individual hair curves. 

DP: Hoppers has characters that can read as more animal-like in one context and more human-like in another, depending on the scene and how we’re meant to interpret them. Did you get explicit direction to shift the exterior presentation of characters for that? 

Markus Kranzler: The main change when we see the animals from a human’s perspective is their eyes. We called them “Dot Eyes”. Since we as humans read a lot of expressions from the eyes, that shift alone made a big enough difference. We only had to make minor tweaks to the model and grooming to account for the slight difference in that region. 

DP: Tooling question: was this largely one grooming system end-to-end, or did you use multiple systems for different needs?
Markus Kranzler: We have our own proprietary grooming tool within our in-house animation software, “Presto,” called “Pele”. We use that for both animal fur and human hair, and from there it feeds into our standard shading pipeline. 

DP: For artists trying to achieve a similar look, what are the first conceptual steps you take when approaching a new groom, for example, a beaver?

Markus Kranzler: First I need to understand the art direction. For us, the guideline comes mostly from 2D drawings. Before we start, we have a kick off meeting with the production designer, art director, and/or character designer. In that kick-off, we go over the general aesthetic of the film, who the character is and what they do in the movie, and then break apart each component.

Often we will also get some photographs of real-world examples that serve as inspiration, but we clarify what we want to preserve and how we want to diverge from reality. Once I have that understanding and reference material, it’s very similar to how one would approach a photo-realistic asset. E.g. drawing textures, placing and grooming the hair curves, adjusting the specularity, tweaking displacement etc. And you do a lot of iterations.

DP: Reference for SOME of these animals is abundant. How do you sort, filter, and prioritize reference when translating real-world anatomy into a stylised film language?

Markus Kranzler: That is a pretty common and important discussion that comes up in meetings and reviews. As I mentioned, our guideline is usually a 2D drawing, which inherently is a simplification of something by an artist. And then a shading artist like me interprets it to create a different version of it. It’s a bit like a game of telephone. Sometimes the message gets jumbled up. It does get easier with time, as all parties gain more experience in communicating and interpreting the intentions. But sometimes that can also lead to new discoveries that improve results. So it’s always a learning curve, but that makes it exciting and refreshing every time. 

DP: Looking back, do you have a favourite character to work on, and why?

Markus Kranzler: My answer probably won’t be very exciting since I didn’t work on any of the main characters, but I would say my favourites are the classroom turtle we see at the beginning of the movie. Not a lot of grooming there, but I find it adorable. And then I made a character we called “Janky Beaver”. It’s one of the prototypes of the observation robots we see in a short time-lapse. You barely notice it in the movie, but I like it because it’s a great example of the wacky humour of the film.

Elementary!

The post How Pixar Cheats a Skunk Tail first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Ephere has released Ornatrix V9 for 3ds Max. The grooming plugin expands its toolset for hair, fur, and feather creation with direct painting, interactive braiding, clump control, and viewport acceleration. The developer describes this version as “more advanced, yet also more friendly than ever.”

Painting Directly on Hair

The new Brush Textures system allows textures to be painted directly onto strands. This eliminates dependency on external maps for colour or attributes and is particularly useful for stylised or localised looks.

Guide editing also benefits from UI refinements: tool icons have been updated, channels are easier to select, and a new Show Channels Map function improves feedback when sculpting guides.

Braiding and Clump Control

V9 introduces interactive braiding—artists can now create plaits directly in the viewport rather than constructing them manually.

Clump tools gain refinements: clumps are coloured for identification, manipulator accuracy has improved, and hit-testing now considers strand width. A new UI slider for manipulators gives more direct control over strand grouping.

Modifier Enhancements

Several modifiers see targeted upgrades:

• Generate Guide Data now visualises group data and output channels.
• Mesh from Strands supports procedural textures on strand-based meshes, adds “Cap faces” for closed tubes, and improves strand group meshing.
• Merge now includes overlap-resolving blend modes when combining grooms.
• Surface Comb offers curved sinks, expanded transform control (move, rotate, scale), and orientation based on the middle sink.
• Length gains curved extensions.
• Frizz includes a “Scale Randomness” option.
• Warp Roots now allows procedural density changes.
• Adopt External Guides supports dependency assignment, critical for Unreal Engine workflows.
• Ground Strands separates distribution meshes from character meshes.
• Hair from Guides consolidates root-count settings into one map.

New presets—Feather and Hair Ball—join the groom library. Existing presets have improved icons, better node naming, and corrected strand directions.

Alembic and Interoperability

Alembic support has been reworked. The export dialog now uses Qt instead of Win32 and can write strand rotations. Export of the groom_color attribute enables compatibility with Unreal Engine’s Alembic importer.

Viewport and UI

The viewport now runs hair calculations on the GPU, significantly improving interactivity with complex grooms. Volumetric strand shadows are enabled by default with adjustable parameters.

The user interface has also been modernised: Qt dialogs replace older windows, a “reset to defaults” button has been added to settings, and modify-panel icons have been refreshed.

Pricing and Upgrades

• Users who bought Ornatrix V8 within the last six months receive V9 free of charge.
• A 50 % early-bird discount on perpetual licences applies until 1 October 2025. After that date, the discount drops to 25 %.
• Monthly and yearly rentals are available, with rental licence holders upgraded automatically.
• A perpetual license costs 649 USD per User, 5 or more will set you back 628 USD per license, and a site license (21 or more) is 12495 USD.

For Production Use

Ornatrix V9 introduces genuinely new grooming workflows, but artists should verify compatibility and stability in production contexts. The addition of GPU hair, Alembic extensions, and procedural modifiers may require pipeline adjustments. Testing in-house is recommended before deployment.

The post Ornatrix V9 for 3ds Max: Paint, Plait, Perform first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

The Hair Cards Tool for 3ds Max is aimed at artists handling haircard-based grooming setups. The tool introduces a non-destructive, modifier-based workflow for creating and editing haircards, while keeping the original splines untouched.

Haircards can be generated from splines with a single button click, and the result remains editable thanks to modifiers like symmetry, skewing and AO baking – all of which stay linked to the source. That makes it easy to iterate on style and structure without having to redo layouts. Existing splines can be preserved and reused, keeping base elements intact during adjustments.

AO baking, batch UVs and card editing

A major feature is Ambient Occlusion baking, which can be applied either to selected elements or all cards at once. AO maps are baked directly into vertex color, useful for preview shading or export. There’s also batch UV layout generation with options for packing based on length, area or vertical alignment. The UV system supports real-time feedback while adjusting card shapes.

Cards themselves can be mirrored, rotated, edited or reshaped – with visual handles in the viewport. You can also brush the UVs for finer control. Cards can be sorted by width or length and split into left/right groups automatically for mirrored hair setups.

Linkable and non-destructive workflow

One core idea behind the tool is that it avoids destructive modeling steps: instead of flattening geometry or collapsing modifiers, Hair Cards Tool keeps everything parametric. Artists can toggle between multiple configurations and edit the same haircards from different spline sources, using multiple object sets as input.

To support large-scale grooming, the tool also includes an “Edit Cards” modifier, which enables quick alignment and snapping without altering the spline setup. That allows riggers and grooming artists to work in parallel without breaking the scene structure.

For 3ds Max users, not Blender

This release is strictly for 3ds Max. It does not support other DCCs like Blender or Maya. The tool is delivered as a MaxScript-based package and runs within the 3ds Max environment. Hair Cards Tool for 3ds Max is available on ArtStation Marketplace for 39.90€ As with any grooming or rigging tool, it’s recommended to test the Hair Cards Tool in a non-critical environment before introducing it into production scenes. Compatibility, speed, and usability under real-world constraints may differ from the advertised workflow.

The post Hair Today, Cards Tomorrow: New 3ds Max Tool for Haircard Workflows first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

What is HairFlow?

HairFlow is a Blender add-on for animating hair curves, developed by Tim Masin of VICUBE Animation. It harnesses Blender’s new simulation node system to simulate hair and fur movement on characters and animals. Unlike physics setups using bones or curve deformers, HairFlow offers a non-destructive, modifier-based workflow that’s fast and direct.

At the heart of HairFlow is Blender’s simulation node technology. The add-on works directly on Blender’s hair curves—those added through the curve system in Blender 3.3 and up—and simulates them in realtime. This is not an object-level workaround. It’s direct curve simulation.

Users can attach HairFlow as a modifier, edit physics parameters live, and see the results immediately. For viewport performance, HairFlow offers a proxy hair system that lets users preview simulations at reduced strand counts while maintaining full-resolution visuals using interpolation. All of it happens in real time—so yes, that mohawk can sway while you scrub the timeline.

Physics, Please: Gravity, Wind & Goosebumps

HairFlow allows simulation of wind, gravity, and even more stylised physics effects—without touching Python. Gravity can be dialed up or down, making it possible to simulate underwater environments, space scenes, or normal terrestrial movement. Wind effects support both strength and turbulence, and work as procedural forces. Different hair sections (e.g., top layer vs. fringe) can be assigned separate settings, allowing finer control. Need frizz? There’s a frizz modifier. Need panic? Radial forces simulate shocks or goosebumps.

Two Objects, One Hair

You can attach up to two external objects to specific points on the hair curve. These follow the simulation—including rotation—making HairFlow suitable for more stylised or advanced setups, such as attaching accessories or using hair curves as rigged tentacles.

Collision That Actually Collides

HairFlow includes collision support with one main and one secondary object. These collision objects can be animated and are not restricted to static meshes. Collisions respond to the motion of these objects, helping to avoid unnatural hair clipping in animation or simulation-heavy scenes.

Interpolation and Proxy Strands

To handle performance-heavy scenes, HairFlow allows simulation of a limited number of strands—proxy hairs—and uses an interpolation algorithm to simulate the appearance of full head coverage. This allows for complex sims with acceptable realtime performance in the viewport, making it friendly to actual production timelines.

Modifier Priority: Placement Matters

HairFlow is compatible with Blender’s Surface Deformation Nodes and most third-party geometry-node-based deformation modifiers. However, modifier order matters: HairFlow should be placed at the end of the modifier stack to ensure correct simulation results, particularly when working with sculpted or animated meshes.

What It’s Not

HairFlow is not a general-purpose rigging tool for noodles, tails, or tentacles (even if it looks like it could be). It is designed specifically for animating hair and fur in Blender using the curves system. For other use cases, you’re on your own—and yes, it’s tempting.

Price and Availability

HairFlow is available for purchase on Blender Market (20$) and Gumroad (18$). Prices vary depending on platform and licensing, so have a look at the sites for your fitting match.

The post HairFlow: Bad Hair Days Are Simulated Now first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.