Hair and Fur vs. HAIR FARM

Modeling Hair and Fur HAIR FARM
Hair Mesh modeling (more info) No Yes (more info)
Hair modeling with brushes Yes, various brush options Yes, for short hair and fur only
Hair generation from splines Yes, interpolating two splines at a time (can produce unexpected results) or by recombing (prone to produce self intersections) Yes, individual for each spline
or by interpolating all splines together
Strand thickness Specified at root and tip only Can take any shape from root to tip
Hair styling Frizz, Kink, and Multi-Strand with a few parameters Frizz, Kink, Spiral, Curves, Cluster, Wisps, and more with many parameters that can be applied multiple times in any order to any percentage of hair strands
Units Internal units 3ds Max units
Materials Hair and Fur HAIR FARM
Simple hair material Yes, limited settings Yes, as an actual material (more info)
Realistic hair material No Yes, as an actual material (more info)
Strand color Specified at root and tip only Can be specified anywhere from root to tip with any map
Shading polygons as hair No Yes
Animation Hair and Fur HAIR FARM
Dynamics parameters A few Many
Gravity compensation
(for preserving modeled hair shape)
No Yes (more info)
Hair-Hair interactions No Yes
Adjustable simulation speed No Yes
Friction parameter No Yes
Key frame hair animation support Only for hair parameters and via animating splines used for creating hairs Supports animating the hair model with morphs, bones, and many others methods available in 3ds Max, along with animating hair parameters
External simulation support Yes, by animating splines used for creating hairs with any simulation tool that can be applied to splines Yes, by animating the hair mesh with any simulation tool that can be applied to splines and/or poly objects
Lights and Shadows Hair and Fur HAIR FARM
Directional Lights Treated as spot lights for hair shadows Yes
Shadow map for hair Yes, very limited settings Yes
Ray traced hair shadows No Yes
Shadows from omni lights Yes, but buggy in 3ds Max 2010
(sometimes works)
Yes
Skylight support Yes, without shadows Yes
Can use any object shadow type Yes Yes
Can use different shadow types on hair No Yes
Rendering Hair and Fur HAIR FARM
Rendering Speed Too slow (more info) Lightning Fast! (more info)
Hair Rendering Method Line segments Curves and ray tracing
Multi-Core computing for modern CPUs Only for some tasks in 3ds Max 2009 and above Yes
Compositing After scene rendering (can produce artifacts) During scene rendering (no artifacts)
Ray Traced Reflections/Refractions Yes Yes
Ray traced Hair Rendering
(useful for fish eye cameras)
No Yes
Motion-blur Not working Yes
Antialiasing Oversampling
(Slow and requires parameter adjustment)
Automatic
(Fast and always high quality)
Transparency Fake with multiple passes and SLOW Fast and correct transparency from material
Mental ray support Hair primitives and post compositing buffer Hair primitives only
Plugin renderer support Yes Yes
Depth of Field No Hair Farm's high quality DOF
Render Elements Hair-only, no settings Alpha, Hair, Shadow, Velocity, and Z Depth
Export Hair and Fur HAIR FARM
Hair strands to poly object Yes, with no adjustable settings Yes, with various settings
Hair strands to splines Yes, with no adjustable settings Yes, with various settings
Animating hairs to poly object No Yes, with various settings
Animating hairs to splines No Yes, with various settings

* We are devoted to keep this comparison 100% accurate. If you notice anything that is not accurate or that is debatable, please contact us at info@hair-farm.com and help us keep this comparison accurate.

IMAGE/VIDEO GALLERY
A collection of cool images and videos produced by Hair Farm users.
REGISTER FOR NEWSLETTER
Learn about important announcements regarding Hair Farm and related news. View our privacy statement.
us on facebook.

Visit our facebook page. Get updates about Hair Farm by liking our page.