---
title: "Shading Hair"
canonical: "https://documentation.chaos.com/space/VBLD/117639838/Shading%20Hair"
format: markdown
---
This tutorial shows you how to shade hair particle systems with the V-Ray Hair Next Mtl. Overview The V-Ray Hair Next Material is designed for rendering hair and fur. Its settings provide a workflow based on the physiology of real hair.  See the  Hair Next Mtl  page for more information and examples . In this scene, the hair is created using a baked Particle System of a Hair particle type.  Steps 1 Initial Setup We will be shading the  Monster_Body  geometry's hair. You can find it under the  Fur  collection in the Outliner. Select it and expand the Editor at the bottom of the viewport. Set the Editor type to the  V-Ray Node Editor . Then, switch it to the  Shader  node tree. Click on the  New  button to create a new V-Ray Mtl in the editor. Optionally, you can rename the material for ease of use. Proper naming is a good habit to develop. You can rename any item in the shader from the field at the top of the V-Ray Node Editor. 2 Create the V-Ray Hair Next Mtl In the V-Ray Node Editor, delete the automatically-created V-Ray Mtl. Then, using  Shift + A  open the  Add  menu and search for V-Ray Hair Next. Add it and connect it to the  Material  input of the  Material Output  node. 3 Set Material Properties In the  General Properties  of the Hair Next Mtl, set the following properties: Set the  Melanin  value to  0.050 . We want the hair to be a bit brighter, as we will be dying it in a dark purple color, and the default melanin value will make it too dark. Set the  Dye Color  to  HSV: 0.670, 0.850, 1.0 . Set the  Diffuse Color  to  HSV: 0.646, 0.521, 1.0 . The  Glossiness  needs to be a bit higher than the default, set it to about  800  to give the hair an artificial look.  As the hair on the toy is not very long, reduce the  Highlight Shift  to  1 . This will move the highlight closer to the root of the hair, making sure we see it in our case. In the  Tint  rollout, set the following properties: 4 Final Render This scene has preset render and camera settings. You can explore them if you like. You can start a render from a number of places, mainly in the  Render Properties  tab, or from the  V-Ray Menu . You need to start a Production Render to get the best result. Here is the final result. The V-Ray Hair Next material has allowed us to realistically recreate the artificial hair on the monster toy. Feel free to explore other options and see the different result you can achieve with this material.