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title: "VRayMtlHair3"
canonical: "https://documentation.chaos.com/space/VMAYA/126623147/VRayMtlHair3"
format: markdown
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This page provides details on the settings available for the Hair Material in V-Ray.

 

## **Overview**

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## **Components of VRayHairMtl**

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The material is based around three components - primary specular component, secondary specular component, and a transmission component. A diffuse component is also provided for rendering of materials made up of cloth threads or other non-translucent fibers.

The primary specular component represents light that is reflected off the outer surface of a hair strand. The secondary specular component represents light that goes through the hair strand and is reflected off the back surface. The transmission component represents light that goes through the hair strand.

The image below illustrates the meaning of the three components:

 

![image](media://fe2e82c9-de86-4e73-b4ae-be00eb7e7f2d)

 

## **General Parameters**

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### **Example: VRayHairMtl Presets**

 

Here are some examples of the same hair geometry rendered with different presets. The scene is illuminated with one spherical V-Ray light, with GI set to brute force for the primary GI bounces, and light cache for the secondary, with retrace enabled.

 

 

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### **Example: Transmission Glossiness Length and Width Parameters**

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This example shows the effect of the **Transmission Glossiness Length **and the **Transmission Glossiness Width **parameters. It shows a number of vertical strands (in this case, produced by VRayFur) lit from behind by a spherical light.

Note how each parameter changes the way light scatters along the length and the width of the strands. Higher values for the length glossiness compress the transmission highlight along the strand length, while lower values expand it.

 

## **Options**

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**Example: Effect of GI on Hair**

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This example shows how important GI (multiple scattering) is for the appearance of hair, especially bright hair. The top row shows several of the presets rendered without GI, and the bottom shows the same scene when GI is enabled. Again, GI is brute force and light cache has retrace. The scene GI environment is black so that a spherical area light is the only light source.

 

 

 

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**Example: Strand Taper vs Transparency Mapping**

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This example shows how transparency mapping can be used to simulate hair thinning towards the tips with improved quality. Since transparency also increases render times, the VRayHairMtl material provides two options to optimize this - the ** Opaque for Shadows **and** Opaque for GI **options allow to skip the transparency calculations for shadow and GI rays.

For the first image, the thinning of the strands towards the tips was done by setting the** Taper **parameter of VRayFur to 1.0. The opacity of the hairs for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th image is done with the  [ VRayHairSampler](https://docs-chaos.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/VMAYA/pages/111740641) texture in the** Opacity **slot of the VRayHairMtl material, while keeping the** Taper **parameter in VRayFur to 0.0. The scene is illuminated with one point light with sharp raytraced shadows to better show the difference between the options. Note how opacity mapping improves the anti-aliasing of the hair, while still preserving the same overall look, at the expense of somewhat increased render times. However, the first image also required increased AA samples compared to the rest.

Note that using transparency for the strands may require increasing of the **Max. Transp. Levels **option in the global V-Ray settings, although it was not necessary for this particular case.

 


## **Advanced Parameters**

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