Bake Hair Cards

Strands are the core working units in FiberBake. Each strand is an individual hair strip with its own shape, material and effects setup. The Strands section is where you create, duplicate, delete and reorder them.

Strand List

• NameEditable label (double-click to rename).
• Eye iconViewport visibility only. Hiding does not exclude it from the bake.
• Camera iconBake visibility. Only strands with this active are baked.

Management

• + (Add)Create a new strand with default settings.
• DuplicateCopy the active strand with its own emitter, length curve and a fresh seed, placed without overlapping.
• - (Delete)Delete the active strand and its emitter (with confirmation). Its material stays available for reuse.

Pack Strands

• PaddingWorld-space gap left between strands when repacking.
• Pack into AtlasRepacks visible strands into a tight atlas. Single undo step; the camera reframes automatically.

After packing, a read-only line shows atlas occupancy, e.g. Atlas: 8 strands · 88% filled. Use it to judge whether there is room for more strands before baking.

Controls the shape, volume and effects of the active strand. All changes update in real time.

Style Templates

Built-in style templates provide instant starting points. Applying one replaces the strand's modifier stack, base values and shape keys with the template's. Use Presets to save your own variants.

Strand Shape

• Card WidthHow far the hair extends horizontally.
• Card DepthThickness of the volume in the depth axis.
• BendBends the emitter inward or outward into an arc.

Geometry Nodes Controls

Below Strand Shape, the strand generator is organized as a single collapsible section with four sub-panels:

• Hair ShapeDensity and Seed. Controls how many hairs are generated and their distribution.
• LengthLength, Random Root, Random Tip and Seed. Overall length and per-hair length variation, each with its own seed.
• RadiusRadius, Shape, Root and Tip. Thickness profile from root to tip.
• ResolutionControl Points. Number of points per curve. Higher values add topological detail visible to all downstream effects. Use the minimum that gives acceptable results, as higher counts reduce viewport performance.

Extra effects are managed as a stackable, combinable modifier stack. Order matters: each effect operates on the result of the previous one.

• + (Add menu)Add an effect: Curve Length, Frizz, Noise, Curl, Clump, or Braid.
• List rowClick to select an effect and show its controls. The checkbox enables/disables it in viewport and bake at once.
• - (Remove)Remove the selected effect.
• Up / DownReorder the selected effect.
• Re-roll SeedsRandomizes every Seed on the active strand at once, across Hair Shape, Length and every effect in the stack. Useful for generating quick variations after duplicating a strand.

Only the selected effect's controls are shown to keep the panel clean. All effects are freely reorderable. Order matters: each one operates on the result of the previous.

• FrizzSharp random offsets for rough, frizzy hair.
• NoiseSoft wavy movement and organic variation.
• ClumpPulls hairs into grouped locks.
• CurlCurl patterns from loose waves to tight curls.
• BraidBraid pattern with start, thickness, shape and loose-tail controls.
• Curve LengthShapes how length varies across the strand using a curve. Its position in the stack matters: place it before an effect and that effect works on the shaped length; place it after and it sees the original. Multiple Curve Length instances can be stacked, each with its own independent curve. Select the modifier in the list to edit its curve.

The Material section controls how the hair looks: color, root-to-tip variation, global hue, random color effects, and surface. Every value here travels with the material, not with the strand. Strands sharing the same material share the same look automatically.

Material Library

FiberBake manages hair materials as a library that is independent of the active object. The list shows every hair material in the project (bake and non-hair materials are hidden), with a usage counter and a marker for the one on the active strand.

• + (New Material)Create a new independent hair material based on the selected one, reset to defaults.
• Duplicate MaterialCopy the selected material exactly as it is, keeping all its current settings, as a starting point for a slight variation without rebuilding it from scratch. If the active strand was already using that material, the copy takes its place so you tweak the variation live; otherwise the copy just joins the library.
• Trash (Delete Material)Remove the selected material project-wide. Strands using it fall back to another. At least one hair material must always remain.
• AssignPut the selected material onto the active strand. Selecting in the list never assigns by itself.

Color Templates

Read-only color presets: Auburn, Blonde, Brunette, Dark Brown. Reset Material restores the addon default.

Hair Color

The main control is a root-to-tip gradient (left = root, right = tip; add intermediate points for complex transitions). Global Hue, Saturation and Value shift the overall look without touching the gradient points.

Random Thread Color

Color variation between individual hairs inside the same card. Controls: Amount, Intensity, Seed, and Hue / Saturation / Value of the variation.

Highlight Color

Streak-like color variation across the card using a Y-axis wave. Controls: Amount, Intensity, Scale, Phase Offset, and Hue / Saturation / Value.

Surface

Roughness and Specular sliders live inside the material. Assigning a different material to a strand changes both values along with it. Strands sharing the same material share the same Roughness and Specular.

Material Presets

Store the full material configuration, including Roughness and Specular. Saved in FiberBake Presets/Material. Strand presets do not carry Surface values; those always travel with the material.

This section controls which texture maps are included in the next bake and lets you preview any already-baked pass directly in the viewport, without writing anything to disk.

Quick Select

Three buttons at the top of the section let you configure the pass selection in one click.

• PBREnables the pure PBR set: Color, Opacity, Normal and Roughness. The most common starting point.
• AllEnables all 12 available passes at once.
• ClearDisables all passes. Use to start a custom selection from scratch.

Pass List

Each pass has a name button (enables or disables it for the bake) and an eye icon (previews that pass live in the viewport, without writing any files). Passes are grouped in two categories:

Essentials

• ColorBase color texture with diffuse lighting.
• OpacityOpacity mask: white where hair exists, black where it does not.
• NormalTangent-space normal map in the format set by Normal Format below.
• RoughnessHow broad or sharp the reflection appears on the hair surface.
• SpecularStrength of the specular highlights.
• Ambient OcclusionContact shadows between strands; adds depth in game engines.

Extra Maps

• Root-TipRoot→tip gradient (black at the root, white at the tip).
• Flow MapHair flow direction encoded as color.
• ThicknessStrand thickness as a grayscale gradient.
• RandomEach individual hair is assigned a random grayscale value from black to white, so hairs appear at different brightness levels across the strand. Useful for driving per-hair color variation in engine shaders.
• DepthDepth map as a grayscale gradient.
• IDEach strand gets a unique solid color for selection masks.

Normal Format

Selects the convention used for the Normal pass. The flip is live: if the Normal pass is currently previewed in the viewport, the preview updates immediately.

• GL (OpenGL)Green channel points up. Standard for Unity, Godot and most real-time engines.
• DX (DirectX)Green channel points down. Standard for Unreal Engine.

The exported filename reflects the choice: Normal_GL or Normal_DX.

Render

Samples

A row of five buttons sets the Cycles sample count. It drives the Color, Normal and Opacity passes, where the extra samples refine the edges; the remaining maps use a fixed count. Hover any button to see the exact count in its tooltip.

• PrevLowest count. Fast iteration with visible grain, useful while adjusting strand shape or material.
• LowLight bake for quick checks. Acceptable for simple, smooth strands.
• NormBalanced default. Clean result for most hair types at a reasonable render time.
• HighReduced noise for dense or complex strands. Noticeably slower.
• CustomReveals a numeric field for any specific sample count beyond the presets, for example 512 or higher.

• Denoise (Color)Cycles denoising for the Color pass. Effective at lower sample counts; less necessary at High or Custom.

Texture

Size

A row of five buttons sets the output resolution. Hover any button to see the exact pixel dimensions.

• 512512 × 512 px. Suitable for small or distant cards.
• 1K1024 × 1024 px. Common for mobile or lightweight targets.
• 2K2048 × 2048 px. Standard quality for most game engines.
• 4K4096 × 4096 px. High detail; verify your engine and memory budget support it.
• CustomReveals a numeric field for any resolution not covered by the presets.

• NameBase lot name. Each map exports as name_PASS.ext.
• Other lotsKeep several named bake lots in memory; switch the active name or delete a whole lot.

Export writes the in-memory bake passes to disk in your chosen format and folder, each at its own bit depth. This is the persistence step: the Bake section produces textures in memory, and Export makes them permanent.

Destination

• FolderDestination directory. Empty uses the addon-preferences default. The panel warns if it is missing, will be created, or is not writable.
• Create subfoldersTextures into textures/ and OBJ planes into obj/.
• Open Output FolderOpens the destination in the system file browser.

Select Passes

Each baked pass is a row in the list. Click its name to include or exclude it from the export, and use the trash icon to drop a staged pass from the session.

Every row also carries its own 8-bit and 16-bit buttons, so each map ships at the depth that suits it. New bakes start at sensible defaults (Normal, Opacity and Depth at 16-bit for clean edges and precision, the rest at 8-bit to keep files light), and clicking a row's button overrides it. Bit depth applies to PNG and TIFF only, so for 8-bit-only formats the buttons grey out.

Output Format

• FormatPNG, JPEG, Targa, or TIFF. Bit depth is set per pass in the list above, not here.
• AlphaRGBA output. Disabled automatically when JPEG is selected, since that format does not support an alpha channel.

Channel Packing

Pack the single-channel maps into combined RGBA textures, written alongside the individual passes. This is how you produce the merged maps many engines expect, such as an ORM texture, from one export.

• ORMOne-click preset: Ambient Occlusion in Red, Roughness in Green, Black in Blue (hair has no metallic channel). Written as name_ORM.
• Hair MaskOne-click preset packing four hair masks into one texture: Root-Tip (R), Depth (G), Random (B), Opacity (A). Written as name_HairMask.
• CustomAdd an empty packed map and assign each channel yourself.
• SuffixThe file-name suffix for the packed map, for example _ORM writes name_ORM.png.
• R / G / B / AChoose the source of each channel: a baked single-channel pass (Opacity, Roughness, Specular, Ambient Occlusion, Root-Tip, Thickness, Random, Depth) or a constant (None, Black, White). Only passes you have already baked appear in the menu.
• RemoveDelete a packed map from the list.

Geometry

• Include in ExportAdds one OBJ with a plane per visible strand, UVs aligned exactly to the baked area. On by default, so a normal export writes the textures and the card planes together.
• Export Card Planes OnlyA separate button that writes just the OBJ, without re-exporting the textures. Handy when you already have the maps and only need the geometry again.

Controls how the bake scene is displayed while you work.

Preview Mode

• SolidFastest, no lighting. Good for composing layout.
• PreviewMaterial Preview showing the flat Color Pass output (Blender's built-in HDRI, no real-time scene lighting). The recommended mode for day-to-day work: fast feedback that already matches the baked Color texture.
• FinalCycles render matching the exact bake color management. A WYSIWYG preview of the COLOR texture as it will be baked. Slower.
• BeautyFull Cycles render with Roughness and Specular active in real time. Use it to evaluate surface shading before baking, and to interact with the HUD light sphere to see how the hair reacts to different light directions.

Cycles Viewport Quality (Samples, Denoise) appears only in the Cycles modes (Final and Beauty).

Background & Strand Colors

In Solid mode, Solid Mode Colors exposes the background and a Strand color applied to all hair materials at once (preview only). In other modes, Background Color sets the backdrop. Neither affects the bake.

Overlays & HUD

Panel toggles show/hide the HUD and the Shortcuts panel. The HUD, in the top-right corner while the FiberBake workspace is active, contains the preview-light sphere and quick buttons.

• Hide AllHides all viewport overlays at once: grid, center, gizmos and the Shortcuts panel.
• Preview Light sphereDrag the point to change the preview light direction in real time. The HUD Reset re-centers it. The sphere appears below the toggle buttons and is only visible in Beauty mode; in other modes it is hidden automatically since the preview light has no effect there.
• GridToggle the floor grid.
• CenterToggle the scene center reference object.
• ShortcutsShow or hide the shortcut panel.
• Lock CamPause auto-framing and keep the camera fixed.
• Fit CamReframe the camera to all visible strands.

Bake Preview Workspace

The Open in Image Editor action (in the Bake section, when passes are staged) switches to the FiberBake Preview workspace. A side panel lists each pass of the lot as a button; the highlighted one is shown. It includes the other-lots switcher, a per-pass trash, and a Back to Design button. Switching between passes automatically fits the new image to the view.

The side panel also includes a View group with quick zoom controls:

• FitFit the image to the available area.
• 1:1Display the image at 100% zoom.
• + / -Zoom in or out by steps.

Less common controls: quick access to addon preferences and bake-workspace management.

Default Paths

Shows the current presets folder path and opens the addon preferences, where the default output folder and the presets root folder (FiberBake Presets) are configured.

Workspace Management

• ExitCloses the bake workspace and scene and returns to your previous workspace. Reclaims only the addon's own data, never unrelated user data.
• ResetSame as Exit but reopens a fresh empty bake scene.

About

Shows the addon version and compatibility, with links to documentation, tutorials, support, updates, and a Copy Diagnostic Info button (version, platform and recent log to the clipboard for support emails).