Make an object visible behind a solid object regardless?

[derek.mallard]

I'll try to explain with much detail as possible.

What I have here is a poplar anime character and I'm trying to get her eyebrows to show through her hair in rendering regardless just like in the anime series, and in one of the games that have achieved this result too. (That game uses Unreal Engine 4 which I know is only a gaming engine. In that game their eyebrows show through their hair perfectly.)

Here she is

And here I have the eyebrows selected. (Since it's selected, they show through her hair as if this is almost the result I'm trying to get.)

I could use vertex paint and paint the area of the hair transparent but, that's not ideal.

I really want to know if it's possible to have the eyebrows show through her hair in the render regardless. Maybe need to have something for the hair model and the eyebrows so that they interact with each other?...Maybe switch to a new render plugin?

I'm using 3DS Max 2020 with the latest Arnold.

[Stephen.Blair]

I'm afraid there's no way to do that. Not sure that even a custom shader could do it...

[derek.mallard]

Oh well then...

[madsd]

Since the eye brows are very simple, essentially flat pieces.

This is trivial to do with a dual projection.
Instead of using geometry for the eyebrows, the user can use a texture instead and project the texture to the 2 geometry nodes on the same time.

Using a clip geo material on top, will remove things if you happen to zoom in under the hair from a glancing angle and parts are on top.

[madsd]

You can also bake out a mask, and use it over I the camera ray, to do a cut out based on the object beneath. This requires you to simply bake a black and white mask out.

You cannot change camera angles with this approach, so its a final effect when cameras and motion are all done, and you render finals, else you will have to rebake the camera ray mask.

[madsd]

Alternatively, you can clone your object so its offset from the face, and conforms to the hair, over time, and use a ray clipper where appropiate.

[1214455649]

@Derek Mallard

[derek.mallard]

I'm having trouble replicating your results. I understand that I would have "1toon" as the hair and "2toon" as the eyebrows. I can't seem to get the desired results.

[1214455649]

Can send pictures?

[1214455649]

Can send pictures?

[derek.mallard]

The objects are just showing up as if they have an ordinary material. I did exactly what you showed me in your images and I'm just not getting any results. Do I need something more specific in the materials? Is "Ai Toon" something different than just the "Toon" shader?

[1214455649]

https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/Edge

[derek.mallard]

Eyebrows still not showing through the hair.

[1214455649]

香椿.zip

[derek.mallard]

Where do I place this?