

The closer the plane is to the scalp, the better. Now move it to the back of the head and manipulate the vertices so it looks like it's hanging from the head. Now the colorful side should be facing the model. So, select all of the plane and rotate it -90 degrees. And it also makes the hair, in general, look better. In the end, you may have transparency issues anyway, but starting from the back is the cleanest way to go. Just to clear some stuff up, planes should always start from the back and go forwards to avoid most transparency issues.

Then go back to editable poly and make the selection by vertex and turn show end result on.

This is like subdivision surface in blender. Then click on the Modifier List drop down and either type or find MeshSmooth. Next, in the modifiers list, right click on Plane and make it an editable poly. Having planes clipping into each other is bad. So changing the color every once in a while is good. For example, if you had one plane and it was blue and were trying to create another plane that was the same color, you wouldn't know if it was clipping into the other plane. It's important to have certain colors for certain things so you know what every plane resembles. I'm gonna make mine green you can do this by going to modify, right next to the create tab and changing the object's color. You can change the color of the plane for less confusion. Or if you're in Maya mode, press spacebar. If you have four windows pulled up like I do, hover over the 3D viewer window and press alt+w to widen it. Then you can click and drag it to create the plane. Change the width and length segments to however many.

On the right side panel, open up create and then click plane. I gave mine a little makeover and added a scalp area. It's not exactly "free," but you can get the student trial version, which can last a few years. The main program in this tutorial is 3DS. If you have any questions about anything, do not hesitate to ask! Plus, most hairs have two or three layers. I used about 7-8 to save time and because I'm never going to share this mesh with the community. Before we start, just know that most hair creators use a bunch of planes in their hair meshes. Totally opposite from clay or maxis match hair. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create alpha hair! Just so we're on the same page, alpha hair is the kind of hair that looks realistic and has individual hair strands.
