hairstyling setup (Patreon)

Since I'm in hairstyling mode, I thought I'd show you all my setup. This is an inverted ponytail I'm working on.

I have a 'long neck' morph that I made that moves the head far above the body. That way, long hairstyles don't get blocked by the body colliders. If I simply turn off hair collision, the head colliders wouldn't be working. I'm sure there are other ways to do this, too - ColliderEditor, perhaps.

The HideCharacter plugin is on (modified to leave the head visible), because having a model with a super long neck is a bit creepy, and to hide other distracting body parts. Another copy of HideCharacter can be toggled with a UI checkbox (not pictured) so I can hide the head. This makes it easier to mirror strands (explained below) or work from under the scalp.

There is a purple tinted glass atom bisecting the head vertically, which mirrors one side to the other. If you look through it, you can see a 'ghost' of the hair strands on the other side in a purple tint. You can mirror strands exactly by laying them on top of the ghost image. I use the mirror on almost every style, but most obviously stuff like ponytails, twintails, or the space buns. There's another UI checkbox (not pictured) to turn the glass on/off.

The blue lines are a template hairstyle. For more complicated styles, I mask off all but a few key hairs to plan where all the strands will go. Then I can just leave it loaded and follow the plan. This is pretty essential for braids, space buns, etc.

update 16 June 2022:
Links for HideCharacter:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/505398213675581453/775407816252063755/hide_character_male.cs
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/505398213675581453/775408395388977192/hide_character.cs

update 17 June 2022:
In case you were wondering, here's how the 220614 inverted ponytail turned out. I'll still be making some changes after this, as I always notice some details I don't like after living with it for a while.