This article explains everything about the Daz3d Change Hair Color topic. Changing hair color seems like something that should be really easy to do. And it is, anyone can do it. Though it is not too intuitive and you can get lost. Also there is more than one way to do such a thing. That is why we created this tutorial that should help you with changing hair color in Daz Studio.
If you prefere watching a video then see below, otherwise keep reading.
Links mentioned in the video:
- Hair Texture Expansion
- FSL Realistic Hair Shaders for Iray and Filament
- Paul Hair for Genesis 8 and 8.1 Males
- dForce Nirv Straight Long Hair
- Fallow Hair
- Colors for Fallow Hair
Daz3D Changing Hair Color Using Materials
First of all open Daz Studio, add any character using Smart Content and, of course, add any hair that you want to it. If you don’t know how to do this – check our How to Use Daz3d: Daz Beginner Tutorial.
After that, it would be the time to look into the first way to Daz3D change hair color. It is a simpler way that uses shaders and materials presets from the Daz Studio.
To start – select the hair. Do this either by clicking on the hair in the viewport or by clicking on it in the “Scene” tab from the top right side of the interface. You can understand that something is selected if it highlighted yellow in the “Scene” tab or has a wireframe around it in the viewport:
Character with the hair selected
With the hair selected you are ready to apply material to it. To do that, in the “Smart Content” menu find “Materials” tab. It should have all the materials available for the selected hairstyle. Default female “Toulouse” hairstyle has a lot of available materials and it looks like this:
Now just find the color that you like and double click on it – that should apply the color to the hair. There are sometimes options to create custom hair colors by coloring different parts. For example I can dye hair blue and strands red, so it would be mixed:
By the way, to properly see the colors you chose – you will need to change the viewport to the “NVIDIA Iray” preview or render out the image. “Texture shaded” just does not show correctly how it looks.
Besides creating mixes on your own, there can be different blends and mixes already premade for you. Toulouse hair has more than a hundred different colors, mixes and blends. But that could not be the case for you, because other hairstyles can have only a bunch or no at all. You will need to buy more yourself or try using the method below.
Daz3D Changing Hair Color Manually
The second way of changing hair is a manual one. Meaning that instead of just clicking on desired color – you will make said color yourself. This does not require you to buy any additional products or materials.
To make this Daz3D Change Hair Color method work, of course, you will need to select the hair firstly. Check the previous section if you don’t know how to do that. With the hair selected go to the “Surfaces” menu and open the “Editor” tab. After that find and select the hair in this menu and the settings on the right should appear:
And the second option here is the one that we are most interested in – “Diffuse Color”. If you click on it – a new window will appear, where you can choose the color for the hair. After pressing “Ok” – you will see the changes immediately:
It is pretty easy to do and is also free. So why would anyone buy products instead of just doing this? Well, not everyone even knows that this is possible. And it has its problems. The main one is that you are not changing the whole hair, as when you change material. You just alter the one that is already applied to the hair model.
This means that what you can do depends on the initial hair. And it is really similar as it is in the real world. If the initial hair is really light or even bleached – dying it would be easier and you will see more vibrant results. Darker hair, on other hand, would not work that well. Here is the same diffuse color applied to the dark initial hair:
As you can see – the color is a lot less prominent if you have a dark hair to apply it on. If you scroll down the Editor menu a bit, you will see the “Specular Color” settings. Changing this will change the shine on the hair. Setting it to a bright value close to the diffuse color will even improve dark hair problems.
This setting will also improve how your light haired colors look. The hint here is to choose “Specular Color” to something that is close to your Diffuse Color. Or you can make it some different color, that just works well with it. Here is an example of pink hair with a bright red specular:
And the last thing that’s worth mentioning about this method is that you can also mix different colors and create unique hairstyles. Follow a few easy steps to do that too.
Firstly, select the hair and change its Diffuse Color in the Editor menu. Specular can be changed too if you want. Now we need to open a drop-down list and select the “Strands” part of the hair(not every hair item will have this).
And after that you can change the settings for the Strands separately. So you can set its diffuse color and Specular to something absolutely different and receive a mix:
Daz3D Hair Color Products
As was established already – using materials to change color is a better way and would be ideal. Below you can find one of the top products, the Source FSL Realistic Hair Shaders for Iray and Filament, that adds tons of new hair colors you can apply to your purchased hair.
Source FSL Realistic Hair Shaders for Iray and Filament
Also have a look at Twizted Complete Iray Hair Shaders, which offers additional hair colors.
Source Twizted Complete Iray Hair Shaders
Also another one below.
Source 2021-11 Hair Texture Expansion
Here we made a list of additional products about hairstyles and hair colors. So you can understand how that works and choose something for yourself.
Olive Hair for Genesis 3 and 8 Female from SWAM. It is a modern hairstyle made with a lot of tiny strands, which makes it look realistic. This item comes with lots of different morphs and adjustments and most importantly for us now – 10 beautiful realistic hair colors.
Source Olive Hair for Genesis 3 and 8 Female
Second would be the Curly Top Hair for Genesis 3 and 8. It is made by Daz Originals themself and can be applied to both male and female figures with no problems. Besides it also includes 12 hair colors for this hairstyle.
Source Curly Top Hair for Genesis 3 and 8
Next is a short, super-realistic hairstyle that makes full use of Daz3D’s strand-based hair system and dForce dynamic capabilities – dForce Corporate Hair for Genesis 8 Male and Female. Made by Daz Originals and RedzStudio. Item includes style poses, hair thickness and hair length presets and of course eleven realistic hair colors.
Source dForce Corporate Hair for Genesis 8 Male and Female
Sometimes you will not receive a big variety of colors when you buy the hair. For example cool and trendy Fallow Hair for Genesis 8 Female. It comes only with 3 colors. But you should always keep an eye on separate products that add more hair color choices. In this example it is Colors for Fallow Hair which adds 12 gorgeous color choices.
Also when looking for hairstyles and their colors – don’t sleep on the characters. They commonly come with some additional assets. Including morphs, poses, hair, hairstyles and hair colors. A good example – Yuna Character and Hair comes with a character, hair and additional hair colors right of the bat.
Source Yuna Character and Hair
Conclusion
So changing hair color in Daz Studio is not that hard. Hope w addressed everything related to the Daz3d Change Hair Color topic. There are two main ways to achieve this task. Both are not ideal. One is limited to available materials, other is limited to the initial hair color. I recommend combining these ways, so you can alter colors manually if you would like. But also choose a good base for these manipulations.