What's the quickest way to create hair for games using Maya?

Answer 1

Games characters use "Hair Cards", also known as "Poly Cards". These are simple planes of geometry created, duplicated, and then placed onto the character. An Alpha texture with Opacity is then used to make parts of the geometry transparent so it gives silhouette detail to the hair. More realistic hair will require more cut and formed geometry with a corresponding texture to what style/piece of hair your creating (Bangs, Ponytail, Frizz, Curl...).

1. Decide a style of hair you want to achieve
2. Identify modular parts of the hair you can create and duplicate
3. Create the geometry for those identified pieces of hair
4. UV and Texture the pieces of hair
5. Place them onto character accordingly