I don't understand this feature - but it sounds wonderful...

Using an emitter that has an alpha channel, I tried both ways - with accurate ON and OFF - the results looked the same and took the same amount of time? (tried 5 pass, and no multi-pass). All looked terrific to me. This is just 5 pass with accurate on - the accurate =OFF looked the same (both took 27 secs to render). The NO multipass, with accurate either ON/Off took 13 secs, and they looked the same as each other to me as well.

What was inaccurate? (couldn't get access to the test project posted with the installer notice)

This probably only affects hair with transparency defined in keyframes along the length rather than bitmapped hair.

This was the problem I reported in an AM report:

Click to view attachment

I was using hair transparency to make the root of the hair look more subtle. It seemed to work well in V11 but not in V15 and it took longer to render. The switch is an option to get back to something more like the V11 result. But truly getting back is impossible because (Steffen tells me) the render engine was rewritten in V14 to accommodate multicore.

Hair transparency still has some problems, I notice, in the way anything behind the hair is shaded. So for now, hair transparency is still a WIP, but probably something most users won't encounter.

15i is out, did you try in that?

ahhh I see ! - thanks -

In general, most of the time, I use an emitter IMAGE for hair - seems to render faster, and is more flexible with respect to color, transparency, shape. You can still use the "shaping" capability via the timeline, combined with decal driven color - for very interesting effects. However, last I looked, I believe muhair didn't work completely well with emitter IMAGES.

It would seem to me that you could vary the transparency using the alpha channel to replicate ver 11? The emitter IMAGE I was using has varying degrees of transparency. Could have a square emitter IMAGE that is more transparent at the bottom end.

This is what the alpha channel looked like for the emitter IMAGE

EDITed for clarity

when you say you use an "emitter" for hair... ??

All particle and hair systems use an emitter, right?

I mean an emitter IMAGE instead of "none" - sorry, I wasn't clear.

EDIT - examples of quickly changing emitter Image used as well as the image driving the color (via decal)

Great Hair ....

impressive

Thats excelant Nancy but how do you change the thikness and lenth over time .I can't seem to find it

You change the shape of the emitter by setting the thickness property in the material - not in the instance. The timeline must be open, and it must be in spline mode. Navigate in the timeline to the percentage, and then change the thickness value

However, you can change the image used for the emitter in the instance(s). Eg. you could use same material in multiple instances, where each instance has a different image used for the emitter - but they will have the same shape.

It is interesting to see what any ol' image will look like as a hair emitter - you will find that some work better with different proportions for the shape. The more variation, color in the image - the more interesting.

You should do a short about a florist or someone in a botanical garden.

Thank's a lot Nancy I saved your screencap .Thats a very good image you done it realy doese look like a flower arangement,very spiffing I must say