Hair system duplication script tests

I’m working on an add-on for duplicating particle hair systems on the same object, complete with particle-edit-mode grooming. The idea is that you can add detail to hair or fur by creating new systems that follow the flow and direction of the existing hair but differ in color, roughness, kink etc. I’m hoping it’ll make it easier to produce realistic fur effects without a lot of careful repeated combing. If life permits I’ll try and have it in releasable state in a couple weeks; I’m still learning the ropes for add-on making.

The current version of the script seems to work fine but has some limitations: it won’t copy a system in which individual hairs have been added, removed or had their numbers of control points changed in particle edit mode. I’ve a second version that will handle those edits, but that one only works with the newest daily-build versions of Blender; it uses an operator not present in Blender 2.73a.

Here’s a few samples of the script’s work (all on Blender 2.73a). I’m not sure any real-life critter would want to live in them, but they give some idea.

Dark main hair-system, plus a second sparser system of lighter hairs with higher end-point rough to make them stick out:


Similar to above, with greater Clump:


Three hair systems with the same material but with different degrees of Clump, Length and Endpoint Rough. The combination has well-defined tufts with good fill in the “valleys” between them: