Help needed with Fur

Hi, Im quite new to blender but not 3d. Im using cycles render in v 2.74 to get high quality fur for one of my characters. It has been quite the challenge. I watched the tutorials from blender cookie but i need more help.
reference pic> http://www.pasteall.org/pic/88472
fur settings> http://www.pasteall.org/pic/88473
progress> http://www.pasteall.org/pic/88474

as you can see from my progress above I kinda had it right but it was taking too long to render.
My questions:
How do the pros do it, especially if the fur reacts to body movements and external forces eg Wind?
How does that affect render time?
Will I have to comb the hair then bake it down, group the new mesh fur, re-tecture the new mesh and delete the particle systems?
If so, What is the correct procedure? I have tried it in that order but when I render, I only get the mesh and no fur.{Yes they are on the same layer}
Finally, How does all this workout with skinning/rig weights?

I thought it was a material issue since the fur was now a new object so I went ahead and created a new material and re-textured it as before but it still doesn’t render. Im stuck here since I want to rig the bunny and I don’t think its right to proceed to rigging before ironing out mesh issues.:frowning:

scene with sss on Character and without grass Particles> http://www.pasteall.org/pic/88475

my Comp specs:
HP Z620 > xeon E5 2630V2 {6core}>Nvidia quadro K2000 > 16GB RAM

Simple children? Not interpolated?
Looks pretty weird.

Yeah,it does and I dont like it. Any tips for me?

I believe there is a bug floating around with simple children refusing to use an image texture at times, I can’t reliably reproduce it. Some general tips for this kind of fur, for clean ans fast renders with dynamics.

  1. Make the fur a particle system on the charcater mesh, don’t make it it’s own object.
    1b. check for double, recalc your normals, and apply rotation and scale (Ctl a)
    1c. unless you can’t, a ‘w’ smooth on the mesh, will help with smooth hair emission.

  2. lower the hair segments to 2.

  3. The stack order should be this
    armature
    subsurf (both viewport and render must be the same level here both 1 or both 2)
    particle system

  4. In the particle system, check the checkbox ‘use modifer stack’ if you have already combed the hair, free edit, and check it, comb again.

  5. use interpolated children. increase clump, and threshhodl to get the hairs coming to a point (matted like a beaver) adjust shape.
    Use wave with a very low amplitude, or nothing.

  6. display steps shoudl be in the 3 - 6 range, affects render times

  7. create a new materal on the object and make a hair material, keep the materials simple diffuse,glossy,anisotropic.
    7b. in the system, select this new hair material.

  8. at the bottom of the system increase the root and tip, to thicken the hairs

  9. make a simple animation, 30 - 50 frames.

  10. check hair dynamics. and adjust settings. in hair cache, lower end frame to 50. bake it and see how it looks when you scrun the timeline. If it looks good, do an open gl render. if it looks bad, change the settings and bake again. bake again, and again, and again…

Use interpolated children.