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The Hair material is primarily designed for rendering hair and fur. The material is based around three components: a primary specular component, a secondary specular component, and a transmission component. A diffuse component is also provided for rendering of materials made up of cloth threads or other non-translucent fibers.

The primary specular component represents light that is reflected off the outer surface of a hair strand. The secondary specular component represents light that goes through the hair strand and is reflected off the back surface. The transmission component represents light that goes through the hair strand.

The image below illustrates the meaning of the three components:

Please note that V-Ray Hair material does not produce hair strands. You can use V-Ray Fur/Grass to procedurally create fur, hair or grass. V-Ray Fur/Grass produces flat strands if Hair material is applied to it.

Some parameters are only available in Advanced mode.

Overall Color – A common color multiplier for all color components in the material (except for opacity). Used to easily change the look of the entire hair material.

Transparency – Controls the transparency of the material. Making the hair more transparent towards the tip may produce more smooth and realistic anti-aliasing at the expense of increased render times. If you map the tip opacity, make sure you do not make the strands thinner at the tip as well - transparency already creates the effect of thinning strands.

Mode – Specifies one of the following methods for adjusting textures.

Multiply – Multipliers can be specified to adjust colors and textures.
Blend Amount – Blend amounts can be specified to adjust colors and textures.

Overall Color – Controls the intensity of the Overall Color, which acts as a color multiplier for all color components in the material.

Transparency – Controls the intensity of the Transparency.

Diffuse Color – Controls the intensity of the diffuse component color of the shader.

Primary Spec. Color – Controls the intensity of the Primary Specular color component, which corresponds to the light reflected off the outer surface of the hair strands.

Secondary Spec. Color  – Controls the intensity of the Secondary Specular color component, which corresponds to the light reflected off the back surface of the hair strands.

Transmission Color – Controls the intensity of the Transmission color component, which corresponds to the light that passes through the hair strands.