Losing material when using Simple versus Interpolated in Hair

Can someone explain to me why my hair turns black (no material) when I switch from interpolated to Simple in the Children’s section of the hair settings? No other settings are changed, only when I switch to simple do I lose my material assignment.


chop off the end of the tail and post a blend.

Chop off the tail…sounds so violent :slight_smile: just joking but in all seriousness, I tried to do that since the entire file is so large and found out that when I eliminated the object attached to it, the tail’s material appeared in both the interpolated and the single…very odd… So if I sent the file, it would not appear to be a problem. The tail has its own vertex group so cant see how detaching the rest of the body corrected the problem.

Hard to say, you mention deleting an object attached to it, but then you say the tail has it’s own vertex group which hints that they are the same object. Try appending everything into a new blend file. Beyond that, without something to look at, I’m out of ideas.

Thanks Photox, I understand …hard to do anything without seeing. I tried appending and the problem basically repeated. I created a separate vertex group for the tail so I could give it special attention, separate from the body. But the tail and the body share the same material. Worst case may be I will just use interpolate and work around if I cant figure it out

Are you using an image texture or vertex paint for the coloring? Does the hair material use SSS?

To troubleshoot the issue, save a version of the file and delete all your materials on the body/tail, add a new material make it diffuse blue. Does the same problem happen?

Thanks Photox,

Did all you said and that helped. It had something to do with my material. When I switched to a basic blue material the problem went aways. I found it had to do with an assignment in one of my nodes in cycles but had to go to the lengths you mentioned to find it and correct it all.

Thanks again…problem solved