Creating hair strands for alpha maps

Support Particles and Physics Simulations
1

I’m attempting to make hair like this.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CreatingHairUsingAlpha.html

I haven’t used emitter since 2006, so I’m not sure how they work in the latest version of blender.

Anybody have experience with this way of making hair?

2

Is there at least any guides for hair in blender 2.57?

3

http://mikegraydesign.com/Tutorials/fur_tutorial.html
that’s a good one, it’s for fur, but by changing some settings you can also create grass.

4

Is there anythign that goes over the different settings and how to achieve hair like curls and clumps. ALso how to get ansio specular highlights on the strands?

5

Is there any way of converting poly hair strips into hair fibers, than rendering that out to get the lighting and hair that can be baked down to alpha maps?