Here is one of my renders, used cycles strand rendering for grass, puppet and sandbags. It is really simple to set up, thanks Broad Stu
It would look awesome.
Just adding this to the thread for people who need help:
Watch or read the tutorial here:
http://www.blenderguru.com/videos/how-to-render-hair-with-cycles/
Hope it’s helpful to anyone looking to start out with strand rendering.
I downloaded the latest build from the link you gave in the description, but I still don’t see the Cycles option in the particle settings. I have Cycles enabled by default. Any reason why it wouldn’t show up? I’m using the Win 64 build.
I’ve problem with strand render speed in version 2.66 it’s very very very very very very slow how can I do ? please help.
Kris, make sure you set the render settings to experimental.
Ugh, I’m an idiot. Thanks for reminding me of it 
That’s the beauty of creative commons 
@andrewpprice that’s photo-realistic as h*** … awesome! is it in your hair tutorial also? if not make an additional tut 
gonna watch the first one now.
Thanks, but FYI the last two pics are photos. Not sure if you knew that. But if you did, then yeah thanks 
Also my tutorial covered the basics of strand rendering suitable for hair. The rug shares some similarities but the material and strand sizes are a bit different. However I’m hoping that the tutorial explains it enough that you can confidently create all things strandy
I’m still working on it, so here’s another:
It’s double the amount of strands (360,000) so it looks a bit fluffier.
Which do you prefer?
From this angle, it sure looks very realistic!
I’d be totally blown away if it had been a lot closer and emulating the twisting fashion of a real-life rug strand, just as you posted above.
-Reyn
this is looking really really good Andrew!
Thanks! This is the impetus i needed to get off my proverbial and proverbially proverbial.
Thanks Andrew for that helpful tutorial.
Nice Carpet btw 
Please developers make it usable for GPU-Rendering !
(sorry moderators, I don’t believe that crying around und repeating wishes will not push the priority of the features implementations ;-))
Kind regards
Alain
Hey Andrew,
I think the first of the two renders emulates the reference photo better. It appears coarser, while your last render appears softened. However… I actually have to say I like your renders more than the first reference. That carpet looks rigid and somehow slightly unrealistic (well, the macro shot has enough details that I can tell its a photo, but the first one looked rendered)… that is probably why I (and I am sure others) thought it was rendered at first as well. Either way, good stuff.
Nice work Andrew! What’s it look like closeup?
I have been away from the computer recently and come back to find loads of cool renders. :yes:
Andrew, lovely renders and great tutorial. I will add a link to it on the wiki.
Btw, the root and tip parameters are not actually in Blender units. The values multiply the particle size (that is hidden somewhere and I think is 0.005 by default) to give the hair’s actual Blender unit width. This probably isn’t very clear and is partially due to having these parameters global in earlier versions. I was tempted to change it to use the precise blender units or milliBUs? But thought it would always have to be tiny or wouldn’t give the same control.
Do you guys think it is better to set these widths in terms of Blender units rather than setting the units with ‘size’?
nice rug, i also like the first version better, the latter looks more like fur