@QS Dragon: The settings/parameters you need to change to do the “shadow-wig” are not those that are locked by doing particle system editing. To re-iterate:
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Get your particle hair populated with parent strands, children and material using Strand Render setting (does not raytrace so it’s faster). Make sure that the hair is exactly as you want it save for shadows.
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Duplicate the emitter mesh and the particle system (set User prefs for this), and on the dupe disable Strand Render, reduce the number of children, and use a Traceable material set for shadows-only. This is the “shadow-wig.”
The Strand Render checkbox, material and/or material index designation and child count can all be changed without altering the parent strand editing at all.
If your project works OK with the look, you can also skip the shadow wig and use Buffered Shadows for the Strand Render hair system, rather than raytraced shadows. But mixing the two types usually isn’t very successful visually, so you’ll likely have to use buffered shadows throughout your scene to insure a consistent look. But that’s something to test out.
