I realized the hair was made using a plugin from another 3d app (i presumed MAX or LW) and I have a similar(slightly faster CPU) system to the one quoted above, but if you think about it , companies like zygote, cacheforce etc. would have used their budgets to produce hair using these plugins along time ago if their was a demand for it. The reality is that if it isnt necessary to use system resources and increase speed then it wont be done, especially if there is an easier less time consuming way of doing it. Realistically the system above wont be used widely commercially. the file size when put into a scene will drastically reduce system performance Not much slow down. >> "Rendering takes a little longer; but that's really it". eg. a drop in performance. people have tried this sort of system before by piping hair along poly lines etc. but it takes up too much timememory. If you do manage to get the file size down to nearer a meg then it will start to be a more feesable option.