If you render hair w. Raytrace shadows and using the normal raytracer, it works.. but takes a while:
Whereas if one enables the Fast Rasterizer, and use Detail Shadow Maps, it can be both nicer looking and faster:
So the question then is... where do I turn this on?
I admit some things can be hard to find, and sometimes they are renamed in the UI of a particular application... for example, the mental ray detail shadow maps are actually not named "detail shadow maps" in 3DS max, they are named "Transparent Shadows". You find them here:
In Maya, however, they have their proper name and are found here:
However, Maya has "special" shadow settings for Hair and Fur one may need to watch out for.
Turning on the "Fast Rasterizer" is easier since it has it's proper name in most applications. Max:
And Maya:
Hope this helps with the "Fuzzy sidekick" rendering. Note that the Rasterizer is great for motion blur and fuzzy stuff, but can be suboptimal when involving many raytraced effects (glossy reflections, etc.)
/Z