Hi Kent,
I just finished going through this course and thought it was very well done. We've come a long way since version 2.66, and I was wondering if you've changed anything either with the styling or the shading workflow here. The particle edit system seems largely the same nowadays, so I imagine there isn't too much change there. But for example when making the locks, you mention that copying the particle system doesn't take the style with it, which is unfortunate. With the new disconnect/connect feature, is it feasible to duplicate the scalp, disconnect the hair, delete the duplicated mesh, then reconnect the hair to the original scalp and continue styling (I haven't used that feature yet)? Also, I find the legacy shader built here to be more believable than the Hair BSDF-based shader you made, and I've never been able to get the hair BSDF to look good. Do you have any updates on shading workflow? Sorry for the long question, and I don't expect detailed review of new workflows, just wondering if you've made any changes since this course was made so long ago.
Hi Matt - In general, no I would use the same workflow in 2.79 as I did here in 2.66. While I was looking forward to the cool new hair features developed for Cosmos Laundromat, to my knowledge they still haven't made it into Blender. I'm not sure if they would drastically affect the workflow in this course, but they would be the first new features to the hair system in a long time.
I should also say that since doing this course, I haven't actually had many hair-based projects. While I would likely recommend starting with the hair BSDF due it being specifically designed for hair, I don't think there's anything wrong with reverting to a non-hair BSDF material if it looks better.
Thanks for taking the course and for the positive feedback!