A technique is described for adding natural-looking hair to standard rendering algorithms. Using an explicit hair model, in which each individual hair is represented by a three-dimensional curve, the technique uses pixel blending combined with Z-buffer and shadow buffer information from the scene to yield a final anti-aliased image with soft shadows. Although developed for rendering human hair, this technique can also be used to render any model consisting of long filaments of sub-pixel width. The technique can be adapted to any rendering method that outputs Z-buffer and shadow buffer information and is amenable to hardware implementation