Rendering splines with VRay

[Art48]

Is it possible to render splines as rendertime-geometry or some other sort of that?
In the back of my head I think I remember some other renderer (I think it could have been PRMan) being able to render some sort of fake geometry for curves/splines.

Background for me asking this is because I got a heavy cool PFlow setup and am generating shapes out of it, MANY shapes.

I am aware of the "Renderable Spline" modifier, but it would also take ages compiling the geometry before rendering would start.

Is there a way or plans for getting such a feature implemented?

[vlado]

I think Ornatrix had an option to convert splines to hairs, which V-Ray can render natively.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Art48]

Good to know - sadly we don't have Ornatrix

Is this feature anywhere on your To-Do list?

[vanished]

Ornatrix does indeed have an option: "Guides from Shape" and "mesh from strands" with a lot of options (custom geometry, control over thickness along length,...)
The performance is more than 10-20x faster than the standard rendereable spline option which makes it possible to leave it on in viewport while scrubbing.
It does still have some issues that need to be fixed: uneven UV-distribution, "broken" sharp and straight corners.

Itoo's railclone Pro is also an excellent option in a lot of cases where a lot of splines need to be meshed.

Cheers,
Tim

[vlado]

Good to know - sadly we don't have Ornatrix

Is this feature anywhere on your To-Do list?

Not for the moment, I'm afraid. I can add it to JIRA but I don't know when we will get to it.

Best regards,
Vlado

[Art48]

Cool. Adding it would be nice, I know it's not a top priority feature, but a useful one in some cases.