Curves to emit light?

[stezza]

Is it possible to somehow get curves to emit light just like attaching VRaylight properties to a mesh?

[hermit.crab]

No, but you can make the spline renderable (V-Ray attribute) and set a VRayLightMtl, however, note that DI won't work. Another solution is to make thin geometry out of the curve and apply a VRayMeshLight.

[stezza]

Many thanks, thats a perfect solution. works for me!
Many thanks.

[stezza]

Is there a script that could apply the renderable attribute to many curves in one go?
Would be great to be able to create a set and apply this attribute to it.

[hermit.crab]

Found one here. Replace the "VRayLightMtl1" part with the name of your shader. Select all curves and run this:

$selected=`ls -dag -et curveShape`;
for ($object in $selected){
// Add V-ray Extra attributes
vray addAttributesFromGroup $object vray_nurbscurve_renderable 1;
vrayAddAttr $object vraySeparator_vray_nurbscurve_renderable;
vrayAddAttr $object vrayNurbsCurveRenderable;
vrayAddAttr $object vrayNurbsCurveMaterial;
vrayAddAttr $object vrayNurbsCurveTesselation;
vrayAddAttr $object vrayNurbsCurveStartWidth;
vrayAddAttr $object vrayNurbsCurveLockEndWidth;
vrayAddAttr $object vrayNurbsCurveEndWidth;
setUITemplate -pst attributeEditorTemplate;
// Activate renderable
setAttr ($object + ".vrayNurbsCurveRenderable") 1;
// Replace VRayLightMtl1 by your material
connectAttr -force VRayLightMtl1.outColor ($object + ".vrayNurbsCurveMaterial");
}

[oglu]

Could this work with curves coming from Bifrost?

[stezza]

Thanks again Hermit.Crab worked perfectly. Really appreciate your help.

[hermit.crab]

Could this work with curves coming from Bifrost?

I don't think so. There seem to be available compounds that convert strands to tubes, which may be helpful.

[hsz]

Yeah, you will need to use the extrude_strands from Maxime and then convert BF geo to a Maya mesh.