How do I instance characters with fur?

[Twist]

Hello. I Have a scene where I need to instance bees with fur. The client have provided the bee character that includes a xgen groom. My initial thought was to make a proxy from the whole thing but the xgen description wasn't working anymore. I did predeict this but it was worth a try. Then I tried baked the groom to alembic cache and the put a renderable curve node on it and that renders fine. But curves can't be instanced though ChaosScatter which I was planning to use for instancing the bees. I tried instancing with MASH as well but vray cannot render curves that are instanced for some reason.

So how do I do this?

[hermit.crab]

Have you tried converting the xGen to geometry?

EDIT:

Then I tried baked the groom to alembic cache and the put a renderable curve node on it and that renders fine. But curves can't be instanced though ChaosScatter which I was planning to use for instancing the bees

I tried this by converting the xGen to guides > guides to splines > splines to .abc > load in a VRayProxy. VRayRenderableCurves is not needed to render the splines. This way it is scattered as expected.

[Twist]

Thank you for replying.

If you're not using VrayRenderableCurves how do you render the splines then?

[hermit.crab]

The VRayProxy treats the splines as hair. I control the width with the Hair Width multiplier.

[Twist]

The VRayProxy treats the splines as hair. I control the width with the Hair Width multiplier.

Thank you very much. I got it working. Is there any way to control the taper of the hairs?

[Twist]

I tried this expression but the render is blank.

hair_vrayproxy.hairWidthMultiplier = 1 * VRayFurSampler1.distanceAlongStrand;

[hermit.crab]

I tried this expression but the render is blank.

hair_vrayproxy.hairWidthMultiplier = 1 * VRayFurSampler1.distanceAlongStrand;

I tried with float math and it doesn't seem to work. This thread discusses a similar issue. You may try the transparency method.

[Twist]

Yes I found that thread and saw that it was solved at that time. So there's no way to do it seems.

Are you planning on fixing it?

[hermit.crab]

Yes I found that thread and saw that it was solved at that time. So there's no way to do it seems.

Are you planning on fixing it?

After discussing the case with the devs, it seems easiest to add a Taper option in the VRayProxy. Logged an improvement request (internal bug-tacker id: VMAYA-13133).

[Twist]

After discussing the case with the devs, it seems easiest to add a Taper option in the VRayProxy. Logged an improvement request (internal bug-tacker id: VMAYA-13133).

That would be great. Thank you