Hi

When I instance metaballs onto point objects, they do not render as metaballs(just normal spheres). I guess in a way it makes sense. However, is there a way to do this with a different method? Basically I want my objects to be rendered with metaballs but only in rendertime.

Yes I know I can use object display flags and render display flags that is a method. I am just looking for rendertime only method if you will

thanks

if you copy metaballs to points, you'll not get geometry, just metaballs, which can be represented in viewport as geometry, and it's purely dependent on viewport LOD
so if you don't convert them to polygons with Convert or ConvertMeta, it will be rendered with mantra as metaballs perfectly smooth

apart from that there is metaball procedural shader where you can set LOD explicitly. Just apply that shader to geometry containing metaballs

both are rendertime, but you can see some representation in viewport so you may still want to use Display/Render flags if you don't want or just lower LOD for fast interaction

tamte, thanks for the answer. I know I can use the copy SOP but the thing is that I am dealing with super heavy point clouds so I do not even want to deal with it at SOP level. I just wanted to create the surface in rendertime if it was possible.

I have tried the procedural approach, which requires a SOP setup.

I don't think it's possible in a straightforward way right now.
There was some talking about the usefulness of a Mantra Procedural for surfacing particle fluids at render time (RealFlow has something like this for PRMan). I suppose it might appear in a future version of Houdini.

Dragos

Have a look at the metaball mantra procedural.
It's a procedural, which means you need to load it as a geometry shader from shops. It will create your polygonized surface at rendertime.

You do not have as many options as the fluidsurfacer gives you (and it would be nice to see some of those parameters transferred - but at the moment it just polygonizes the metaballs at rendertime).

pclaes
Have a look at the metaball mantra procedural.
It's a procedural, which means you need to load it as a geometry shader from shops. It will create your polygonized surface at rendertime.

But if I understand correctly it still needs the metaball geometry in the Object, so you still need to use the Copy SOP to create your geometry from metaballs.

Dragos

You can use the clusterThis mantra procedural to instance metaballs onto points at render time, and it does all the groovy blobby stuff you would expect.

Linux only for now: http://www.digitalcinemaarts.com/software/clusterthis/ [digitalcinemaarts.com]


–Mark

thanks for all the replies. Xionmark`s solution sounds like what I am looking for. I will give it a go today

thanks again