Better Ray SOP control?

[Atom]

Hi All,

 

I have a center line that I have skinned and displaced along normals.

I also have a series of thinner lines that I have done the same thing to.

I am using the Twist, along with Copy to create a few copies of the smaller tubes around the central core.

 

Currently I am using the RAY node to project the thinner copies onto the central core. This does work but the results are not what I intended. To achieve the higher resolution detail in my displace I have  lot of points in the line but when these points get projected via the RAY they conform too much to the surface and "Wrinkle" my tech cables far too much. I do have a PolyReduce before the ray to reduce the geometry on the central core, hoping that would cause less detailed intersection but it still does not work.

 

I have played around with all the setting on the RAY node but none of them manage to keep my cable intact when conforming to the surface.

 

 

The scene is kind of complex at this time so I don't really want to post it but I thought I'd ask for any tips on the subject?

Edited July 31, 2015 by Atom

[Solitude]

A few things you might look into.

 

*Ray with low poly curve, then convert to nurbs then back to poly. This can smooth out strong corners from the ray sop

*Ray onto a smoothed proxy model (convex hull via tetrahedralize sop maybe, or polyreduced version)

*Use smooth sop on the curve and use curvature to blend in smoothed vs unsmoothed version of the curve.

 

You can also use an attribvop then use intersect vop to ray onto the surface or xyzdist vop to get closest point on the surface. You can then grab info from the intersected prim by using the prim attr. vop.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Solitude