Ok I’ve checked around (alot) and have yet to find a definitive answer about this:
Is Blender, in any capacity, able to render open (non-closed, 2D) curves without beveling or a bevel object in place?
Ok, some situational background:
I’m using curves as base objects in a 2D semi-cutout style animation, now I can render these two ways, Blender internal using the “Edge” setting (actually set up a neat little method for controlling the line thickness for an orthogonal camera with the edging, but I digress…), or using Freestyle integration (which is what I’d like to use for production rendering, I think).
I have the curve objects as the individual parts of the characters (such as a Bezier circle w/ four control points for the eye for example) and these are just manipulated to produce the shapes I need for emotions, speaking, etc. The problem is I’m using open bezier curves for objects such as the mouth in certain positions and accent lines in the character themselves and I’m finding (to some dismay and frustration) that open curves do not render without beveling applied.
The real problem is, for those of you about to say it, no, I can’t convert to mesh for rendering since the curves change (obviously), so I’d have to convert a copy of the curve for every frame… not feasible. Next just strictly using a mesh as the object for, say a mouth, is not feasible either as the distortions would require a huge amount of vertices to get a smooth line, not to mention the lines shaped correctly even with something like proportional editing. Also, the huge drain on my time. And the issue of tweens.
I can’t use a bevel either as that will, at the very least, quadruple the line thickness for that portion of the character even at the lowest bevel, destroying line continuity in the render (both sides of the bevel + line thickness). I tried using a curve circle with no control vertices as a bevel object to see if that would register the main control curve with the renderer, :no: no dice.
My point being the tweening from the curve deformations is key to the animation so losing them would shatter the entire pipeline and greatly reduce the quality of the transitions, so I really need to find a workaround. If anyone has any ideas about how to accomplish this with the internal renderer or with Freestyle I would name you Rumpelstiltskin and give you my first born… :eek: