I’m wondering if there is a way to put a material on the end cap of a curve and then use displacement in cycles to inflate it to look like a rounded cap.
I don’t know how to make an actual half circle with displacement but I can turn a flat disk like this
into something rounder like this
But Fill Caps doesn’t generate geometry like that… I think?
Yeah, it generates a triangle strip. And AFAIK it’s flat-shaded.
well if they weren’t going to do it right, why did they do it at all :’(
…because bevel profile can be any shape and it can’t make any assumptions?
Sounds like rounded caps is something that is never going to happen then. The more I learn about using Blender the more I just want to buy C4D lately.
Not sure if this helps but I usually convert the curve to a mesh and the “Grid Fill” the end. Take some middle geometry and pull it out a bit, the place a subdivision modifier to smooth the end out.
Sometimes if there’s a lot of geo at the end, I’ll grab a point in the middle and then turn on the proportional editing to a sphere and change the affected size so it just modifies that end part.
I couldn’t figure out how to displace something like that.
That’s one way to solve the problem… or you find a workaround that works for your case and maybe even script it if you need it often.
Pretty sure there’s a way to make fully adjustable non-destructive caps (for curved arrays). Just don’t know how exactly yet 
Maybe an exception could be coded in the source, something like “If (bevel has no “extrude” & no “custom profile”): assume it’s round shape, generate geo with this many segments and that profile”…
Yes, I’ve seen this. None of these workarounds are as good as what I’ve seen people doing in C4D.
But doing this removes the procedural benefits of using curves in the first place.
There is. https://www.behance.net/gallery/104038665/Lollipop and it is the most painful thing I’ve ever done in Blender.
C4D for you it is!!! Good luck.
