GUIDES OBJECT

In most cases guides from surface modifier can be used to generate Ornatrix guides. However sometimes it is simpler to create a separate object that directly exports guides, without having to be sandwiched in the pipeline as a modifier. Also there is an issue of randomly generated hair flickering when underlying mesh deforms:

When to use guide object over modifier ?

* Base object can cache at multiple frames

Ornatrix generates roots either through computing UV area of each face, or using its world area. When using the UV area there will be no deforming mesh issues. However when you use world area and your mesh is deforming, the areas of each triangle changes through time. Dense hair is cached before render begins and if you are rendering the whole time range in one go, there will be no problems. If you are rendering in separate pieces, hair will be cached multiple times -once per every render. If the face areas change during that interval you will get flickering once you compose these pieces together.

If you use guide object instead of modifier, you have an option to distribute guides and dense hair on distribution surface only at a specific frame. This implies that the world face areas will stay constant and thus hair will always be generated the same way.

* Base object has interface to OrnaGuides

Because guides object is derived from core Ornatrix guide class, it provides a maxscript OrnaGuides interface which can be used to tweak cached guides with external scripts.

Parameters:

Most parameters are identical to guides from surface modifier.

Convert time - Reference time when guide should cache the underlying surface (read more above).