ICE strand rendering q's

[Pete]

Hi there,
I just have a few questions about ICE strands. I am having a bit of trouble rendering them. It seems if I use a default phong material they just come out really thin and half there.
http://www.peterleary.net/forumfiles/thin%20strands.png

If i connect the particle render node to the volume of the particle's material they render but as volumes, and I don't seem to have any control over their thickness.

http://www.peterleary.net/forumfiles/volume%20strands.png

In the video by Phill Taylor "Particles – Growing Plants and Grass" Here - ( http://community.softimage.com/showthread.php?t=1964 ) The particles seem to be solid. Any Ideas?
Pete

[SheepFactory]

I think he changes the strand type to cylinder. Do that and you have control over their radius.

[Pete]

Yeay that worked! Thanks!
However it does lead me to some other questions :) It got me because it was the shape in the emitter node I had to change (from point to whatever)
http://www.peterleary.net/forumfiles/Strand%20rendered.png

Is there a way to contol the colour along the strand's length?

[rray]

Anyone knows whether instances can be deformed along the strand (like they can with hair strands)? That would be so cool but I couldn't get it to work -- this would solve the coloring problem too.

[scaron]

at the moment i dont think they have any way of doing this. we talked about it during beta but right now instances would be on the particle transform only. instances dont know about the strands

[andystopps]

There's a Particle Strand Gradient shader.