Steely wrote:
> A happy new year to all!
> 
> I am trying to figure out what "special" things are possible with a
> pigment_pattern but I don't get it. Whatever I do, when compared with the
> corresponding "regular" pattern there is no difference to see.
> 
> Taking for example a snip out of the Docs:
> pigment { 
> pigment_pattern { 
> checker [and so on ...]
> 
> instead of:
> pigment {
> checker [and so on ...]
> 
> has no visible differences in the pictures (except the colours, of
> course).

pigment_pattern is a very useful method to apply pattern modifiers (like 
warps, transforms, etc.) only to the pattern and not to the map 
components.  If you only use plain colors in checker (or a color_map on 
other patterns) this won't make any difference of course.  Megapov 0.x 
had another feature (the 'reset_children' warp) for this purpose but it 
was more ugly and more limited.

Example:

pigment {
   gradient x
   pigment_map { [0.5 P_1][0.5 P_2] }
   warp { turbulence 0.5 }
}

pigment {
   pigment_pattern {
     gradient x
     warp { turbulence 0.5 }
   }
   pigment_map { [0.5 P_1][0.5 P_2] }
}

Another thing is of course you can apply an arbitrary color_map in 
pigment_pattern and this way create something like a custom waveform 
modifier.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 25 Oct. 2003 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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