Anthony Bennett wrote:
> 
> Hello, all. I'm working on a texture that looks like the flag of the
> USA, and I have a background texture with the thirteen
> bands/strips/stripes. I also have a star texture which consists of three
> triangle-like textures piled on top of each other. These triangles are
> made of 2 layers in themselves The problem occurs when I try to stick in
> 50 stars. POV begins to render and then just stops and complains about
> too many layers. Is there any way of increasing the ammount of layers it
> accepts beyond 256?. According to my calculations (1+(3*2)*50)=301
> layers. Can I make it work? Or will I be forced to use an image map?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any input guys.

  I envy your hard work and enthusiasm but it is quite likely you are going
about this the wrong way.

  A quick study of a map catalog here shows the middle, to top of the line
flags, as having individual components for each visible geometrical pattern.
This means that each strip is one colored piece, the stars are each a single
colored 5 point star and so on and so a forth. Take the individual pieces and
sew them altogether and you have one each flag. This would reduce your colors
for the object to just three and no layering would be required at all.

 Another approach one could try is by differencing the different layers
against a surface where the difference object adds it's color to the
first object. It would take a very shallow difference to avoid having it look
like a bomb test site, but I have done similar things just to see how
it would look and found it to have it's advantages in certain situations.
One in particular is adding decals to only one surface of a solid object
without the image appearing on the opposite side in reverse.

 An image map would be the easiest method by far.

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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