Philip Bartol <phi### [at] concentricnet> wrote:
: The problem is that I found that while the texture had open spaces, the solid 
: parts of the texture only where on the surface of my test object. I figured 
: that since the pigment goes through the object if you cut it, that using a 
: transparent color would show the solid portions thorugh the object.

  This is a common misunderstanding among beginners.
  Povray doesn't handle solid objects, only surfaces. (The keyword 'hollow'
has _nothing_ to do with this.) Povray handles mathematical surfaces, which
are infinitely thin.
  Think about it: Povray calculates the intersection between the viewing ray
and the object (eg. a sphere). Ok, now it has the coordinates in space for
the intersection point. Now what? It calculates the color of that point for
that specific object. It finds that it's transparent. What should it do?
It traces another ray from there. This ray hits the sphere again at the
other side. The result is that we see a hollow sphere.
  Calculating the intersection between the viewing ray and a texture pattern
in space is quite difficult. Media does this, and you can try doing something
with it, but expect _slow_ rendering times and not-so-good results.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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