Tom Melly wrote:
> Odd - take out the "smooth" and everything is okay, but double_illuminate has no
> effect, wherever you place it.

Hard to say without knowing what "logo.png" looks like, but this is
probably due to having too sharp a drop off on the actual heightfield.
I designed a plateaued cliff once that had bizarre, unnatural
shading with smooth that vanished without smooth. Trouble turned out
to be that my first attempt had a near 90 degree falloff at the
plateau's edges, and...

> Hmm, is smooth a "real" effect or just an illusion (like a normal). If it's just
> an illusion, maybe the whole concept is a-about-face (like expecting a diff. of
> an object with a heavy normal to follow the contour of the normal).

... Yup, you got it. It's a trick of the normals, not a physical
displacement of the resulting mesh. Trying to use "smooth" on a
90 degree (or near 90 degree) falloff caused the anamolous
shadows. I solved my problem by running the source image thru
a smoothing filter so the edges weren't so sharp. If that doesn't
work for what you're trying to achieve, the only solution might
be learning to live without the smooth on the heightfield...
perhaps by making a higher resolution source if necessary.

 > I dunno. Looks like a bug. Anyone got a magnifying glass and
 > some sunshine? Lets kill it.

Not a bug, really. Just a mathematical limitation of normal
manipulation. Dontcha hate the immutability of mathematics?
:)

-- 
@C[$F];
The Silver Tome ::  http://www.silvertome.com
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