Christopher James Huff wrote in message ...

[Edited]

>No...you're artificially coloring the surface of the water. POV can't
>read your mind...
>
>Reflection will only take the color of the pigment if you use
>"reflect_metallic" (MegaPOV) or put "metallic" in the reflection {}
>block (POV 3.5).
>
>But the highlights and reflections shouldn't be causing you
>problems... by default, they do not take the color of the surface.

Yes, I understand implicitly the above three statements. The
reflection itself is the color of the lightsource (in this circumstance),
but the *net effect* when used on a blue imagemap is a reflection
that appears to be various values of blue...

>Water isn't usually done by making a blue, shiny texture...
>though if you are doing the planet earth I guess you don't have a
>lot of choice.

Now you're seeing the big picture! That's my limitation - I have to
use an imagemap. There's no other realistic option in this situation.

And that's the anology I was trying to make with the Space Shuttle
photo: the entire Earth surface, land AND water, will have to be an
imagemap, regardless of how physically unrealistic that is, and
reflections have to be superimposed onto it and made to *look*
real.

Given those limitations the POV-Ray run universe will not be able
to produce a realistic image (through no fault of its own). But the
situation limits me to using means that I know aren't realistic to get
the *impression* of realism. And in order to do that I just need to
be able to change one simple element (the specular reflection
appearance).

Like I originally mentioned, it can be done using two renders but I'd
prefer to find a way to do it in one to simplify animations.

>Have you tried using reflection instead? Or just very tight specular
>highlights?

Unless I'm missing something (remember I'm not an experienced
user) I have been using specular highlights. Maybe not "very tight"
though because I need to reproduce a specific appearance. I'll go
back again and try using just reflection, but I'm almost 100% that
I've tried it before and the results weren't what I wanted.

Regards,

Mike

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