Rafal 'Raf256' Maj <raf### [at] raf256com> wrote:
> no - this will work only for convex shapes like sphere, box
> other shapes will reflect they selfs (and their should reflect ONLY 
> sky_sphere)

  So what? The better it looks. I can't think of any reason of wanting
it to look unrealistic.
  Besides, as already suggested, no_reflection can achieve this.

> with with argument You do not agree :

> - allow to have POV scenes acting _same_ as in some other renderers 

  But why would you want to?
  Scanline renderers can't calculate reflections for curved surfaces (without
using raytracing). In order to relieve this problem a more limited trick
was developed: Environment mapping. This simulates reflection if the map
is properly done and the other objects in the scene it "reflects" are not
too close to this one (if they are, the reflections get distorted in an
unrealistic way). It's also impossible to make self-reflection with this
trick. Another problem with environment mapping is the introduced resolution
limit of the map.
  That is, it's a trick which simulates reflection, and it does an acceptable
job only in certain cases, while there are cases where it does a very poor
job.

  In raytracing you don't *need* to resort to this kind of trick, as you
have a very easy way of getting a perfect reflection.
  Why would you want to degrade POV-Ray and introduce a cheap trick which
doesn't even work very well? Reflection is one of the strongest features
of a raytracer. Adding a worse trick makes no sense.

> - it saves time (in heave reflection secenes)

  Heavy reflection scenes have many inter-reflecting and self-reflecting
objects. Environment mapping simply does not work with this.
  Setting max_trace_level to 2 gives you a very similar result as
environment mapping and it shouldn't even be radically slower (in fact,
it could even be faster in many cases).
  Besides, environment maps consume lots of memory. You need pretty high
resolution maps if you want to avoid pixelation.

> - can be used in some artistics effects

  IMHO that's not reason enough to add such feature.

-- 
#macro N(D)#if(D>99)cylinder{M()#local D=div(D,104);M().5,2pigment{rgb M()}}
N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

Post a reply to this message