Daniel Ngu <ngu### [at] xtraconz> wrote in message
news:web.3ece0dd2f0f17591d68c64370@news.povray.org...
> Hi,
>    I'm Daniel Ngu from New Zealand.  I'm a new user of POVRay and I'm a
huge
> fan

Hello, welcome aboard!

I'm also checking
> out other free raytracing programs out there, one that I'm also very
> interested in is Virtualight.  Since I'm a new comer, would you please let
> me know if you had tried out Virtualight as well and what you think of it
> and how it differs from POVRay.

Don't know how it compares, other than POV seems to be much easier to find
out anything about... I've seen some nice renders done with Virtualight, but
have never found much info on the app, other than it seems to be a global
illumination renderer for Maya & 3DS Max that features several different
lighting models.  But then, POV can do a lot, and there are several patches
to do even more.


>    I have been going through the Virtualight's manual, one note I'll like
to
> make is how similar its language is to POVRay.  I could interchange the
> source file between the two renderer pretty well.

Oooh, I never even realized it it could be used stand-alone, or that it had
a scene description language, might have to give it another look. Where did
you find the manual?


However, there are times
> that I found Virtualight do provide features that are more readily
> available,
> such as the use of sunlight as a light source.  How do I achieve the same
> effect in POVRay?


Look at other people's source and see how they implement sunlight. (I'm
betting you find several methods that work well!)   From some Virtualight
scenes I've seen using sunlight, I'd say a good simulation would be a very
bright light set well back and bounced off a white plane to diffuse the
light and soften the shadows.

RG

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