"Rick Measham" <rickm*at%isite.net.au> wrote in message 
news:42bb45a1$1@news.povray.org...
>
> My problem is that my scene is taking years to render because of all the 
> reflections .. the light is bouncing down the streets from building to 
> building!
>
> Now, when I look at skyscrapers in my RL city, this doesn't happen .. 
> everything just appears darkish unless the sky is actually reflecting on 
> it.
>
> How do I get this to happen in POVRay?

The global setting 'max_trace_level' will already limit it by default to 5 
bounces but maybe you could set that to just 3 instead and still not effect 
transparent surfaces.

If you aren't using variable reflection (both a minimum and a maximum value 
together) yet maybe give that a try, so that the reflections diminish at 
various angles of view or incidence.

And, after saying all that, I almost forgot about the exact phenomenon you 
seem to have told of-- 'reflection_exponent', or as it is used now, just the 
word exponent with a value less than one and nearer to zero which reflects 
less of the darker things and so leaving brighter things to remain instead. 
At least I think this might be the best advice of the three choices I 
mentioned here, but I'm not sure how it'll effect render time. Maybe 
somebody else knows better than I do (no surprise, if so).

Bob Hughes

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