"Bob Hughes" <omniverse@charter%net> wrote in message
news:43eb7f93$1@news.povray.org...
> "Michael Goldshteyn" <mgo### [at] comcastnet> wrote in message
> news:43eb5c8b$1@news.povray.org...
> >I created a scene with some glass like superellipsoids.
> > unsmooth transitions in the reflections in the glass columns. Even with
> > anti-aliasing on, the transitions aren't smooth at all and it looks very
> > computer generated and not very real. Can anyone help me with ideas on
how
> > to make this scene look better and more realistic?
>
> Two possible ideas, and both would slow the rendering down. Camera focal
> blur and/or refractive dispersion. However, neither would be direct a
remedy
> for softening reflections.
>
> I'm not certain of what you might be talking about exactly anyhow. Is it
> only the reflectiveness? Or is there something else about it? I tried
> rendering a small section at a large enough size to see the glass columns
> but I'm still not completely sure if it's only reflection causing the
sharp
> and dashed lines I'm seeing. Oh, also might be possible to lower
> max_trace_level without causing blackout areas, since I tried 15 instead
of
> 50 and it looked fairly okay.
>
> As you might already know, the superellipsoid primitive in a CSG
difference
> can be slow to render, so I hope you're ready for slower rendering if you
> take me up on my suggestions.  ;)
>
> Have you considered using MegaPOV? It can blur reflections (or at least
did
> in some version). And there's also the regular POV version method of
> blending textures, just search for "blurred reflection" and you should
find
> plenty of past discussion about it.
>
> Bob
>
>

My few suggestions would include using a tight specular highlight with a
softer phong highlight. (borrowed from Lightbeam's glass technique I think.)

Then, maybe use a slight normal scaled large enough so it's not obviously
repeating on the individual objects. Something like
normal {waves 0.2  scale 0.7 }
adds a little character to a unit sphere by just giving the glass a bit of
non-uniformity.

Also, I no longer use colors in pigments for glass. purely rgbt<1, 1, 1, 1>.
Then I do coloring in the interior statement:
interior {
  ior 1.5
  fade_color <0.3, 1.0, 0.3>
  fade_distance 0.15
  fade_power 1003
  dispersion 1.1
  dispersion_samples 7
} // requires tweaking per object


These are things I like to use, they might not always be realistic but I
find them nice.

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