> This is something that has been bothering me for some time. My scene files are
> all very 'clinical', that is they are too perfect. For example, I have rendered
> a scene with a paved street, a brick wall and a lamp post, but everything looks
> perfectly 'clean'; the wall is perfectly straight, there is no dirt, no rubbish,
> no anything other than what I have already mentioned. What do I have to do to
> get natural looking scenes?
>
> Also, in over a year of using POV-Ray, I have not progressed much beyond the
> basic solid primitives, and blob has gone almost unused. Is there any kind of
> maths I need to study, or do I need to use a modeler, or what?
>
> If anyone could give me a hand with these questions, I would be much obliged.
>
> D103
>
>
>

You can use some creative texturing to dirtyup your objects. Some 
gradient going from dirty to clean that you layer over the base onject's 
texture. You can also use some image_map.

For the rubish, you need to model and place it.

Replace your wall made from a single box by one made from a LOT of 
smaller boxes. Use one or some bricks made as meshes, mirror and rotate 
them around to make them look like there are many more models. There are 
some free modelers around that can help, or you can use some ready made 
ones. Look in the objects collection.

If you have a vast glass wall and it have some seams using texturing, 
adding some normal perturbation with the cells pattern scalled to match 
the details can be good. Just use a small bump_size. Nesting pattern can 
be fun.

Use light placement creatively, play with the shadows.
Use area_light. I recomend using the adaptive option and a relatively 
dence array. Start with adaptive 0 and increase the value if needed.

Place your camera artisticaly, apply a small amount of tilting, like 
less that 1 or 2 degrees.
Use a whide field of view, of a narrow one and the camera pulled back, 
and experiment with the various projection modes: spherical, omnimax, 
ultrawhideangle, fisheye,...
For play, apply some small normal to the camera.
Use focal blur, but not while desining the scene.

Use fog (now), or media (later).

Don't forget to also model the background, those far away scene 
elements. Also, don't forget to put something outside your field of 
view. It can cast some shadows, and can be essential if you have 
anything reflective.
It also enable you to move and orient the camera with more latitude/freedom.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Explore the primitives that you barely or 
did not already use. A bicubic_patch object can do a good job as some 
stray papers... Come back here if you have more questions.

Regarding maths, some trigonometry, mostly basic, can help.



Alain

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