Gilles Tran wrote:

essage
> de news:3ff95bd4$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>>it would be maybe more usable. If I can propose a new feature, this
>>would be it: object based AA. That way one could define high AA to very

>>small detailed objects without affecting the whole scene.
> 
> 
> For the record, this very feature exists in Cinema 4D (I'm compiling a 
list
> of C4D vs POV-Ray features to be released soon): one defines AA at scen
e
> level but each object can have a special tag attached that allows it to
 have
> a higher AA quality [...]

I would like to point out a few things:

first of all 'per object aa settings' is not a clearly defined feature 
at all, it would be if we only had opaque non-reflective surfaces in the 

scene.  In all other cases the color of a sample is not just determined 
by a single object so you can't find a general solution for this (no 
matter how you implement it there will always be cases where it does not 

do what you want).

second: the idea that you need higher aa settings for 'small and 
detailed objects' to me seems to show a misunderstanding of the concept 
of adaptive antialiasing - you automatically get better antialiasing for 

such objects.  The reason you want per object settings in case of 
blurred reflection is because you abuse aa for something it never was 
designed for.

Of course variable antialiasing settings might still be interesting for 
mere speed reasons - you have a scene with quite slow periferial parts 
and you want to reduce aa settings there for a faster render but need 
the high quality settings for a central region to look good.  In such a 
case you might not want to have the aa settings for a specific object 
but for a specific region (you have to make sure of course you get a 
smooth transit).  For this a 2d antialiasing map might be more useful 
(it would of course also be easier to implement... :-).

A remark on blurred reflection: a useful feature would probably an 
adaptive sampling technique for this purpose - you send out a set of 
rays from the surface of the reflective object and stop if their 
returned colors do not differ more than  a certain threshold - otherwise 

you send more rays.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 25 Oct. 2003 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

Post a reply to this message