Ah...man...errrrrgh...

So...a little practical advice would be in order here...

What would be the best course of action "in general"?
1) Create some sort of SDL raytracer which creates a mesh of my object  
 from scratch, so people can use realistic ice/snow textures with SSS and  
interior

or

2) Forget #1 and just perfect what I have, and put a big fat disclaimer  
about using any texture with IOR and filter/transmit, because single  
pixels can take a week or more..

or

3) Somehow find exemplars of macros which raytrace/mesh convert/export so  
I can Frankenstein something half respectable


So long as you do not use any fancy textures, this thing flies...

Given all I have going on I really don't think #1 is very practical if  
starting from absolute scratch.

#2 simply doesn't taste right to me...

Maybe if someone has retained a *good and simple* SDL raytracer sample,  
which I know has been posted at some time, *and* if I someone has a copy  
of a *good and simple* mesh converter, of which I also know exists and has  
been posted, #1 or #3 may become significantly more feasible. #3 looks  
best to me..

I know someone made a mesh object pov converter one time...but I don't  
know where to start in finding it..if I could just get my hands on those  
things previously listed, I know I could hack something together that  
would (probably with some advice from the community) get the job done and  
be re-usable for other macros in at least some capacity.

Does anyone remember the names of the files/who made, the sdl raytracers,  
mesh converters and export utilities I mentioned?

Ian McDonald


On Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:06:47 -0500, clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

> Am 11.12.2010 02:58, schrieb [GDS|Entropy]:
>
>> Is this something that would require "obtaining" the geometry with an
>> SDL raytracer that dumps optimized points to a mesh
>> creation/optimization macro? (I really hope not..REALLY hope not..)
>
> Normally yes - sorry.
>
> But then again, POV-Ray has super-normal powers ;-)
>
> One option that springs to my mind is to render an animation series of  
> "slices" of the object, then use an external tool to trace the outlines  
> of the shape in order to create a vertex cloud, and ultimately connect  
> them to a mesh. Maybe do some sophisticated cleanup to reduce the vertex  
> count where possible. Voila.


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