 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Tank Command Program to Tank Pilot Program...
You're already in hot water after you were responsible for derezzing that
tank last week.
Now how could you go and lose that rogue light cycle in the middle of the
game grid. Come on...
there is NOTHING out here for him to hide behind!!!
Post a reply to this message
Attachments:
Download 'TankPro.PNG' (330 KB)
Preview of image 'TankPro.PNG'
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
One very cool image! (Does look like it could use more AA in places, but
maybe it's just a difficult image to pull off.) Oh yeah, and in a moment or
two I imagine someone will ask you why it's not JPEG ;-)
But seriously, I love it!
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> One very cool image!
Thanks...
> (Does look like it could use more AA in places, but
> maybe it's just a difficult image to pull off.)
Well here is what I used...
[800x600, AA 0]
Width=800
Height=600
Antialias=On
Sampling_Method=2
Antialias_Depth=2
Antialias_Threshold=0.0
And it took about a week to render on my 1.5 GHz P4. I agree it looks like
it needs more AA but I didn't want to wait forever either.
> Oh yeah, and in a moment or
> two I imagine someone will ask you why it's not JPEG ;-)
Well I did download a program called ImageForge so I could save the
1,440,054 byte BMP image as a 337,634 byte PNG image. I was trying to avoid
the artifacts created by going to JPEG. If I broke any posting guideline
you have my apologies. Is JPEG the prefered posting format here?
My first image I posted here was in the JPEG format but once I saw the
difference between the JPEG and PNG files of the same image I was rather
easily converted. To be honest not only am I new to POV-Ray but I'm new to
some of these image formats as well. I wasn't aware of much aside from BMP,
GIF, and JPG a little over a month ago. I'm toying with the idea of making
a few animations but I know even less about all the formats they are saved
in. I'm sure I'll learn.
> But seriously, I love it!
Thanks again. I aim to please,
Carl
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Among other things, Carl Hoff wrote:
>> Oh yeah, and in a moment or
>> two I imagine someone will ask you why it's not JPEG ;-)
>
> Well I did download a program called ImageForge so I could save the
> 1,440,054 byte BMP image as a 337,634 byte PNG image. I was trying to
> avoid
> the artifacts created by going to JPEG. If I broke any posting guideline
> you have my apologies. Is JPEG the prefered posting format here?
Can't you render directly to PNG? PNG compression is lossless, there's no
quality degradation in rendering (and storing) your images in PNG format.
> My first image I posted here was in the JPEG format but once I saw the
> difference between the JPEG and PNG files of the same image I was rather
> easily converted. To be honest not only am I new to POV-Ray but I'm new
> to
> some of these image formats as well. I wasn't aware of much aside from
> BMP,
> GIF, and JPG a little over a month ago. I'm toying with the idea of
> making a few animations but I know even less about all the formats they
> are saved
> in. I'm sure I'll learn.
I'm no one here, but I'd say you should only use JPG and PNG in these
groups:
- Use JPG with high compression rate as often as you can. Yes, the quality
won't be perfect, but it's usually enough to see the model, lighting, etc.
This is not the file you store in your system, it's just the file you send
to the group.
- Use PNG only in cases where it gives lower filesize than JPG (very simple
flat-colour images) or when the quality loss is unacceptable (maybe you're
trying to show some fine detail or texture that is lost in JPG, for
example).
--
light_source{9+9*x,1}camera{orthographic look_at(1-y)/4angle 30location
9/4-z*4}light_source{-9*z,1}union{box{.9-z.1+x clipped_by{plane{2+y-4*x
0}}}box{z-y-.1.1+z}box{-.1.1+x}box{.1z-.1}pigment{rgb<.8.2,1>}}//Jellby
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> Can't you render directly to PNG? PNG compression is lossless,
> there's no quality degradation in rendering (and storing) your
> images in PNG format.
Probably... To be honest that's not a setting I've tried to change
yet. BMP was the default for the Windows version I down
loaded.
> I'm no one here, but I'd say you should only use JPG and PNG
> in these groups:
>
> - Use JPG with high compression rate as often as you can. Yes,
> the quality won't be perfect, but it's usually enough to see the
> model, lighting, etc. This is not the file you store in your system,
> it's just the file you send to the group.
>
> - Use PNG only in cases where it gives lower filesize than JPG
> (very simple flat-colour images) or when the quality loss is
> unacceptable (maybe you're trying to show some fine detail or
> texture that is lost in JPG, for example).
Sounds like good advice to me. Thanks.
Carl
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> > (Does look like it could use more AA in places, but
> > maybe it's just a difficult image to pull off.)
>
> Well here is what I used...
>
> [800x600, AA 0]
> Width=800
> Height=600
> Antialias=On
> Sampling_Method=2
> Antialias_Depth=2
> Antialias_Threshold=0.0
>
> And it took about a week to render on my 1.5 GHz P4. I agree it looks
like
> it needs more AA but I didn't want to wait forever either.
Wow... yeah, well, in that case I can't say I blame you! Wonder why it took
so long... (I'll go think about that.)
> > Oh yeah, and in a moment or
> > two I imagine someone will ask you why it's not JPEG ;-)
>
> Well I did download a program called ImageForge so I could save the
> 1,440,054 byte BMP image as a 337,634 byte PNG image. I was trying to
avoid
> the artifacts created by going to JPEG. If I broke any posting guideline
> you have my apologies. Is JPEG the prefered posting format here?
>
> My first image I posted here was in the JPEG format but once I saw the
> difference between the JPEG and PNG files of the same image I was rather
> easily converted. To be honest not only am I new to POV-Ray but I'm new
to
> some of these image formats as well. I wasn't aware of much aside from
BMP,
> GIF, and JPG a little over a month ago. I'm toying with the idea of
making
> a few animations but I know even less about all the formats they are saved
> in. I'm sure I'll learn.
PNG or JPEG are both fine; the crusial thing is how big the file is.
Actually you're isn't all that huge, and actually I was kidding. It depends
on the image; some look fine in JPEG, some look aweful! (And yes, PNG is
*very* good stuff!)
> > But seriously, I love it!
>
> Thanks again. I aim to please,
>
> Carl
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> Wow... yeah, well, in that case I can't say I blame you! Wonder why
> it took so long... (I'll go think about that.)
My guess is that its me. Both the bike and the tank and 100% CSG.
I'm still very new at this stuff. I'm able to make some of these models
but I'm sure they are far from optimized.
> PNG or JPEG are both fine; the crusial thing is how big the file is.
> Actually you're isn't all that huge, and actually I was kidding. It
depends
> on the image; some look fine in JPEG, some look aweful! (And yes,
> PNG is *very* good stuff!)
I too really like PNG. After looking at a few of my images as PNG
and JPG side-by-side I was amazed ad how big a difference it could
make. In the future though I'll try to stick with posting jpegs and
when I can provide a link to a PNG copy. If for some reason the
jpeg is total garbage maybe I'll post a 640x480 PNG if it doesn't look
too big.
Thanks,
Carl
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:57:43 -0800, "Carl Hoff" <hof### [at] wt net> wrote:
>Well here is what I used...
>
>[800x600, AA 0]
>Width=800
>Height=600
>Antialias=On
>Sampling_Method=2
>Antialias_Depth=2
>Antialias_Threshold=0.0
>
>And it took about a week to render on my 1.5 GHz P4. I agree it looks like
>it needs more AA but I didn't want to wait forever either.
How fast does it render with Antialias=Off?
Just an educated guess, but i think the Antialias_Threshold value 0.0
is what's slowing down the render. POV-Ray skips the antialiasing
step for a pixel if it determines that the pixel doesn't need
antialiasing. Setting the threshold to zero cripples this
optimization. I'm sure the default value of 0.3 will be more than
adequate for this image. This will allow you to set a higher
Antialias_Depth without wasting time on pixels that don't need
antialiasing--which, in your image, is the vast majority.
>Well I did download a program called ImageForge so I could save the
>1,440,054 byte BMP image as a 337,634 byte PNG image.
You can do that directly from POV-Ray by putting +fn in the toolbar
command line, or putting Output_File_Type=N in the .INI file.
> I was trying to avoid
>the artifacts created by going to JPEG.
The documentation has a FAQ on this. With the CJPEG program, i find
that using the options -op -sample 1x1,1x1,1x1 -q 85 usually gives
good results. The file ends up almost twice as big as with the
default settings, but is still considerably smaller than the PNG
version.
--
------------------- Richard Callwood III --------------------
~ U.S. Virgin Islands ~ USDA zone 11 ~ 18.3N, 64.9W ~
~ eastern Massachusetts ~ USDA zone 6 (1992-95) ~
--------------- http://cac.uvi.edu/staff/rc3/ ---------------
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> How fast does it render with Antialias=Off?
I just ran it again last night with no AA. It took 6h 1m 6s. If I
multiply that by 25 I get 6.27 days which sounds about right
for how long the posted image took to render.
> Just an educated guess, but i think the Antialias_Threshold
> value 0.0 is what's slowing down the render.
Yes, it is sending out 25 rays per pixel. I'd expect the render
time to be linear with this value.
> POV-Ray skips the antialiasing step for a pixel if it determines
> that the pixel doesn't need antialiasing. Setting the threshold to
> zero cripples this optimization. I'm sure the default value of
> 0.3 will be more than adequate for this image. This will allow
> you to set a higher Antialias_Depth without wasting time on
> pixels that don't need antialiasing--which, in your image, is the
> vast majority.
Well my problem was with how POV-Ray determines which
pixels didn't need AA. With a threshold of 0.3 there were still
pixels along the red outline of the turret/cannon where the
test rays missed the thin red line and since AA wasn't
performed the pixel was rendered without any red. This made
it look like there were breaks in the outline that I didn't like.
The grid in the far background also looked better with a
threshold of 0. I agree aside from those two areas I could
have used the default 0.3. The red outline is its own CSG
in my image. Is there a way in POV-Ray to have the pixels
with rays that come near a particular object rendered with
different AA settings then the rest of the image?
> You can do that directly from POV-Ray by putting +fn in
> the toolbar command line, or putting Output_File_Type=N
> in the .INI file.
Thanks. I'm still going through all the documentation and just
didn't know POV-Ray could do this. When I downloaded
POV-Ray to be honest I didn't even know what PNG was.
> The documentation has a FAQ on this. With the CJPEG
> program, i find that using the options
> -op -sample 1x1,1x1,1x1 -q 85 usually gives good results.
> The file ends up almost twice as big as with the default
> settings, but is still considerably smaller than the PNG
> version.
Thanks for point that out. I just read that section of the FAQ
and I now know alot more about the jpeg format. However
I've currently got Windows ME and I just did a search of my
system for cjpeg.* and nothing turned up. I also went to a
DOS prompt and typed cjpeg and it tells me "bad command
or file name". According to the FAQ I should have this file.
Is it named something else under Windows ME?
Thanks,
Carl
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:30:12 -0800, "Carl Hoff" <hof### [at] wtnet> wrote:
>Well my problem was with how POV-Ray determines which
>pixels didn't need AA. With a threshold of 0.3 there were still
>pixels along the red outline of the turret/cannon where the
>test rays missed the thin red line and since AA wasn't
>performed the pixel was rendered without any red. This made
>it look like there were breaks in the outline that I didn't like.
Well, zeroing the threshold certainly forces the issue. Quite
inefficiently, though.
>The grid in the far background also looked better with a
>threshold of 0.
All discontinuous regular patterns show sampling artifacts if rendered
far enough in the distance. This includes checkered planes, and since
everyone is required to make the hajj to the checkered plane, you
might search past articles to see what others have done.
The best "solution" i know of is to avoid rendering it, e.g., obscure
it with ground fog, place a wall in the near background, or aim the
camera downward a bit more. It's akin to what Bible illustrators do
with Adam and Eve. ;-) Focal blur will also do the trick, but that
can take forever, which is what we're trying to avoid.
> I agree aside from those two areas I could
>have used the default 0.3. The red outline is its own CSG
>in my image. Is there a way in POV-Ray to have the pixels
>with rays that come near a particular object rendered with
>different AA settings then the rest of the image?
Not that i know of, but you can try making the lines thicker to
decrease the chance of the AA missing it.
Speaking of CSG, do you have a lot of intersections and differences?
Manually bounding these sometimes speeds things up.
>I've currently got Windows ME and I just did a search of my
>system for cjpeg.* and nothing turned up. I also went to a
>DOS prompt and typed cjpeg and it tells me "bad command
>or file name". According to the FAQ I should have this file.
>Is it named something else under Windows ME?
The FAQ doesn't say that you have it; it says that it's available.
It's a freeware program that you can download from the Internet. See
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part2/section-15.html for a
reasonably trustworthy download site. N.B.: Avoid using long
filenames with this program.
Alternatively, you can check the program that you used to convert your
first image to JPEG, to see if it has supersampling control.
--
------------------- Richard Callwood III --------------------
~ U.S. Virgin Islands ~ USDA zone 11 ~ 18.3N, 64.9W ~
~ eastern Massachusetts ~ USDA zone 6 (1992-95) ~
--------------- http://cac.uvi.edu/staff/rc3/ ---------------
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
