"Clarence1898" <dle### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> I was going through some old drives and found this one.  I posted this probably
> 20 years ago as my obligatory first RSOCP.  I came across Povray in the early
> 90s and have used it off and on ever since.  I thought it might be interesting
> to see what programming Pov scenes would be like in the 1970's.  Just for a
> little background, I've been a mainframe programmer since 1969, and now enjoy
> programming PC's.

Getting around to commenting on this scene a little late . . .

This is a pretty cool scene.
I really like the Selectric ball, and the punch cards.

I remember playing with shoeboxes full of punch cards at my grandparents' house
growing up.
They still sell the tractor-feed paper:  apparently lots of businesses still use
it.

The font on the paper and punch cards is nice - and I like the traditional
slipping into the scene of "Persistence of Vision" on the cards.  :)

I put a bunch of such Easter Eggs into my Secret Passage scene.

It's good to see that you're still playing with POV-Ray all these many years
later.

- BW

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"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> "Clarence1898" <dle### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> > I was going through some old drives and found this one.  I posted this probably
> > 20 years ago as my obligatory first RSOCP.  I came across Povray in the early
> > 90s and have used it off and on ever since.  I thought it might be interesting
> > to see what programming Pov scenes would be like in the 1970's.  Just for a
> > little background, I've been a mainframe programmer since 1969, and now enjoy
> > programming PC's.
>
> Getting around to commenting on this scene a little late . . .
>
> This is a pretty cool scene.
> I really like the Selectric ball, and the punch cards.
>
> I remember playing with shoeboxes full of punch cards at my grandparents' house
> growing up.
> They still sell the tractor-feed paper:  apparently lots of businesses still use
> it.
>
> The font on the paper and punch cards is nice - and I like the traditional
> slipping into the scene of "Persistence of Vision" on the cards.  :)
>
> I put a bunch of such Easter Eggs into my Secret Passage scene.
>
> It's good to see that you're still playing with POV-Ray all these many years
> later.
>
> - BW

Thank You.  As of ten years ago when I retired, most of our printing was done on
a laser printer using plain white fanfold paper.  We still had an impact line
printer for forms that could not be printed on the laser, heavy paper like card
stock and multi-part forms.  It was a lot of fun to write a macro to generate
the proper punches in the card.

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On 2025-08-07 06:24 (-4), Mr wrote:
> The only time I ever use Ambient values are for light generating surfaces. lcd
> screens etc...

This usage is deprecated since POV-Ray 3.7, and if you use radiosity, it
won't work at all.  Use 'emission' in place of 'ambient' for glowing
objects.

> Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> 
>> Diffuse+reflection should be below 1; specular albedo should be
>> comparable to reflection, if you use use specular at all.
> why should we use the same value for specular and reflection when using both?
> Say if we think of emulating a layered material with varnished mirror-like
> reflectivity but a more say oily or smooth inner structure... Couldn't both
> these layers have different shininess?

Because they are basically the same thing.  A highlight is literally the
reflection, blurred more or less, of a light source.

The 'albedo' keyword modifies specular (and phong) so that the highlight
represents the amount of light in its argument.  Without 'albedo', there
is no correlation between the hightlight and the objects reflectivity.

For non-metallic shiny surfaces, 'specular albedo' should be low for
older versions of POV-Ray (I use 0.052 or 0.053 for glass), because
highlights did not simulate the Fresnel effect until POV-Ray 3.8.  With
finish-level Fresnel, the 'specular albedo' value should equal the
Fresnel reflection value.  But for metallic finishes, the 'specular
albedo' value should be the same as the reflection value.

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