So, I was handily typing along, and I through in a finish_map statement,
only to realize that this feature (bug?) has not yet been implemented!
Any reasons for this, or is it simply so rare that no one's needed it
yet? :)

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In article <3A400696.2ADF680A@hotmail.com>, Ben Chambers 
<bdc### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

> So, I was handily typing along, and I through in a finish_map statement,
> only to realize that this feature (bug?) has not yet been implemented!
> Any reasons for this, or is it simply so rare that no one's needed it
> yet? :)

Implementing a finish map is be a bit more difficult than ordinary 
color, pigment or normal maps, or even texture maps, partly because it 
isn't mapping a single attribute, like color or normal. It would have to 
map reflection, ambient, diffuse, specular, phong, etc...the most 
flexible way would be to let you specify a pattern and spline for every 
attribute, the more consistent way would be to interpolate between 
entire finish statements.
Also, for some things, it couldn't just interpolate between values, it 
would have to compute each finish and interpolate the results. It is 
certainly something that needs to be done, but it wuld be a lot easier 
to do after(or during) the C++ rewrite for 4.0.

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

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Chris Huff wrote:
Implementing a finish map is be a bit more difficult than ordinary

> color, pigment or normal maps, or even texture maps, partly because it
> isn't mapping a single attribute, like color or normal. It would have to
> map reflection, ambient, diffuse, specular, phong, etc...the most
> flexible way would be to let you specify a pattern and spline for every
> attribute, the more consistent way would be to interpolate between
> entire finish statements.
> Also, for some things, it couldn't just interpolate between values, it
> would have to compute each finish and interpolate the results. It is
> certainly something that needs to be done, but it wuld be a lot easier
> to do after(or during) the C++ rewrite for 4.0.

And even easier to postpone since it can be worked around using texture_maps
:)

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