Hi there,

I have been POV'ing for a few months now, and a consistent problem I have is
creating new objects in an environment which gives a "meaningful"
representation of textures and colours.
If I create my models in a void, with just a background set, most reflective
surfaces (aren't most, to some extent?) and especially metals look rather
strange, however, place them into a more "interesting" scene and the objects
seem to improve immeasurably.

Do any of you have any "quick-win" solutions to this, or do you have a
standard "workbench" scene-file for creating objects?

thanks,


Mark Hanford
http://www.mrhanford.com/povray

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I don't do this, but I have a good idea for quickly creating a "scene"
around the object you are testing:

  Make some scene which looks good and is sufficiently complex (could have,
for example, a landscape, sky, clouds and so on). It doesn't matter how much
it takes to render. Just make it look good.
  Then put the camera at the origin. Avoid putting any object close to the
camera. Make the camera spherical with an angle of 360 degrees and render
at some feasible resolution (this makes a spherical projection of the scene
as the image). It's not necessary to make the image really big.
  Now when you want to test your reflective object, put this image as
sky_sphere pigment with map_type 1 (ie spherical mapping).

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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In article <3c682fb7@news.povray.org> , "Mark Hanford" 
<ren### [at] blueyondercouk> wrote:

> I have been POV'ing for a few months now, and a consistent problem I have is
> creating new objects in an environment which gives a "meaningful"
> representation of textures and colours.
> If I create my models in a void, with just a background set, most reflective
> surfaces (aren't most, to some extent?) and especially metals look rather
> strange, however, place them into a more "interesting" scene and the objects
> seem to improve immeasurably.
>
> Do any of you have any "quick-win" solutions to this, or do you have a
> standard "workbench" scene-file for creating objects?

Add a sky_sphere.  What you see is the lack of any background.  by default it
is simply black or whatever color you assign to it.  A sky_sphere with some
interesting texture does wonders.  A simple example would be:
<http://www.povray.org/working-docs/id000094.html>

    Thorsten

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Thanks, (both to yourself and to Warp) I think my sky was probably a bit too
soft - causing odd looking "stains" on objects due to the clouds.  The other
extreme seems to be your example, where the demonic red sky does odd things,
but I get your point :)

I'll try mucking about with various textures and see how it goes.  Most of
my objects are indoor things, but the principle still applies.

I might adapt my Shed scene (see web) for use as a lab...

Mark Hanford
http://www.mrhanford.com/povray

PS.  At the risk of sounding odd, I have been browsing these ng's since I
started POV'ing, and both of your work's (as in both of you, not your two
works :) have stood out and been a target to aim for...current hit rate is
about 0, but you never know...



"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
news:3c6834ba@news.povray.org...
> In article <3c682fb7@news.povray.org> , "Mark Hanford"
> <ren### [at] blueyondercouk> wrote:
>
> > I have been POV'ing for a few months now, and a consistent problem I
have is
> > creating new objects in an environment which gives a "meaningful"
> > representation of textures and colours.
> > If I create my models in a void, with just a background set, most
reflective
> > surfaces (aren't most, to some extent?) and especially metals look
rather
> > strange, however, place them into a more "interesting" scene and the
objects
> > seem to improve immeasurably.
> >
> > Do any of you have any "quick-win" solutions to this, or do you have a
> > standard "workbench" scene-file for creating objects?
>
> Add a sky_sphere.  What you see is the lack of any background.  by default
it
> is simply black or whatever color you assign to it.  A sky_sphere with
some
> interesting texture does wonders.  A simple example would be:
> <http://www.povray.org/working-docs/id000094.html>
>
>     Thorsten

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> Add a sky_sphere.  What you see is the lack of any background.  by default it
> is simply black or whatever color you assign to it.  A sky_sphere with some
> interesting texture does wonders.  A simple example would be:
> <http://www.povray.org/working-docs/id000094.html>
I add a no_image sphere with an image_map, because the actual background is
distracting when modelling, but helps testing reflective materials.

cu!
--
camera{location-z*3}#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*(C/50)#end#macro L(b,e,k,l)#local C=0
;#while(C<50)sphere{G(b,e),.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1
;#end#end L(y-x,y,x,x+y)L(y,-x-y,x+y,y)L(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)L(-y,y,y+z,x+y)L(0,x+y,
<.5,1,.5>,x)L(0,x-y,<.5,1,.5>,x)               // ZK http://www.povplace.be.tf

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