Hi,

I was recently playing with rendering transparent-background PNGs with
POV-Ray. I think this feature could be *very* useful for rendering icons
and images for desktop widgets. By widgets I mean not the system controls
but mini-programs running on the desktop (see e.g. http://www.kwidgets.com/
or specifically http://www.kwidgets.com/forge.aspx).

In particular I would like to render a semi-transparent object, e.g. a glass
pane with shiny edges, on a transparent background. Of course I would like
it to cast some soft shadow. Is it currently possible with POV-Ray?

I know the "shadow on transparent background" topic was discussed before,
but my feeling is it would not work with semitransparent objects. Somehow I
feel there should be a simple, complete solution for all kinds of scenes. I
would envisage putting a surface behind the scene, with a special
"background" color that would be completely transparent if not obscured by
any object and with no shadow cast on it. I can also imagine a poor man's
way of implementing it, by replacing the background with different solid
colors and seeing how the presence/absence of other objects affects the
resulting color. My question really is: is there any better way to do it in
POV using some clever surface color attributes? Has anyone tried it/posted
examples?

Thanks,

Maciej.

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