You might also use the TRACE operation (which happens to be one of my own
favorite POV features.)  You could randomly place thousands of coins on,
for example, a little heightfield "mound," while using the NORMALS that are
found during the trace operation to tilt the coins so that they follow the
contours of the mound. ( I'm simplyfying a somewhat complex
process...sorry!) With enough overlapping coins, the mound shape itself
would not be visible. This probably wouldn't work for closeups, though,
without some kind of "collision detection" to keep coins from simply
"melting into" each other. But I've used just the technique described here
to cover a treetrunk with lots of overlapping ivy leaves, and it looks
QUITE good, even in closeup.

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