Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> TC wrote:
> >>  Patch the source code?
> >
> > I did not really want to spend the next few years studying the pov-ray
> > source... but probably the only solution.
>
> Or, trace the image without the ivy, then use it as a pigment to guide the
> movement of the ivy in a second trace.
>
> --
> Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
>     Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
>     you literally shooting yourself in the foot.


Personally, I favor this choice - a grayscale light mapping of the surfaces
could be produced and used as a function to determine whether or not an area is
light or dark.  It is labor intensive, for sure, but it can be done.  Using
Megapov's proximity pattern also allows one to produce an ambient occlusion
pigment.  I have not tried this with a function, but if it works it will not
require the production of separate images (internal or external).

There was someone else's fastprox macro that used averaged object pigments to
produce a form of feature detection - corner detection for structures and large
objects could be drawn from this without much difficulty.  Of course, this would
again be a form of ambient occlusion, which may not always be accurate in a
given setup.  However, the nice thing about this is that you can introduce
objects into your ao/light map that do not have an actual scene presence.  These
objects can be used to make your light map more accurate, or manipulate it for
dramatic effect, etc.


-Reactor

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