Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:

>
> However, this begs the question what the pigment of an object
> actually is (for example if layered textures have been applied).
> I think the normal case is that the contribution of each texture
> including finish / lighting will be merged. So it may not always
> be uniquely defined what the "pigment" should be be.

Yes, your right about all of the complications involved. In fact, the more
deeply I think about the ramifications of my idea, the more complex it becomes:
not just the 'logical' way of going about it, but more importantly, what 'the
color on the object' actually means! Should the color be just the basic rgb
components and nothing more? (That was my original simplistic idea, ignoring
even the pigment's finish attributes.) Or should it be the 'sum total' of all of
the ray-trace computations, including translucency, lighting, radiosity,
shadowing etc.? If the latter, then that creates *another* conundrum--namely,
the part of my idea about the ray-trace ray being shot from an arbitrary point
in 3D space, rather than from the *camera* location. The resulting values for
the 'color point' that's found might be quite arbitrary--intimately based on the
particular geometry of the set-up. (Just like a repositioned camera during a
typical render.)

At this point, I would vote for just the BASIC rgb color components being found
and returned (and without any transparency component, or even lighting.)  But
it's looking like my idea needs a SIGGRAPH research paper! If only to disprove
it all.

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