Thanks Thomas!  The pigment_pattern and related image_pattern look like VERY
interesting tools to explore.  I've got a few things to do this morning, but
hopefully I'll get a halfway decent scene worked up to see how close I can get
to what I want.

Looking back through some older threads, it looks like the major issue is being
unable to override the texture that the object is defined to have.  I've gotten
a sort of really messy work-around to give me an approximation of what I wanted,
but  it's pretty limited, and I'm still not that good at layered textures or
scene construction to get something more elegant.

I didn't really understand this from the documentation:
"In the PLAIN_TEXTURE, each of the items are optional but if they are present
the TEXTURE_IDENTIFIER must be first. If no texture identifier is given, then
POV-Ray creates a copy of the default texture. See "The #default Directive" for
details.
Next are optional pigment, normal, and/or finish identifiers which fully
override any pigment, normal and finish already specified in the previous
texture identifier or default texture. Typically this is used for backward
compatibility to allow things like: texture { MyPigment } where MyPigment is a
pigment identifier."

Not assigning a texture gives a default texture (black), which looks like it CAN
be textured in a union. It would be useful to be able to have access to that
default texture, or to be able to assign NO texture WITH a texture statement.

I thought that maybe using a function to define the texture might somehow get
POV-Ray to reevaluate it, but I see there's major impediments to the
implementation of that as well.

I'll try to post some WIPS so you can see where this is going.

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