Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:

The render still looks good.  :)
Section (5) can be condensed using a similar array method.

In section 8 you have some scene code, but don't define the required parameters
(or SS) and you have those commented out at the top of the file.

IIRC, you can declare all the macro parameters to be optional, and then inside
the macro do what you're doing with some other parameters:

#ifndef (SN_Start) #local SN_Start = 0.2; #end

But maybe to alert the user to the fact that they may have inadvertently left
out a parameter or used a misspelling/typo, issue a warning in the #ifndef
block.

(I've been trying to figure out a way make a lot of the things that I write work
"straight out of the box" without having to do much figuring at all.)

Perhaps even have a line that declares a texture identifier with the default
parameters, so that all anyone would need to do to use it is include the file
and then "TdGGranite" is right there for use.
#debug "Default material {TdGGranite} defined."

Just some ideas.



I'm interested to hear a "behind-the-scenes" account of what you've discovered
and learned from assembling this mammoth texture definition.
Also, are there any specific ways that you envision modifying the texture for
other purposes?  I'm thinking about all of the other materials that may come
after this, and possible ways to make the customization of them a little easier.

So, just imagining - perhaps a small scene with 3 boxes.  on the left, the
default granite, or whatever material is being "edited".  In the center, is a
box where any given color map entry can be highlighted, so the user knows what
part of the material they want to change, and where it visually occurs in the
render.  On the left is a box with a macro call utilizing the new parameters to
show the edited/updated material {} definition.
Perhaps put a nice ruler in decimal subdivided centimeters along the top, and
fractionally subdivided American Imperial inches along the bottom to give an
indication of scale.

Maybe sets of boxes in different light groups to get a better idea about the
effect of lighting on these complex materials.

I would also love to experiment with ideas about how to further develop the
quartz vein feature and help visualize where it lives in 3D space.  So, a
"bounding box" that has a pigment pattern with rgbt1 and a high transmittance
white?  Media?



> Thomas

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