Cousin Ricky <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> The perfect really is the enemy of the good.  I downloaded POV-Ray in
> 2003, and quickly learned about the RSOCP tradition, yet it took me
> nearly 4 years of careful overconsideration before I made my first PBI
> post.  In the meantime, I accumulated a folder full of subfolders of
> RSOCPs, which I didn't consider perfect enough to post at the time.  In
> recent years, though, I've been posting occasional renders from these
> subfolders.
>
> Here are samples from one series from one of those subfolders, showing
> improved metallic textures over the years.
>
> metalballs.jpg was created a month after I downloaded POV-Ray.  At that
> early date, I didn't yet realize that the 'metallic' keyword could apply
> to reflections as well as highlights.  metalballs1a.jpg is a
> much-improved redux a little over a year later, using my second attempt
> at what would eventually become RC3Metal in the Object Collection.
>
> metal_balls1.jpg was an early attempt at blurred reflection, combining
> micronormals with my first attempt at what would eventually become
> RC3Metal.  This was just short of 10 months using POV-Ray.
>
> metalballs2.jpg was created after 11 months of using POV-Ray, using my
> second attempt at what would eventually become RC3Metal.
>
> metalballs2a-s1.jpg was more than 2 years after that, using my third
> attempt at a set of metal macros.  The metals are different than with
> metalballs2.jpg, but little progress was made with the textures
> themselves.  Major progress would not come until 2013, after the
> introduction of the 'albedo' keyword in POV-Ray 3.7 and some lessons
> from clipka.
>
> metalballs2b.jpg uses RC3Metal and incorporates lessons learned since
> 2013, mainly relying on micronormals for diffuse reflection, rather than
> using a low reflection-to-diffuse ratio as in previous renders.  I also
> used my latest pre-fab render rig, which has a better implementation of
> Fresnel gloss than in the prior images, and has a darker sky for higher
> contrast.  (The sky still needs major work; the reduction in hue and
> saturation of the blue from zenith to horizon is not simulated here.)
> To smooth out the microtextures and the highlights on the tile edges, I
> rendered the scene at 3x size in EXR, then reduced the image.
>
> metalballs2b-lb.jpg is the same scene with simulated iris diffraction.
>
> The metal textures aren't perfect, and I don't anticipate that they ever
> will be; but they're certainly good enough to post.

Very cool to see the progression over the years!

Does the note about tentative new colors imply there is an update coming to
RC3Metal soon?  I use that a lot...

-- Chris R

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