On Fri, 29 Oct 1999 18:56:14 -0500, Mike wrote:
>> But with mirrors etc. the number of normals to be stored would become HUGE,
>> requiring massive amounts of memory. Monte Carlo sampling around the curent
>> intersection would give nearly the same result.
>
>Shouldn't be if you just store the normal at the intersection point of the
>surface in question.  There could only be one normal per pixel, which I supposed
>could create quite a few limitations.  Ah well, just a thought.

It's not true that there'd be just one normal per pixel.  It wouldn't be easy to
come up with a scene to demonstrate this, but it could be done.  Basically,
because of partial reflection, a single eye ray can spawn a couple dozen rays
inside the scene, any or all of which could hit the object in question.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I do NOT speak for the POV-Team.
The superpatch: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/superpatch/
My other stuff: http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html

Post a reply to this message