CreeD <mes### [at] nqinet> wrote:
: Is there a 'standard' way to take a pigment/normal such as marble, wood, or
: basic checker-type patterns and make them not only *look* like a surface
: normal
: but to actually *be* a surface normal using isosurfaces?

  I think you have an erroneous terminology here.

  A normal pattern applied to a surface doesn't "look like a surface normal".
They are surface normals. There's no way a normal pattern could only "look
like" a surface normal without being it.
  That's what normal patterns do: They modify the surface normal.

  I think that you have mistaken the concept of "surface normal" and the
actual shape of the surface. A surface normal is used to simulate (fake) the
look of a shape on a straight surface, a shape which isn't really there, but
it looks like it is there because of lighting and shading.
  What you wanted was to get the actual shape of the surface and not only the
surface normal modifier.

  The only way I can think of faking a surface so that it looks like it has
a surface normal although it really hasn't, would be to create a pigment that
looks like it was shaded according to the light sources (of course it will
not work if the light sources move).

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):_;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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