Hi again:

  Thanks to everyone for the compliments, tough most of the merit must be 
given to the POV Team: they have done a fantastic job with 3.5. 

  I finally managed to finish the 64 blur_samples version:

  http://www.ignorancia.org/images/boltstill3.jpg (124Kb)

  Anyhow, the result isn't much better. There is still some grain on the 
metal, but it's mainly due to the technique used for the texture. To avoid 
making a lot of replies to this thread, here a little explanation:

  + The metal texture is a simple, one-layer texture: it does not use the 
nice "averaged reflections" trick. Rather, it uses an averaged pigment_map 
used as normal pattern, wich mix rotated versions of a quilted pattern 
scaled down very small, with some other (granite and bozo) scaled not so 
small. This of course needs a lot of blur_samples or very high aa settings, 
and it's slow, of course (the whole image took about 5 hours on a Athlon 
1.2Ghz).

  + The wood texture it's a standard one from "woods.inc", with some 
reflection added. The real trick is that it is applied to a thin 
height_field done with the function image pattern. This function uses a 
pigment_map of several woods and a turbulent leopard pattern. It's a bit 
slow to parse for a decent hf resolution, but it traces really fast.

  + Yes, this is done entirelly with POV-Ray! Well, I used Imagemagik to 
adjust a bit the contrast, but that's all.

  Appart from this, I've lied on my first post: there are 3 area_lights, 
not 2 as I stated. And they are placed randomly! I suspect I'm getting 
really lazy, if I use rand()+trial&error even for the lights placement!! 
;)

-- 
Jaime Vives Piqueres

La Persistencia de la Ignorancia
http://www.ignorancia.org

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