> I am trying to create a crystal ball in Pov-ray.  I create a sphere shape
> but I am having problems making it look like glass (ie reflective and
> transparent, etc).  Anybody have tips as to what commands/tools I need in
> Pov-ray to correctly model and render this object?  I am a newbie and any
> help would be appreciated.  This will be my first attempted image in POV
> (besides tutorials of course).
>
> Thanks

Well, for refraction, you need the interior{} statement, in which you put
the keyword "ior" along with the refraction index. Water is 1.33 if I'm not
mistaken, and glass somewhere around 1.5, but you could look in the
documentation and in the include-files which come with POV-Ray for that.

Transparency is handled with either rgbt, or a "transmit" after the rgb
vector, e.g.
rgbt <1,1,1,1> or
rgb <1,1,1> transmit 1
You can achieve filtering with "filter" or "rgbf", and you can combine both
with "rgbft". You should look those up in the documentation as well, so that
you know what you're doing.

As for reflection, that goes into the finish{} statement, maybe like
finish{ reflection{0,1 fresnel}}
where the keyword fresnel in the reflection{}-block requires the ior of the
interior-statement, but you should just look that up in the documentation as
well, search for "finish" and/or "reflection" or "variable reflection".

If you want the light to interact properly with the crystal later on, I
suggest looking for "photons" in the docs as well.

-- 
"Tim Nikias v2.0"
Homepage: <http://www.nolights.de>
Email: tim.nikias (@) nolights.de




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