On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 15:51:31 -0500, Greg Edwards wrote:

> On Thu, 2 Jan 2003 21:09:46 -0000, Andrew Coppin wrote:
> 
>> He folks.
>> 
>> I'm baaaaaack!!!
>> 
>> (Oh, what's that - no one noticed I was gone? *sigh* Oh well...)
>> 
>> Anyway, I've been wondering about something... I love lights on Christmas
>> trees. And my dad has more sets of lights than you can shake a VERY big
>> stick at!! I've been thinking about trying to simulate some with POVRay, but
>> I already know it's not going to be easy. The question is... Why do bright
>> lights have an "aura" around them? I mean, you can see a fairy lights from
>> quite a distance, considering how tiny they are. If I try and draw them with
>> POVRay they'll be smaller than a single pixel... but in the real world they
>> have a kind of "glare" around them which takes up more space and makes it
>> easier to see them from a distance (when they're lit!) Is there some
>> physical explaination for this?
>> 
>> Or do I just need to clean my glasses???
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> Andrew.
> 
> I made my own lens flare include file. It points the camera at a mirror 
> with reflection 1 and a specular highlight is used to simulate these halos. 
> It works fairly well with point lights but it's a pain to use. The basic 
> idea is simple and you should be able to do it yourself.

A very slight micro-normal on the mirror with really good antialiasing or 
focal blur might work well with bright ambient objects or media as light 
sources but beware of render times!

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