Wouldn't you know... I decided that I should convert them all to
height-fields and I spent the past hour redoing my architecture when all I
needed to do was put "normal on" in the radiosity block. Then again... I
guess I haven't lost any time since I would've checked the newsgroup at the
same time and been just as far along. Thanks for the plethora of info.

Let me see if I have this correct on iso-surfaces... Basically, it evaluates
a function at points x, y, z inside my bounding region and creates a surface
point with that if my function evaluates at or above a certain threshold? Or
does it create a mesh like the height-field does? Or does it simply refer to
the provided function every time it calculates a point... creating a
pseudo-infinitely detailed surface?

Thanks in advance for any help,
D.J.

"Chris Huff" <chr### [at] maccom> wrote in message
news:chrishuff-4EAD1F.10534516082000@news.povray.org...
> In article <399aa57a@news.povray.org>, "D.J. Brown"
> <ext### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>
> > I tried rendering my kitchen visualization with some really neat-o
> > radiosity settings, but all my bump maps got completely washed out.
>
> This is because by default radiosity ignores perturbations to the object
> normal. In MegaPOV, you can tell it to take normal patterns into
> account(including bump_maps): just add "normal on" to the radiosity {}
> block in global_settings.
>
>
> > Is there a way in POV-Ray or MegaPov to use my map to modify the
> > actual geometry and not just the normals?
>
> Not directly, you would have to make a function representing your object
> an use an isosurface.
>
>
> > Height-fields would do it, I suppose, but I like the repeating
> > pattern of bump-maps. I was reading something about isosurfaces and
> > bump-maps in earlier threads, but I don't know how isosurfaces work;
> > anyone know a good explanation or tutorial?
>
> There are a couple isosurface tutorials:
> http://www.hamiltonite.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
>         raytracing/STBenge/stbenge.html
>
> http://www.econym.demon.co.uk/isotut/
>
> --
> Christopher James Huff
> Personal: e-mail chr### [at] maccom, Web page
http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
> TAG: e-mail chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, Web page http://tag.povray.org/
>
> ><>

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