"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message 
news:4210db55@news.povray.org...

> Beautiful.  Some really nice subtlties like the way the tacks sink into 
> the wood grain and the vertical drizzle of yellow.

:-)

> So I take it you are combining UV mapping with procedural texture or did 
> you lay the texture down on the imagemap along with the strip shapes?

UV-mapping?  Blasphemy!  ;-)

It's all procedural.  I think I used about 5-6 layers of texture to create 
the wood.  Actually, I have nothing against uv-mapping, but I generally find 
it easier (and more fulfilling) to use procedural unless I'm dealing with 
something where pictures/drawings are involved.  But I don't want to paint 
myself into a corner, either.  Playing around with Gilles' Mini Cooper demo 
taught me a lot about how to use heightfields in conjunction with 
photographic textures, and some day I may make use of that.  For example, 
it's difficult (though not impossible) to produce "wear" in the proper 
places by using procedural textures.  But I digress...

To make the fingers have a different texture than the wood that they are 
tacked onto, I simply made a cylinder slightly larger than most of the 
heightfield cylinder (technically an isosurface) and said "translate x*20" 
for the texture.  I experimented with more complex solutions ("cylindrical" 
pigments), but that was the simplest solution.

I had a difficult time forcing myself to use a heightfield, and I actually 
produced a version that was pure CSG.  But with the heightfield, I was able 
to make the tack holes, and then place the tacks in them one at a time, as 
well as to make the "fingers" a little bit round.  Basically, it was about 
the same process that I used for my old radios (the "face-plates" were all 
heightfields), except wrapped around a cylinder.  Anyway, I think it makes 
for a more realistic object, while keeping all of the benefits of using CSG.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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