On 3 Jan 2004 07:11:33 -0500, ingo <ing### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>Did you use atmospheric media or contained media? The latter is faster.

I used contained media but it was a large-ish container. I am still
experimenting with media.

>> It shows the dullness I am experiencing
>> with Media.
>
>You could add a density pattern with some turbulence to make the 
>lightbeam more attractive. Also maybe put the spotlight closer to the 
>object, so the beam gets less parallel

I will add a density pattern with some turbulence later but first things first.
Since I like to make cyclic animations the smoky effect will need to be
carefully thought out. I have a lot of experience of looking at lighting in the
theatre. I initially had the spot much closer to the stage but the cone was too
obvious. Since I create my scenes using Moray I don't have the option of using
the point_at keyword and have to use the rotate <x,y,z>. This is not such a
great disadvantage because the meshes I use are displaced internally and as far
as PovRay is concerned they are static through out the animation. I used a
spline to control the rotation. I've just reread my initial statement and your
answer and I think there was some misunderstanding. When I said dullness I meant
lack of clarity or as if the objects were tarnished. I now think this is due to
a too high rgb value in the media.


>Below is a small scene. 
>- The fade_power/disytance is used to make the light brighter near the 
>spot (doesn't show much though :( )
>- To animate the spot, add a clock to the PointAt variable.
>- The cone is a bit too short, I didn't feel like figuring out the math.
>- To vary the density, change the 'rgb 1' in scattering or play with the 
>color_map in the density block.

In your scene you use a cone as a container, I tried that and because I needed
to use some secondary lighting, the container cone created a shadow (it looked
like a dark halo around the container cone). If I made it shadowless I got a
whiteout :-} so I used one spot reacting with media for the visible light
(strange phrase) and another to give a spot on the floor. Bob Hughes thought
that this problem could have been caused by the floor finish having a too low
diffuse value (Tested and true). So that is fixed.

>Your danceuse is great!

Thank you, I think I have "cracked" using bvh files in Poser.
I appreciate your comments.

Regards
        Stephen

Post a reply to this message