In article <3a3c1981@news.povray.org>, "Greg M. Johnson" 
<"gregj;-)56590\""@aol.c;-)om> wrote:

> Chris H, here is a cube with the checker pattern used as a normal.  It
> looks to me like the black areas are down, the white areas are up.  I
> thought that this would be a teaching moment for me but I think I'm
> sticking to my guns.  Have I really misunderstood this?

You have misunderstood it. :-)
The surfaces of your cube coincide perfectly with the boundaries between 
black and white cubes, the different squares appear because the 
direction in change switches back and forth...translate the texture so 
this doesn't happen and you will see how it works. Also, model the 
blocks with actual objects and you will see a different result. Attached 
are images of the offset checker pattern and the resulting normal.

I'm not sure what exactly it is doing in those areas in your image, it 
actually looks like a probable bug, but the normal feature isn't 
intended to deal with big, flat areas in the pattern anyway. It can't, 
because of the way it works. How would you adjust the angle of a surface 
to a light to make it look like it is "down"?

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

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