In article <38B6E4BC.977FD8A0@merlin.net.au>, PoD <pod### [at] merlinnetau> 
wrote:

> > This might be a good idea. On the other hand, it would reinforce the bad
> > habit of using bounded_by as a kind of CSG...(remember that with some
> > settings POV can override this statement and use it's own bounding)
> 
> No no no... bounding has nothing to do with CSG and should'nt be
> confused with it.

That is what I was trying to get at-if bounding boxes chop off pieces of 
the object instead of behaving as they currently do, people will mistake 
them for a type of CSG more often. This is a bad thing. I don't want it 
to happen.


> > If the "use_depth_for_z"(somebody please come up with a better keyword!)
> > feature is turned on, the angles of the initial emission from the light
> > source will be used for the x and y axis, and the distance the ray has
> > travelled for the z axis. This should make things like interference
> > patterns possible.(I wonder what this would look like combined with
> > scattering media and photons!)
> 
> Interesting, but I think it should be done the same as sky_sphere
> i.e. the colour comes from the intersection of the ray and a unit
> sphere.

But that would make it a lot less flexible...you wouldn't be able to 
simulate the wave-like characteristics of light, for example. It would 
be the same as placing a small-scaled sphere around the light source.

Hmm, you could even do a cheap imitation of laser beams without photons: 
use the object pattern with two cylinders meeting at a mirror as the 
pigment for the light, and use scattering media with isotropic 
scattering(this would be important, because although the light would 
seem to be constrained to the two cylinders, it's direction would still 
be away from the light_source). This would be messed up by shadows, but 
it is an interesting possible use.

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

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