if i set the scene ambient value to 0, will stars disappear?  i want to
use radiosity in a scene (there are enough objects close to each other
to get radiosity interaction), but i usually set ambient to zero when i
do.  also, i was interested in knowing the mechanics of the plugin
itself.  are star just disks?  are they in a union?  would a union of
triangles (or as a mesh) that approximate circles be better and faster?

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ryan constantine <rco### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> if i set the scene ambient value to 0, will stars disappear?  i want to
> use radiosity in a scene (there are enough objects close to each other
> to get radiosity interaction), but i usually set ambient to zero when i
> do.  also, i was interested in knowing the mechanics of the plugin
> itself.  are star just disks?  are they in a union?  would a union of
> triangles (or as a mesh) that approximate circles be better and faster?

The star textures have ambient set to 1 and all other finish values to 0, so
they should work OK even if you use a different default ambient value.

Internally each star is created as a single triangle.  However, these are
not placed in a mesh (because to do so would require creating separate
textures for every star).  Instead, they are unioned in a group of 50
triangles.  This group is then used to populate the entire sky with stars -
after a lot of experimentation I've found this method yields by the far the
fastest and most efficient results.

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