I've got to like those drilled spheres emanating light through their 
holes since someone came and asked for help to make one, about a year ago...

http://www.zippyvideos.com/2712366392637916/sol_preto_de_longo_alcance/*frangocomnata
http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/7489/solpretodelongoalcance2ul.gif

http://www.zippyvideos.com/6255878082638196/sol_preto_de_curto_alcance/*frangocomnata
http://img436.imageshack.us/img436/3200/solpretodecurtoalcance5dx.gif

A point which keeps me a little puzzled is the way to get a more or less 
even spacing of the holes. I remember seeing elsewhere a message from 
Warp with a piece of code apparently solving the question in a neat 
fashion by using a single loop with a rotation where the given vector 
varies linearly with the hole index. However, I couldn't find the proper 
value for the vector-factor I used in my scenes, so I tried again with 

then its azimuth. Constraining one of them to evolve linearly with 
respect to the index, constant hole density forces a certain function 
for the other's derivative, which in turn means that fixing a linear 
function for the azimuth, the altitude has to follow an arc cosine 
pattern, as well as using the linear variation for the altitude, the 
azimuth needs to change as the argument - hyperbolic tangent of the 
cosine of a parameter proportional to the index.

The first of the two methods yielded the better results, which can be 
seen in the previous animations, though the outcome is still far from 
perfect. I thought, then, of placing the holes randomly over the 
sphere's surface, caring only to prevent them from falling uneasily 

simple task, and still looks a bit ungainly, so I'd appreciate any advice:

http://www.zippyvideos.com/4253767682641616/sol_preto_com_chou/*frangocomnata
http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/2528/solpretocomchou8xv.gif

This is a star field background with a few "black suns" rolling on it:

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6217/fundoestrelecidocomsispretos5j.gif

This one used POV-Ray only for the rippling effect on an image generated 
moving my hand over the scanner's light during its sweep, and tweaked a 
bit with other image software:

http://img320.imageshack.us/img320/7092/mosurrealistaanimada0we.gif

Eventually, I wanted these three animated spurs to end a text of mine in 
a web page, and made them using Julia fractals for their sprockets, in 
case I hadn't shown quite clearly my fondness of those mathematical 
objects :)

http://img328.imageshack.us/img328/8161/trsesporasii1lv.gif

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