"St." <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote:
> "Stephen" <mcavoys_AT_aolDOT.com> wrote in message
> > I think that this is looking better and better.
>     Agreed. It really is an excellent image and idea which is *well*
> executed imo. (Nice one Bill).

Thanks Steves. :)

> > But thinking about it, it seems to me that the ghost is emitting too much
> > light and you can see too much from here glow.

It was difficult achieving a brightness balance I was happy with. I agree
she emits quite a lot of light (although why shouldn't she?), but I didn't
want the surroundings completely indistinct either...

>     I wonder what would happen if that uplight was used instead for the main
> lighting, and the intensity of the lady ghost was turned down a little? My
> point being that the uplight would mostly be on the ceiling, casting light
> over the ceiling and some of the room, but the lady ghost may 'stand out'
> more as a ghost (not that she doesn't now).

The look I was going for all along, before I even knew if the ghost would
work or not, was of the ghost being the *only* light source in the scene, a
proper pitch-black environment. I guess this variation would make her look
more ghostly in a kind of indistinct way - she should probably be
transparent if I tried this version... hmm, perhaps I will give it a go.
Render times for the large version (4800x2000) are only a day or two and
this would probably be quicker because I wouldn't need big fat area_lights
any more. Although I would have to crank up the radiosity settings a bit.
I'll get back to you!

I have done a daylight version too, although I used a 'live' subject in that
and not a ghost.

> (She must have over done her
> > Weetabix:)
>    LOL!  :)  Did you mean her 'Ready Brek'?
Yep, she died of a breakfast cereal overdose. You heard it here first. :)

Bill

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On Mon,  8 Oct 2007 10:43:35 EDT, "Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:

>Well, it wasn't that easy to be honest. I took the DAZ model, posed it and
>exported it as a .obj file. Then I opened it in Blender, plugged any holes
>(mainly in the face), shrank it very slightly along its normals, then saved
>it as a separate .obj file. Now I have two copies of the mesh, one very
>slightly smaller than the other.
>
>Next, I converted them to POV-Ray using PoseRay, and put them together as a
>union. The inner mesh was textured a dark blue, and the outer mesh was made
>transparent and filled with emitting media. In this way, you get a thin
>shell over the mesh surface that is brighter at grazing angles because of
>the additional viewing ray length, giving a glowing outline effect.
>
>If desired, the inner mesh can be differenced from the outer mesh, then the
>ghost will be fully transparent. Making the mesh fully closed is important,
>otherwise holes will show up as saturated by the media colour. It's also
>important to scale the mesh along its normals - using scale in POV-Ray will
>not work.
>
>The hair was imported into POV-Ray as a separate mesh and completely filled
>with the same media.
>
>(there may be a simpler way to do this with clever pigments, but I'm not
>sure...)
>

Wow, I thought you were just using the slope pattern.

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Kyle <hob### [at] gatenet> wrote:
> Wow, I thought you were just using the slope pattern.

I take it you mean with a camera ray as the direction vector? It looks
subtly different... no matter how you tweak it, the effect is reminiscent
of lighting, and I wanted the ghost to look a little more ethereal.

I agree the technique does seem a little overkill! :)

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> I agree the technique does seem a little overkill! :)
> 
Not really, I remember playing with the idea a bit back in the heyday of 
the flesh-tones-through-sub-surface-scattering quest.

PS.  I'm not sure I ever got around to complementing you on this 
picture.  There is more complexity to it than just the technical 
problems.  It is primarily a picture about lighting, and in a 
significant way, that seems to infuse the larger humanistic meaning.

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