"Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> And here's the snowier one...


Yeah that's looking good! I would suggest making the dark parts a little less
dark, but it also looks great as it currently is.

Kind regards,
Dave Blandston

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"BayashiPascal" <bai### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> "Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> > A bit of a work-in-progress, but far enough along to show.  This took about
> > 4-days to render without any camera blur, which I'd like to add at some point.
> >
> > There are a few more ornaments/elements I'd like to add in for interest.  I'll
> > probably have to play with the lights a bit or it will never finish rendering
> > before the holidays are over... :-;
> >
> > -- Chris Rath
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> Nice and warm scene. I like the textures of the presents packaging, and the star
> ornaments remember me of the ones I had fun to make every year as a child
> (nostalgic mood triggered). The chains (?) holding them are barely visible, they
> would surely benefit of being thicker. The last version of the snowman you
> posted looks good, but aren't the dark spot a bit too dark ? The new puddle
> looks good too. In the original scene it's quite hidden behind the lights. A
> different composition there may help ? Also I thought the texture of the table
> could be improved. To be honest I don't quite understand what kind of material
> it is.
>
> Merry Christmas to you too and to all the POV-Ray community !
>
> Pascal

Thanks for the comments.  I was playing around with some new rough-wood shapes
and textures based on the isowood3 macros, and was using the pigments from that
set of include files as well.  I have some older macros that I think give better
results; I may revert to those and see if the table gets more convincing.

Merry Christmas

-- Chris R

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Op 18/12/2021 om 05:03 schreef Chris R:
> >
> > And here's the snowier one...
> >
> I think I prefer this one. To better show the translucency, put the
> light behind the snowman.
>
> --
> Thomas

The snowman is taking on a life of his own.  Still need to do some work on the
scarf.  I added more texture to his arms, and the nose needs more texture as
well.  I'll have to see about more prominent placement that makes the puddle
more visible in the full scene, and see how much the sslt affects the total
rendering time...

(BTW: This was just a moderate setting for radiosity as well, and the light is
only a point light since this is just my testing scene.)

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Attachments:
Download 'snowmen_sslt6.png' (710 KB)

Preview of image 'snowmen_sslt6.png'

Op 20/12/2021 om 21:52 schreef Chris R:
> Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
>> Op 18/12/2021 om 05:03 schreef Chris R:
>>>
>>> And here's the snowier one...
>>>
>> I think I prefer this one. To better show the translucency, put the
>> light behind the snowman.
>>
>> --
>> Thomas
> 
> The snowman is taking on a life of his own.  Still need to do some work on the
> scarf.  I added more texture to his arms, and the nose needs more texture as
> well.  I'll have to see about more prominent placement that makes the puddle
> more visible in the full scene, and see how much the sslt affects the total
> rendering time...
> 
> (BTW: This was just a moderate setting for radiosity as well, and the light is
> only a point light since this is just my testing scene.)

This looks very convincing to me.

[nitpicking] Maybe the snow seems a bit polluted by industrial fall out 
from its original surroundings? [/nitpicking]  :-)

-- 
Thomas

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Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Op 20/12/2021 om 21:52 schreef Chris R:

> This looks very convincing to me.
>
> [nitpicking] Maybe the snow seems a bit polluted by industrial fall out
> from its original surroundings? [/nitpicking]  :-)

I think that's the effect of larger bits of transparent ice and not fluffy
diffuse snow.  At least that the impression I get, especially with the specular
reflections.

I wasn't quite able to envision an earlier comment about adding some emission,
but now I think that it does need to be in some way "brightened".

deeper sslt?
rgbt?
emission?
a smaller emissive or rgb 1 diffuse 1 snowball just beneath the surface?


Still, a very impressive texture  - it is looking REAL.

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"Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
>
> The snowman is taking on a life of his own.  Still need to do some work on the
> scarf.  I added more texture to his arms, and the nose needs more texture as
> well.  I'll have to see about more prominent placement that makes the puddle
> more visible in the full scene, and see how much the sslt affects the total
> rendering time...
>

It is looking better and better! I think the new light-placement is also a very
good improvement. I like that frozen ice puddle too; I tried something like that
years ago but was never quite happy with the result.

I really like your initial render of the entire scene; so many nice textures and
lighting effects. Worth the extended render-time; it's a beauty.

[m@b wrote:]
Here is my take on a melting snowman:
<https://youtu.be/puo_eVkz0gY>

That's great! Very well-done. I also like the fluffy appearance of your
snowman-- and the way its carrot nose tilts as the melting proceeds. A nice
touch.

Happy Holidays to All!

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> >
> > Any particular tools you use to convert frames to movies?
> >
> > -- Chris Rath
> >
>
> <https://ffmpeg.org/>   is very versatile, you can call it as a shellout
> from POV-Ray.
>
> m@

I currently use VirtualDub 2 FilterMod (which includes ffmpeg as its engine, I
believe.) It has a GUI, which I like. Even though old, it's still available...

https://codecpack.co/download/VirtualDub-FilterMod.html

It can output various modern (or old) file formats, with various types of
compression. It has lots of configurable choices too-- many of which I don't
understand or use, ha. But I'm always learning.

[I've never been able to understand the 'shellout' feature in POV-Ray for
Windows, or how to use it. I don't come from a programming background, so the
concept itself is kind of a mystery.]

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"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> > Op 20/12/2021 om 21:52 schreef Chris R:
>
> > This looks very convincing to me.
> >
> > [nitpicking] Maybe the snow seems a bit polluted by industrial fall out
> > from its original surroundings? [/nitpicking]  :-)
>
> I think that's the effect of larger bits of transparent ice and not fluffy
> diffuse snow.  At least that the impression I get, especially with the specular
> reflections.
>
> I wasn't quite able to envision an earlier comment about adding some emission,
> but now I think that it does need to be in some way "brightened".
>
> deeper sslt?
> rgbt?
> emission?
> a smaller emissive or rgb 1 diffuse 1 snowball just beneath the surface?
>
>
> Still, a very impressive texture  - it is looking REAL.

If anyone is interested, here is what I am using for the material:

#declare Real_snowman_snow_texture3  = texture {
    pigment {
        granite
        color_map {
            [0.0 rgb <1.2, 1.2, 1.2>]
            [1.0 rgb <1.15, 1.15, 1.15>]
        }
        scale 0.5
    }
    finish {
        fresnel
        diffuse 0.7
        specular albedo 0.2
        roughness 0.001
        subsurface { translucency 0.5 }
    }
}

#declare Real_snowman_snow_material3 = material {
    texture {
        Real_snowman_snow_texture3
    }
    interior {
        ior 1.33
    }
}

The snowballs are isosurface spheres.  I use f_snoise3d at a scale to deform the
spheres, and the f_granite at a smaller scale to get the bumps that make the ice
crystals on the surface of the sphere.

-- Chris R.

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"Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> A bit of a work-in-progress, but far enough along to show.  This took about
> 4-days to render without any camera blur, which I'd like to add at some point.
>
> There are a few more ornaments/elements I'd like to add in for interest.  I'll
> probably have to play with the lights a bit or it will never finish rendering
> before the holidays are over... :-;
>
> -- Chris Rath

Taking a lot of your suggestions into account, I give you the final rendering,
completed just in time to end 2021, (it took 4 1/2 days to render!)

Happy New Year to all, and I look forward to more POV-ing in 2022.

-- Chris Rath

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"Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> "Chris R" <car### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> > A bit of a work-in-progress, but far enough along to show.  This took about
> > 4-days to render without any camera blur, which I'd like to add at some point.
> >
> > There are a few more ornaments/elements I'd like to add in for interest.  I'll
> > probably have to play with the lights a bit or it will never finish rendering
> > before the holidays are over... :-;
> >
> > -- Chris Rath
>
> Taking a lot of your suggestions into account, I give you the final rendering,
> completed just in time to end 2021, (it took 4 1/2 days to render!)
>
> Happy New Year to all, and I look forward to more POV-ing in 2022.
>
> -- Chris Rath

Sorry, forgot to attach the image...

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Preview of image 'scene_v1.1-2021-12-31.png'