Hello, I've been thinking of writing my own city macro.  There are two basic 
ways I can think of adding lots of detail.  I'm wondering which means of 
adding detail would render faster:

i) boxes (or a mesh2 which is a simple, say 12-triangle box)  which show 
detail (windows, etc.) by means of a really complicated pigment_map.

ii) mesh2's for every single detail: windows, window frames, etc.  These 
however would probably have much simpler textures.

thanks for any educated opinions.

Post a reply to this message

"Greg M. Johnson" <gregj;-)565### [at] aolcom> wrote in message 
news:42252bd8$1@news.povray.org...
> Hello, I've been thinking of writing my own city macro.

> I'm wondering which means of adding detail would render faster:

I don't know but I would like to know as well.  I'm also interested in 
adding 'interior' details so that maybe we could see into the closer windows 
a little bit.  In my case, that may preclude mesh2, guess I'd have to think 
about it.

Did you see my 'nice view' WIP in P.B.I?  I pretty extensivly modified Chris 
Colefax's city, and am trying to add more detail now.

One thing I ran into is that the Colefax city buidings are 'narrow' meaning 
if you look at the height of a 'floor' they are pretty small square footage 
wise. This caused me major consternation while I was doing the last Anim 
IRTC; when one of my test renders got to 'ground floor' I suddenly realized 
the buildings were all about 3x normal 'height'.  Anyway, my fix for this 
was to modify the macro so that the same type of building 'only' would be 
generated on one city block, and that there was 0 gap between buildings. You 
can see this in the WIP I posted, I used 3x3 grids, and I plan on extending 
that some.

Thinking about this process, I think it could be used to add a lot more 
detail.  If you had a 3x3 or 4x4 'single building' made of primitives, the 
corners could look different than the 'middle'.  You could stagger the 
various sides so that you could do some interesting skylines.  For example, 
a quick google search for 'skyline' shows that big buildings typically have 
repeating patters but taper some going up:

http://timmerca.com/data/1000/articles/1400/1695-original.jpg

Look at the 5th building from the left, for example, it could be done with a 
8x8 grid with alternating roof heights stepping up.

This isn't as usefull for me, my concept of having a dome of air is that the 
Martians will build RIGHT UP to the edge of the dome, with fresh air and 
normal temperatures being so scarce, but it could be very usefull for 
Manahatten type cities, or with some extensions usefull fo rme.

I've got my macro's all ripped up at the moment, I'm adding a 'tram slot' 
for the Mars city transportation and I'm getting some weird results, I have 
to debug it some.  I can post them when I get it working again if you'd 
like, maybe we can fiddle with as a group process, if Chris is OK with that.

             == John ==

Post a reply to this message

"Greg M. Johnson" <gregj;-)565### [at] aolcom> wrote in message 
news:42252bd8$1@news.povray.org...
> Hello, I've been thinking of writing my own city macro.

Did you see my 'nice view' WIP?  I pretty extensivly modified Chris 
Colefax's city, and am trying to add more detail now.

> I'm wondering which means of adding detail would render faster:

I don't know but I would like to know as well.  I'm also interested in 
adding 'interior' details so that maybe we could see into the closer windows 
a little bit.  In my case, that may preclude mesh2, guess I'd have to think 
about it.

One thing I ran into is that the Colefax city buidings are 'narrow' meaning 
if you look at the height of a 'floor' they are pretty small square footage 
wise. This caused me major consternation while I was doing the last Anim 
IRTC; when one of my test renders got to 'ground floor' I suddenly realized 
the buildings were all about 3x normal 'height'.  Anyway, my fix for this 
was to modify the macro so that the same type of building 'only' would be 
generated on one city block, and that there was 0 gap between buildings. You 
can see this in the WIP I posted, I used 3x3 grids, and I plan on extending 
that some.

Thinking about this process, I think it could be used to add a lot more 
detail.  If you had a 3x3 or 4x4 'single building' made of primitives, the 
corners could look different than the 'middle'.  You could stagger the 
various sides so that you could do some interesting skylines.  For example, 
a quick google search for 'skyline' shows that big buildings typically have 
repeating patters but taper some going up:

http://timmerca.com/data/1000/articles/1400/1695-original.jpg

Look at the 5th building from the left, for example, it could be done with a 
8x8 grid with alternating roof heights stepping up.

This isn't as usefull for me, my concept of having a dome of air is that the 
Martians will build RIGHT UP to the edge of the dome, with fresh air and 
normal temperatures being so scarce, but it could be very usefull for 
Manahatten type cities, or with some extensions usefull fo rme.

I've got my macro's all ripped up at the moment, I'm adding a 'tram slot' 
for the Mars city transportation and I'm getting some weird results, I have 
to debug it some.  I can post them when I get it working again if you'd 
like, maybe we can fiddle with as a group process, if Chris is OK with that.

             == John ==

Post a reply to this message

If you want to make any slow render (test or final), you can mail me; I have
a 3000MHz computer with 512MB ram.



news:42252bd8$1@news.povray.org...
> Hello, I've been thinking of writing my own city macro.  There are two 
> basic ways I can think of adding lots of detail.  I'm wondering which 
> means of adding detail would render faster:
>
> i) boxes (or a mesh2 which is a simple, say 12-triangle box)  which show 
> detail (windows, etc.) by means of a really complicated pigment_map.
>
> ii) mesh2's for every single detail: windows, window frames, etc.  These 
> however would probably have much simpler textures.
>
> thanks for any educated opinions.
>

Post a reply to this message

Thanks for the kind offer. I am however occasionally doing 1000 frame 
animations, and once I get into production, I do a new render of the set 
each night.  Keeping track of all these files would be a logistical 
nightmare.

"Nicolas Alvarez" <nic### [at] gmailbestwebmailcom> wrote in message 
news:42275c2d@news.povray.org...
> If you want to make any slow render (test or final), you can mail me; I 
> have
> a 3000MHz computer with 512MB ram.
>

Post a reply to this message