POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black? Server Time
30 Jul 2024 06:22:18 EDT (-0400)
  Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black? (Message 1 to 6 of 6)  
From: Stefan Viljoen
Subject: Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black?
Date: 26 Oct 2009 05:19:15
Message: <4ae56992@news.povray.org>
Hi guys

I've got a simple scene with photons that renders fine in Windows official
3.6 and Windows Megapov 1.2.1.

However, trying to render it with Linux official 3.6.1 binary or
Linux "Official" Megapov 1.2.1 always results in a completely black output.

I've fiddled around and removing the photons{} block, when trying to render
in Linux (with either Megapov official binary or Povray 3.6.1 official
binary) again renders the scene correctly / visibly (without photons, of
course).

I've also tried compiling Povray 3.6.1 and Megapov 1.2.1 from source locally
on Linux, and they too give a completely black output, if at any time a
photons{} block is included.

Any idea why adding photons{} in the Linux versions of Povray / Megapov
always give a totally black result?

Anybody else heard of this?

Thanks!
-- 
Stefan Viljoen


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From: clipka
Subject: Re: Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black?
Date: 26 Oct 2009 10:17:03
Message: <4ae5af5f$1@news.povray.org>
Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

> I've got a simple scene with photons that renders fine in Windows official
> 3.6 and Windows Megapov 1.2.1.
> 
> However, trying to render it with Linux official 3.6.1 binary or
> Linux "Official" Megapov 1.2.1 always results in a completely black output.
> 
> I've fiddled around and removing the photons{} block, when trying to render
> in Linux (with either Megapov official binary or Povray 3.6.1 official
> binary) again renders the scene correctly / visibly (without photons, of
> course).
> 
> I've also tried compiling Povray 3.6.1 and Megapov 1.2.1 from source locally
> on Linux, and they too give a completely black output, if at any time a
> photons{} block is included.
> 
> Any idea why adding photons{} in the Linux versions of Povray / Megapov
> always give a totally black result?
> 
> Anybody else heard of this?

That's perfectly new to me. I've run both POV-Ray 3.6.1 and MegaPOV 
1.2.1 on both Windows and Linux with various photons scenes, and never 
seen such effects. Did you try the photons sample scenes?

For instance, the scene "scenes/advanced/newdiffract.pov" uses photons, 
and renders "out of the box" on all of my machines; if even that scene 
only gives you a black output, there's something fundamentally wrong 
with your Linux installation of POV-Ray.

Did you make sure the default quality settings are high enough? Maybe 
you have set "+Q5" (or "Quality=5", or even lower value) in povray.ini 
or some such. (Then again, such a low quality setting should have other 
suspicious effects.)


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From: Stefan Viljoen
Subject: Re: Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black?
Date: 27 Oct 2009 08:16:35
Message: <4ae6e4a2@news.povray.org>
clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
> 
>> I've got a simple scene with photons that renders fine in Windows
>> official 3.6 and Windows Megapov 1.2.1.
>> 
>> However, trying to render it with Linux official 3.6.1 binary or
>> Linux "Official" Megapov 1.2.1 always results in a completely black
>> output.

>> Anybody else heard of this?
> 
> That's perfectly new to me. I've run both POV-Ray 3.6.1 and MegaPOV
> 1.2.1 on both Windows and Linux with various photons scenes, and never
> seen such effects. Did you try the photons sample scenes?

Nope, good point, I'll try one of the sample scenes in Linux.
 

> Did you make sure the default quality settings are high enough? Maybe
> you have set "+Q5" (or "Quality=5", or even lower value) in povray.ini
> or some such. (Then again, such a low quality setting should have other
> suspicious effects.)

That's the thing - once I got the black output, I dropped the quality to 0.
Immediately objects showed up in the scene. Then I step by step increased
the quality setting - at +Q4 the scene goes completely black... wonder what
it could be?

Thanks for the reply!
-- 
Stefan Viljoen


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From: Stefan Viljoen
Subject: Re: Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black?
Date: 28 Oct 2009 02:27:08
Message: <4ae7e43c@news.povray.org>
Stefan Viljoen wrote:

> Hi guys
> 
> I've got a simple scene with photons that renders fine in Windows official
> 3.6 and Windows Megapov 1.2.1.
> 
> However, trying to render it with Linux official 3.6.1 binary or
> Linux "Official" Megapov 1.2.1 always results in a completely black
> output.

I've traced this to the following...

I have a blob in the scene, and this has some transparency in its textures:

sphere { <blobfield_x,blobfield_y,z_trans>, .75, 0.8 
                                        texture{
                                                #if (color_count = 1)
                                                        #ifdef (final)
                                                                pigment
{color Red transmit 0.375}         
                                                        #else   
                                                                pigment
{color Red}
                                                        #end
                                                                
                                                #end
                                                
                                                #if (color_count = 2)              
                                                        #ifdef (final)
                                                                pigment
{color Coral transmit 0.375}
                                                        #else
                                                                pigment
{color Coral}
                                                        #end        
                                                #end                              
                                                
                                                #if (color_count = 3)                
                                                        #ifdef (final)
                                                                pigment
{color Firebrick transmit 0.375}
                                                        #else
                                                                pigment
{color Firebrick}
                                                        #end        
                                                #end
                                                
                                                #ifdef (final)
                                                        finish
                                                        {
                                                               ambient 0.1
                                                               diffuse 0.8       
                                                               reflection
                                                                 {
                                                                   0.35 ,
0.5
                                                                     fresnel 
on
                                                                     falloff 
1.15
                                                                    
exponent 1.05
                                                                    
metallic 1.25
                                                                 }
                                                        }
                                                #end        

I've definitely established, at least on my setup, that if, for the sphere
elements, transparency is increased beyond 0.399999, along with photons, in
either Linux megapov or Linux Povray, it immediately turns the entire
scene's output to completely black...

Anybody got any idea? I've posted the full source for the scene in the
p.b.scene-files forum, under the same title as above. Could this be a bug?

Can anybody help?

Thanks!
-- 
Stefan Viljoen


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From: clipka
Subject: Re: Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black?
Date: 29 Oct 2009 10:32:03
Message: <4ae9a763$1@news.povray.org>
Stefan Viljoen schrieb:

> I've traced this to the following...
> 
> I have a blob in the scene, and this has some transparency in its textures:

Heh - wait! That sounds familiar. I guess it's related to this issue:

http://bugs.povray.org/task/53

At present it's still unsolved; as a workaround, try adding a texture to 
the blob as a whole (in addition to the individual components), giving 
it some slight transparency. If it's the same underlying cause, that 
should do the job.


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From: Stefan Viljoen
Subject: Re: Linux Binary 3.6 - adding photons{} block makes scene go 100% black?
Date: 2 Nov 2009 02:11:30
Message: <4aee8622@news.povray.org>
clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
> 
>> I've traced this to the following...
>> 
>> I have a blob in the scene, and this has some transparency in its
>> textures:
> 
> Heh - wait! That sounds familiar. I guess it's related to this issue:
> 
> http://bugs.povray.org/task/53
> 
> At present it's still unsolved; as a workaround, try adding a texture to
> the blob as a whole (in addition to the individual components), giving
> it some slight transparency. If it's the same underlying cause, that
> should do the job.

Oh, what a relief!

Thanks, at least now I know it's not the usual cause of
operator-induced-stupidity that caused the problem.

Thanks for the reply!

:)
-- 
Stefan Viljoen


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