Hi, I'm trying to make footprints in sand. I created a height map in
Photoshop and have the general depressed foot shape, but I'd like to
somehow insert it into a plane to depress the plane. I don't want to just
create a huge height map with multiple footprints because I want the
freedom of rearranging them as I work. I also don't want to create a block
of foot, insert it into a block of ground, and take a difference because
that would create very rigid, unnatural looking footprints, especially
because sand slides into holes very easily. Does anyone have any
suggestions?

Thanks

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Two ideas:

1. If you don't mind having flat sand aside from the footprints, you can use
a plane for the sand, cut out square holes with difference, and then fit
your square height fields into the holes.

2. If you want your sand to be more sophisticated, you can define it as an
isosurface, and then use the footprint height image as an image function
within the isosurface to deform it in multiple places. This will require a
very good understanding of functions.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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I'll think about the options. I might study up on isosurfaces because
functions are not a problem. Thanks.

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KesAFloyd nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 19/03/2006 23:24:
> Hi, I'm trying to make footprints in sand. I created a height map in
> Photoshop and have the general depressed foot shape, but I'd like to
> somehow insert it into a plane to depress the plane. I don't want to just
> create a huge height map with multiple footprints because I want the
> freedom of rearranging them as I work. I also don't want to create a block
> of foot, insert it into a block of ground, and take a difference because
> that would create very rigid, unnatural looking footprints, especially
> because sand slides into holes very easily. Does anyone have any
> suggestions?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> 
You can use a difference of your surface and the height_field. Make sure that the top
of the 
height_filed is always above your surface.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
No matter how much you do, you never do enough.

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"KesAFloyd" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Hi, I'm trying to make footprints in sand....

I agree with the isosurfaces idea from Slime. I just posted a reply to
another post...

http://news.povray.org/povray.general/thread/%3Cweb.4428b531cc6d48184a366980%40news.povray.org%3E/

with some isosurface examples (subtracting one function from another, etc.)
using an image_map converted into a function. Perhaps some of that would be
useful.

For smoothing the intersections (or transits) between different isosurface
functions, take a look at the POV documentation, section 2.3.3.3.6
Combining Isosurface Functions.

Ken Walker

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