Try this instead of the two spheres in the minipatch example scene. Is the
blue part supposed to happen? If so, why?

#declare S = 5;

box
{
 1,-1 hollow
 pigment {rgbf 1}
 interior
 {
  media
  {
   emission 1/9
   sample_method 2 samples 2,3
   intervals 3 jitter 0
   density
   {
    agate
    color_map
    {
     [0.0 Black]
     [1.0 rgb <1,.75,0>]
    }
    scale S
   }
  }
 }
 scale S
}

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Ron Parker wrote in message <37e2656d@news.povray.org>...
>Um.  No progress recently.  There are a lot of little patches I need to
track
>down and integrate.  So far, I definitely have isoblobs and photons and a
>few other little things, but I had those a month ago.  I'd definitely like
to
>add this media one, and fix a smattering of bugs I've posted in
.bugreports.
>No idea when I'll find time to do that, though.


I've figured out a modification to the Windows version of POV-Ray that can
result in a 1%-5% across-the-board speed increase, depending on how much is
running in the background.  If none of the other patches that have been
added have modified any of the pvengine.* files, integrating the
modifications should take less than a minute (if they have been modified, it
might take as much as five minutes).  Should I send you the source?

Mark

Post a reply to this message

>I've figured out a modification to the Windows version of POV-Ray that can
>result in a 1%-5% across-the-board speed increase, depending on how much is
>running in the background. Should I send you the source?


You don't ask questions like that, you just send it in... ;)

Post a reply to this message

Coincident surfaces.  Change S to 4.9999. :)

-Mike

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OK. Cool. Thanks.

I've been playing around with this thing. It is stupendous. I love it. For
some medias it doesn't make any difference, but for others, my goodness! I'm
changing to sample_method 2 for good. =) I've tested the old vollumetric
light scenes posted about 2 months ago. They rendered much faster and nicer
with way lower settings. I also tested my old flame. It is rendering just
like it used to, except the settings are 1/10 of what they were! This is how
media should have been introduced. Oh, BTW, I would prefer the keyword
"method" instead of "sample_method". Just a thought.

Anyway, thanks Mike!

Post a reply to this message

> I've been playing around with this thing. It is stupendous. I love it. For
> some medias it doesn't make any difference, but for others, my goodness! I'm
> changing to sample_method 2 for good. =)

The old method is still good for cetain things, like very large objects with
complex media inside.  I think it's related to the random sampling.  You will
get pretty much the same result with the type 2 version in my patch using jitter
1, though it won't take advantage of variance or confidence and therefore
doesn't make good use of max samples.

Supersampling could offer the best of both worlds - oh yeah, and there's some
other tests I can do to speed things up.  Since the ray is sampled from near to
far, I could check if the total color is completely white and save taking
pointless samples.  The same is true for total absorption.  For example, why
take samples to infinity if you have a global media that turns white 10 units
away?

I should mention that all the stuff I'm doing is garnered from how halo and
atmosphere worked in version 3.

> I've tested the old vollumetric
> light scenes posted about 2 months ago. They rendered much faster and nicer
> with way lower settings. I also tested my old flame. It is rendering just
> like it used to, except the settings are 1/10 of what they were! This is how
> media should have been introduced.

Halo used to be used for things like light glows and flames, and using even
samples is just amazingly smooth for that kind of stuff.  I think I've mentioned
before that doing it that way doesn't actually make it faster, but it puts the
sampling to better use allowing you to use fewer samples.

> Oh, BTW, I would prefer the keyword
> "method" instead of "sample_method". Just a thought.

I like the idea.  You would have hated the original keyword I was using -
media_sampling_method.  If I can get supersampling to work (well down the road)
I will include that change in the new patch.  I guess I should have put
something in there about backward compatibility not gaurenteed.  :)

> Anyway, thanks Mike!

Happy to hear you are having fun with it.  Try a spherical camera render next
and map it to a sky_sphere using spherical mapping. :)

-Mike

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Mike <pov### [at] aolcom> schreef in berichtnieuws
37E3E6DA.DE1908AD@aol.com...
> Happy to hear you are having fun with it.  Try a spherical camera
render next
> and map it to a sky_sphere using spherical mapping. :)
>
> -Mike

Yep, fun it is, displacement mapping spherical camera images on
isosurface spheres. No distortion on the poles, makes perfect asteroids
etc.
Had a quick look at the media, but that will take more time.

So many goodies,
so little time.


Thanks Mike

Ingo

Post a reply to this message

Just stepping in to so I can say I like what I see.

Bob

ingo <ing### [at] homenl> wrote in message
news:37e3fe47@news.povray.org...
>
> Mike <pov### [at] aolcom> schreef in berichtnieuws
> 37E3E6DA.DE1908AD@aol.com...
> > Happy to hear you are having fun with it.  Try a spherical camera
> render next
> > and map it to a sky_sphere using spherical mapping. :)
> >
> > -Mike
>
> Yep, fun it is, displacement mapping spherical camera images on
> isosurface spheres. No distortion on the poles, makes perfect
asteroids
> etc.
> Had a quick look at the media, but that will take more time.
>
> So many goodies,
> so little time.
>
>
> Thanks Mike
>
> Ingo
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Mike <pov### [at] aolcom> wrote in message news:37E3E6DA.DE1908AD@aol.com...
> Happy to hear you are having fun with it.  Try a spherical camera render
next
> and map it to a sky_sphere using spherical mapping. :)
>

I thought of this when I was planning to make a scene that used some of
those super-slow media clouds.  First, I thought I'd render the scene with
just the sky and no other objects (using the same camera that the final
image would use).  Then, using a macro I created, I'd paste that image map
on a plane lined up witht he camera in the far background for all subsequent
renders.  But then what would happen to reflections (the scene had glass in
it)?  So I thought I'd render the rest of the sky using a spherical camera
and map it to the sky_sphere (like you suggest).  Then, I'd have a
high-resolution image map directly in front of the camera and a nice
sky-sphere to handle reflections.

But then I never used those slow media clouds in that image, so I never put
this technique to use.

-Nathan

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Use the Plane_clouds (stsky.pov) using this method. Excellent Results!

H.E. Day

Nathan Kopp wrote:

> Mike <pov### [at] aolcom> wrote in message news:37E3E6DA.DE1908AD@aol.com...
> > Happy to hear you are having fun with it.  Try a spherical camera render
> next
> > and map it to a sky_sphere using spherical mapping. :)
> >
>
> I thought of this when I was planning to make a scene that used some of
> those super-slow media clouds.  First, I thought I'd render the scene with
> just the sky and no other objects (using the same camera that the final
> image would use).  Then, using a macro I created, I'd paste that image map
> on a plane lined up witht he camera in the far background for all subsequent
> renders.  But then what would happen to reflections (the scene had glass in
> it)?  So I thought I'd render the rest of the sky using a spherical camera
> and map it to the sky_sphere (like you suggest).  Then, I'd have a
> high-resolution image map directly in front of the camera and a nice
> sky-sphere to handle reflections.
>
> But then I never used those slow media clouds in that image, so I never put
> this technique to use.
>
> -Nathan

Post a reply to this message