"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> "OJD" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
>
> Really beautiful and realistic; thanks for posting a full image and the ultra
> close-up.

thank you for the kind words.

> >
> > the leaf is made from a difference of a sphere and 2 cylinders giving a curved
> > slice of the top of the sphere. then it is differenced from itself scaled
> > slightly larger. this gives a nice curved 'V' shaped leaf.
> >
>
> About the V-shape on the underside of the leaf: In my mind's eye, I can see how
> intersecting a sphere with two cylinders would create that, by itself (I
> think)--the two cylinders being larger in diameter than the sphere, with each
> one aimed down at maybe 45-deg and from 'opposite sides' of the sphere.

correct. the cylinders are at a slight angle in the z direction to make the
shape larger on one end.

> What then does differencing that CSG object from itself do? I'm genuinely
> curious. Maybe I'm overlooking an important detail in my mental picture.

the first difference gives a tapering curved triangle like shape. the second
difference scaled slightly larger moves the shape up a bit and cuts out the 'v'
shape.

"Thomas de Groot" wrote:
> Do you know the palm tree made by POV-Tree (Gena Obukov's java version
> of Tom-tree, by Tom Aust)? This is how it looks as CSG output.

yes, I have that app and tried it. I does make some decent trees of other types,
but it is just not designed for a date palm. Plus no support for the fruit and
showing the dates was a requirement.

----------

Just rendered today a close up of the current version.

some tidbits on other things in the scene...
- credit for the clouds goes to Gilles Tran's makecloud and his tga2df3 utility.
they scatter the sun color and absorb the sky color.
- cloud shadows are from actual clouds, though I think I have them too dark.
- sky is an inverted sphere with the sky color gamma adjusted in the y direction
and no_radiosity tag. Had a problem with the sky effecting shadow color too much
so I have radiosity ignoring the sky and set the background color 1/3 of the sky
color. (since about 25-30% of light the reaches us is scattered skylight)
- the mountains are function based height fields as well as the dunes.
- ground fog is used to simulate blowing sand off the dunes. varies depending
upon camera's 'y' position. had to drop the fod below ground level and use the
up vector tilted a little in the -z direction otherwise it effected my courtyard
area too much. (made a disaster of the shadows)
- single light source (the sun), area_light 600*x, 600*z, 3, 3 at 50000*y
slightly rotated.(circular/orient) gives a decent shadow at the correct angle
(about 1 deg). color is rgb <1, 1, .9925>*1.03; // actual D65 standard
illuminant
- the grass tufts are all unique and are run off another macro.
- rocks are isosurfaces. during placement their location is traced to see if the
rock is over a sand dune and its height is adjusted to sit on top of the sand
and not get buried. each rock scaled, rotated, translated, roughness adjusred
and is buried up to 50% at random. (another macro I will post as it has some
interesting functionality)
- the corner of the courtyard is part of a quite complex scene depicting the
Tabernacle of the Bible. So this is an attempt at creating the environment on
the Sinai peninsula. Mt. Sinai is out of scene to the left and you are looking
west.


on this render I noticed a few things I want to tweek on the palm. will get the
changes made and create a short tutorial to go with it. should have something in
a couple weeks.

thanks all.

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