Thomas de Groot <tho### [at] degrootorg> wrote:
> Do you have the pick or shovel model?

The pick model, just like the one in your most recent rendering, only less rusty
;)

My brother did happen to find me an old army spade. Great tool; the shovel part
folds back into the wooden handle, so it just barely fits into my backpack. My
prospecting toolkit now has four implements: rock hammer; shovel; flat head
screwdriver; screen (1/4" carpenter's cloth + narrow steel rods for edge
support). All that extra weight means I'm going to need a backpack frame,
though. Don't know if I should buy one or make one yet... I might go with an
Alice pack, like the ones the US military uses.

> I am not going much places anymore these days...

That's a shame! You've got to get out there sometime :)

> I am indeed also using a max_gradient of 10 in my scene.

Oftentimes I can get away with a max_gradient of 1 or 2. POV-Ray usually
suggests values much higher than those which are really needed.

> After a quick test, I see that I can get away with a much lower count
> value. In general, I think I am using too high radiosity settings in my
> scenes as I generally leave them at settings I consider as my defaults...

Makes all the difference in the world. For isosurface scenes I begin with a
count of 1 and work my way up if needed, usually up to 16.

Whats up with importance sampling, BTW? I thought it would allow you to
effectively use a lower count for specified objects in a scene, but my tests
didn't seem to support that notion. It would be nice to force isosurfaces to
render with lower rad counts than other objects.

> Next, with the hammer and some flying dust.

Nice! I love the irony :)

That reminds me, just this week I was playing with Blender's smoke simulation. I
have now managed to get smoke from Blender to actually render in POV-Ray. (I
think somebody was asking about that very same thing awhile ago in p.general,
but explaining my process is probably going to require a tutorial, and I'm not
up for that right now.)

Sam

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