Jaime Vives Piqueres <jai### [at] ignoranciaorg> wrote:
>    Well... you really didn't need alpha for this:

I always have to add my trademark "unnecessary level of added complexity" to my
first go at things.  :)

> the height_field
> object has a "water_level" statement wich allows you to cut the
> undesired parts.

Argh.  I was starting to look at that and consider it, but it was after a long
day of puzzling out other things.   That's obvious now - thanks!

> This way you don't need to use a texture map, just a
> regular texture. For this to work, just paint the border and center with
> total black, and the desired frame with a grayscale above black,
.....
>    Also, I guess you may want to reverse the texture map entries and
> adjust the transition...

I see.  This works well now.


Thank you for your expert assistance - I'm always amazed at your raytracings.
You have a real knack for composition, details, texturing and lighting that
always knocks my socks off.   Thanks for all of your inspirational images over
the years!

-----------------------

I have a few more questions related to this topic.
Because of the way POV-Ray maps the image to the primitive, it needs to be
scaled to something proportional to the image's original aspect ratio.  Is there
a way to pull this value from the file with POV-Ray?  I'm assuming the
information is readily available, since Windows displays it when I mouse-over
the filename, and POV-Ray has to be able to determine this to correctly read the
file format.

This would be super handy for evaluating a lot of different images, especially
with an array of filenames and invoking POV-Ray's animation features.

Suppose I DID use the alpha channel.
Is there a way to use that for a second texture, so that I can use water-level
to get rid of the perimeter, and put the second texture inside the frame?

Thanks for your prompt reply!
(I had a late night, so I'm just resuming work on this now.)

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