Topic awaiting preservation: Pov!

After downloading maya and playin' with it for a while I just wasn't havin' as much fun as I was with povray. I guess I was corrupted before I could give maya a fair shot, or maybe its the fact that I'm allready a lil' familiar with pov Anywho, I've been workin' on a pov scene lately and I'll post it up here for critique soon, but first I have a few questions.

1. how can I texture map an image onto a sphere_sweep object? I made a wire and I want to put that text that is found on wires on my wire. Havn't a clue how to do it though because of how irregularly shaped the object is.

2. Maybe I just really proud, but so far I think my image looks pretty realistic as far as textures and models go. I havn't gone throught the radiosity tutorial yet but would using radiosity up the realism? What are the pros and cons of radiosity vs. pure raytracing. I know that radiosity takes into account neighboring objects' colors when rendering but I don't know much more than that.

I'm off to go work on it some more, I bet if I practiced some more I'd get better... POVray Pong anyone?

Schitzoboy

A good example of the power of radiosity is this. It's before-and-after Lightwave image, bit you can get the idea.

Edit: Here's another: another





[This message has been edited by Das (edited 03-08-2002).]

Texture mapped onto a sphere sweep... no idea. Not sure it can easily be done. You may have to use a mesh and UV-map the texture (not that I've ever done that myself before).

Radiosity. Radiosity simulates the bouncing of light around a scene. In real life, an area that isn't hit directly by a light source (look in a closet, under your desk, etc) still has light in it. In raytraced images, however, an ambient amount of light is assumed, and it just applies that amount of light to any place that's not hit by a light source. That can create very unrealistic shading in unlit areas. Pro is that the image looks more realistic (if the radiosity parameters are specified well). Con is that the image will take a long time to render. Also, in POV-Ray, radiosity is experimental, so in future versions your scene probably won't work. That's a long way in the future, though.

I used radiosity (the version 3.1 implementation) in my slimecam ( http://www.slimeland.com/slimecam/ ). Notice how it makes the shading in the room much more realistic, especially under the table and behind the door when it's open. I accidentally did one of those pictures without radiosity, and although it sorta looks the same, everything seems very *flat*.

For a quick overview of what your scene will look like with radiosity, just add

global_settings { radiosity{}}

in there, and it will use the default settings.

ok here is the pic: http://akasha.y0ru.net:8080/~schitzo/misc/new.bmp

[This message has been edited by Schitzoboy (edited 03-14-2002).]

Jpegs are good =)

Or use PNG if you want to directly output from POV... the output type can be set from an ini file, search the docs for "options".

But in the meantime, I'm downloading it...

Cool =)

The first areas for improvement that I noticed are that some of the edges look a little too sharp, and the focal blur needs to be focused a bit further back, and maybe with more samples. Otherwise, the textures *are* really good, and that cord looks really realistic, the whole thing does, really. If you're going to keep working on it, I think you should put something in the background on the left, like some object that would hold a TV, and some cords coming out of the back of the NES. But you could leave it as it is; it's really good.

The whole scene is a bit bright; if you're using radiosity, make sure you set ambient_light to zero and have a neutral to black background color in the areas that can't be seen.

Thanks Slime. I had POV set to bmps because I made a background a while back with it and I like my backgrounds to be bmps. I forgot to switch when I rendered and was to lazy to open photoshop .

The edges ARE one of my biggest nitpicks at well. I remeber you made a macro to fix it and I think I still have it, I just remeber having a problem with it a while back. That'll be my next step for sure.

My other major nitpick is the chord is almost half as short as it needs to be. Its just a pain to render. I really wish I could speed it up some. I have a faster comp at school (I'm home for spring break) so I'll work on it this week and start rendering when I get back.

About the focal point. Should it be touching something to simulate the human eye focusing on an object? I put it about half way between the NES and the controller so both would be in reasonable focus. I'll try pushing it back untill it hits the NES

You predicted my plans for a TV that'll come much later! I've got a few ideas on how to do it, but a TV is still much more complex than anything I've modelled before.

Thanks for the tips, keep 'em coming.
Schitzo

Well, maybe you should lower the overall amount of blurring then... place the focal point 1/3 of the way between the controller and the NES if you want them both in focus (the closer third). It just seems like the text on the NES is a little too blurry.

Redownload that macro if you're going to use it... I think it's at www.slimeland.com/misc/roundedprism.inc

Heh... just saw your *other* post, Corey =)

just thought I'd mention one more thing... one part of the cord has a real quick sharp zigzag in it; the part near the Power button. I think the cords are a little stiffer than that, they wouldn't hold that shape very easily. Also, didn't the cord enter the controller a little farther to the right? Maybe I'm remembering my *second* set of controllers...

You're right about the chord entering the controller in the wrong spot. The sharp zig zag IS possible but I don't think it looks right either. If you get in the habbit of wrapping the chord around the controller and stowin' them somewhere the chord gets full of kinks like that. I'll try to fix that on my next render since I'm in the middle of one now.

Argh, Media just got way to complex for me so I went back to working on the NES. fixed everything except the rounded corners. also I converted it to a PNG in photoshop and it messed with the gama. Next time I'll just render it as a PNG. Normally it isn't so contrasty.
http://akasha.y0ru.net:8080/~schitzo/misc/nes.png

wow! incredible! how did ya make the cable?

It's a sphere sweep along a cubic spline. Basically you input a couple spheres where you want the corners and it fills in the rest along a curve.

Schitzo

cubic spline? wow! so its a trigonometrical formula? coolness!
(btw, sorry if this is an unpolite question, but do you publish the sources?)
edit: typo

[This message has been edited by GRUMBLE (edited 03-14-2002).]

Yeah i think it is trig, I'm just glad pov does it for me. Look up sphere sweep in the docs and you'll see what it does better than I can explain it. The source of this image is in 2 files and really sloppy, plus there is lots and lots of external images used. Tell me what your interested in and I'll send it to ya.

Schitzo

mmmmm...radiosity

It's a real shame that max doesn't provide built in radiosity and caustics, even in version 4.0 you still have to buy the Mental Ray plugin.

Oh well...my pentium 450 couldn't run it if it wanted to anyway...