denbeste@bbn.com (Steven Den Beste) (12/05/89)
I just got my upgrade disk from Impulse with the latest greatest Silver
version, and I must say that they have massively cleaned up the user interface.
I'm truly impressed by the changes they've made.
There's only one thing I've tried to do which I can't seem to make work, and
I'm now wondering if it is just because their algorithm doesn't extend this
far, or if I'm doing something fundamentally wrong.
One feature change with this version is that you can now have more than one
light source (and objects can be light sources, which is great! - Now I can do
lamps and candles!) and objects will show specular spots and shading based on
all of them. But I cannot get an object to cast a shadow onto another object,
which makes all of the pictures look REALLY strange!
I got to the point last night where I tried hauling out one of THEIR objects
from the last edition, the "cruiser", a weird jet/spaceship, and tried
rendering it over a simple "floor". The fins of the thing cast shadows onto its
body, but the whole object didn't cast a shadow onto the floor.
Am I doing something wrong? I've tried it with light sources which are both
"suns" and "lamps" (having both is a nice feature, by the way), and nothing I
try seems to matter. By the way, in case it matters, I was using a "texture" on
the floor in all cases, though a couple of times I tried a plain-white and got
exactly the same results.
Steven C. Den Beste || denbeste@bbn.com (ARPA/CSNET)
BBN Communications Corp. || {apple, usc, husc6, csd4.milw.wisc.edu,
150 Cambridge Park Dr. || gatech, oliveb, mit-eddie,
Cambridge, MA 02140 || ulowell}!bbn.com!denbeste (USENET)leslie@volcano.Berkeley.EDU (Leslie Norwood) (12/05/89)
In article <49126@bbn.COM> denbeste@BBN.COM (Steven Den Beste) writes: >I just got my upgrade disk from Impulse with the latest greatest Silver >version, and I must say that they have massively cleaned up the user interface >... >There's only one thing I've tried to do which I can't seem to make work, and >I'm now wondering if it is just because their algorithm doesn't extend this >far, or if I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. You're doing something fundamentally wrong. :-) >One feature change with this version is that you can now have more than one >light source (and objects can be light sources, which is great! - Now I can do >lamps and candles!) and objects will show specular spots and shading based on >all of them. But I cannot get an object to cast a shadow onto another object, >which makes all of the pictures look REALLY strange! You're approaching the problem from the wrong side. It's not the objects that you have to set up to cast shadows, but the light sources. When you create a sphere, for example, and select Attributes to modify it, you'll notice two boxes near the lower left marked "Bright" and "Shaded". At first, "Shaded" is selected. The minute you click on "Lamp" or "Sun", that status changes to "Bright". This means that Turbo-Silver will not generate shadows for that particular light. If you want it to generate them, you must re-select "Shaded". It was installed as a time saving option when you are doing test traces. (The combination of setting a zone, making all lights "Bright", and Solid Model tracing really speed things up!) Happy tracing.