POV-Ray [plugin] (updated: 2016/Aug/08)

[maker]

(12-22-2012 10:07 PM)micheus Wrote:  Sorry for make this post long, but I need show the informations I got before ask some questions. Thans for any help/idea/comments...
...
I need these king of informations in order to exporte correctly the informations.
Let's do this exporter better!

Wow, that's some task you've taken upon yourself! I'll try to help as best as I can, but I'm no expert on Pov-ray. (It was a favourite many years back; then I dropped it; the took it up again because of sketchup-2-pov - su2pov.)

Quote:First question:
- How should we determine that size? Would it be by doing something like getting a bbox from the object and using its x-z plane dimension? Would it be the best option?

fwiw, I think so. Ditto for orientation. Of course, size1 & size2 affect the actual number of pointlights used in the array. For Pov-ray, arealights are a rectangular, or circular, area of pointlights. (A fluorescent light is like an array of 1x4)

The "object as area light" probably exports to "looks like." The light can be pointlight or arealight. (Perhaps 1x1 arealight = pointlight = hard shadows.)

Re. using x-z plane dimension: My feeling is that the (orientation) vector will be (should be?) oriented as in the original object. Thus a "sun" area-light at a lower angle (w respect to object) will cause longer shadows than one higher up.

Quote:Second question:
- Is there any situation where the material appearance will be relevant? If the object will be only an emitter, do we need exporte all the material/texture information to this kind of light?
It's because sometimes the light color cannot represent what we see:

Now I'm confused. IMHO, best would be to export as area-light/point-light. (Material characteristics will be ignored then. The user can always duplicate the object with proper material, if required. (There are certain situations like for neon-lighting, light-bulbs, etc., where material characteristics are important; but it would be probably best to keep things simple.) [Off topic: How would you do a gobo (stencil) light?]

[For Pov-ray, it's not "object as area-light," but a "looks like" light-source. The light-source can be a point-light, spot-light or area-light. It's a lot more flexible, but would confuse many users.]

Slightly off-topic: but I wonder if it would be possible to (re-)export only objects / materials. That way we could keep a separate reference (inc) file. To tweak materials, or replace "place-holder" objects with, e.g., cars, pov-trees, humans - at render time. Some time in future, perhaps. (Or, maybe I can check out - and make a tutor - on working from the other end. )

Sorry for the "unnecessary," long additions to the reply. And if I misunderstood any of your questions.