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 CAD / Ray-Tracing / 2822
    Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
   I'm working on a different rendering method (for instructions) using POV-Ray, and I wanted to get some opinions about the output. On that note, I have two sample renderings in two different sizes, and I'd like to get people's feedback. Note that I'm (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
   
        Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Philippe Hurbain
     (...) For me, the keypoint here is "for instructions". Anything that remove legibility to the image should be avoided. In both versions conditional lines are not rendered. Not a huge problem here, could become one on models with many rounded (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
    
         Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Jim DeVona
      (...) I agree with Philo that the shadows are distracting. I don't think the stud logos are necessary, either. On the other hand, I think the transparent parts in the first rendering look a little too dark. There's also a grainy texture under some (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
     
          Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Jim DeVona
      (...) Just for comparison, I rendered your model using the same technique as mine: (URL) m6459>> Transparent parts definitely seem to be a challenge. Jim (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
    
         Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Don Heyse
      (...) Good point. I think the official instructions are harder to follow now with the fancy rendering. Sometimes you can't tell one color from another, especially black, white, and the various shades of gray. I can barely tell the white bricks from (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
     
          Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Jim DeVona
      (...) I've found that getting rid of the transparent colors' refraction characteristics makes for a much clearer rendering, too: (URL) no refraction>> Jim (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
    
         Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
      (...) That isn't a silly question at all, really. In fact, it may be more important than all the flaws that have been pointed out. Based on the comments here, there seems to be a general consensus about a few things regarding "high-quality (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
     
          Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Timothy Gould
       --snip-- (...) --snip-- (...) Is it that they prefer POV-Ray or that they don't have/aren't aware that the latest versions of LPub can use LDView? Although I consider myself quite a dab hand at POV-Ray I would never use it for instructions now that (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
     
          Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Jim DeVona
       (...) I would choose LDView over POV-Ray and L3P in an instant if the -SaveAlpha option worked on my Mac. Otherwise, I think your conclusions about the appearance settings are correct. LDView renderings like your example look great. Would it make (...) (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
      
           Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
       (...) It'll be there in the next release. (...) Actually, if you look you will see that parts of it are somewhat transparent (like the left edge of the windscreen). All of it that has the background visible through transparent parts is supposed to (...) (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
      
           Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
       (...) OK, I played around with this tonight for a few hours, and finally came up with something that I think I'm happy with. It requires 3 passes of the transparent polygons (just during snapshot save with SaveAlpha enabled), but it seems to get (...) (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
      
           Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Jim DeVona
       (...) I think it's really good. Maybe you should ship LDView with an "instructions" preference set configured for this kind of output! Jim (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
      
           Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
       (...) Here's a page that shows the 800x600 image in front of various backgrounds (including yellow and black warning stripes): (URL) --Travis (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
     
          Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Philippe Hurbain
      (...) To me, the reasons are mainly "historical": the first way to get better images than the output of Ldraw/MLCad/LeoCAD (which is not that bad for instructions!) was POV-Ray. L3PAO then LPub did a lot to push POV as the renderer of choice. Add to (...) (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
    
         Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
     (...) This is one of the main reasons I posted asking for opinions. I think I can fix this, but I know that fixing it is going to be a lot of work. There's no point bothering if people aren't going to like the results. (...) That can be fixed (with (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
   
        Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Orion Pobursky
     (...) - The shadows in version 2 cause color confusion. This is the most glaring example but it is repeated thoughout the rendering: the 1x2 grille piece is white in version 1 but looks grey in version 2. - No conditional lines rendered in both. - (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray)
   
        Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Anders Isaksson
     (...) For instructions I'd definitely choose Version 1, for nice pictures Version 2 minus the hard, black edges and a little less shiny. As the other's have said: - too dark in the black. Actually, to me the whole picture is too dark - which monitor (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray)
    
         Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Orion Pobursky
     (...) Unless Travis is explicitly setting it, I think POV-Ray defaults to 2.2. -Orion (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray)
   
        Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Allan Bedford
     (...) On my monitor, version 1 certainly looks cleaner and sharper. I will be interested to see how you accomplished this. It might get me back into creating instructions again, which is something I have stopped doing because I was getting so (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
   
        Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Martin Srb
     (...) In my opinion, both images are unusable for instructions. Prefering legibility over realism (though a bit of "realism" is still needed to even recognize the shapes), I put down some universal rules for creating instructions of virtually any (...) (17 years ago, 8-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
    
         Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Philippe Hurbain
     (...) A very important point - I didn't even noticed that the vehicle roof was grey, not white! (...) That's the main problem of LDD generated instructions: no edges... Philo (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
   
        Re: Opinions sought on rendering method —Travis Cobbs
   Well, as of 0135 PDT, lugnet.cad.ray is at the top of the 24-hour column of the LUGNET Traffic Report (with 18 posts, vs. 12 for the next group). That makes me feel good. :-) (This is the only thread in the group that has had any posts in the last (...) (17 years ago, 9-Oct-07, to lugnet.cad.ray, FTX)
 

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