Cool ! On the last picture it really starts to be difficult to distinguish it from a real ceramics molded object !
Is that the one in my first post, or the 'snow' one?
Nice! Will your renderer be available for us to try out?
I'd still like to release software with a full GUI at some point. But before then, everything needs unifying more, and I'd like to port it to the GPU for speed...
I was wondering, is there some point at which it would be easier to export fractal shots as high res meshes and import them into a rendering package?
Then you could use all sorts of techniques, like depth of field, reflections, refraction, high dynamic range, multiple light sources etc.
Or would it maybe be too hard to decide which parts of the fractal to export?
Yeah, the whole thing is so tricky, not least because of the resolution. Programs which convert voxels to polygons seem few and far between, and can only seem to handle a limited number of polygons. In principle though, it shouldn't be too hard program really (marching cubes algorithm), and understanding a polygon format to convert to. I'm still a little surprised there's no real standard 'voxel format' in place.
The global ones appear as if the lens on a camera is way out of focus (or I have forgotten to put on my glasses).
The blurring present wasn't by choice. As I said in my previous post, it is a bug in the algorithm. I think I know what's causing the problem, and in fact I even managed to 'fix' it, but something else broke, so I need to investigate further. It's also what's causing the dark outlines that are appearing.
Apart from that, one can always increase the resolution, and then resize to make smaller, but obviously I would like to solve the problem.
Anyway, hopefully I can change your opinion about GI once I fix the bug
Why do some fanatics prefer blurry out of focus digital images, instead of something with visible details??
I think given the choice, anyone would prefer decent anti-aliasing/downsampling over a blurred image. However, pictures with a shallow depth of field, like Lycium's amazing 'Rise' certainly seem to benefit from the added 'blur' without losing anything:
http://lyc.deviantart.com/art/rise-64751071simulating reality isn't for everyone, there will always be a place for abstract CG
Going to the cinema the other night, the entrance to the seating area was a a long dark corridor (felt material?) with lovely mini lights dotted all along. It was quite surreal, and quite CGI-ish. I think given the right materials (some may be impossible to create) and lighting, real life can be incredibly CGI-like
I'm beginning to think anyway that the 'DI look' can be achieved with GI simply by using smaller lights rather than an entire sky light. Perhaps something closer to the red picture for instance.
nice one twinbee
since i work on indigo now, i should probably try adding support for intersecting the mandelbulb sometime! (though i don't have a lot of free time for fractals these days, as you guys have probably noticed)
Lack of time... sigh, yes, I know how that feels, though I'd still like to see more renders from you these days!
I bet you'd do some great stuff with the Mandelbox too.
Your images have "holes" everywhere, mine have just flat surfaces. If I increase the number of iterations in order to get "holes", a few appear, but then I need to apply a heavy anti aliasing in order to remove coarseness.
One idea to reduce the 'flatness' which I have sometimes used in the past is to have the z ray travel twice as slow (or less) as it should, relative to the x and y light rays. It's an artificial fix, but it may help...
Sockratease, that HDRI technique sounds interesting - I wonder what lighting effects can't be simulated with that...
Here's another render from last night. I think it has a 'pearl'-like sub-surface scatter look, but heh, I didn't really intend that. Just changing one or two numbers in the algorithm can produce very different results.