Brickvention 2006
Advanced POV-Ray
Brickvention 2006
‘Duckbot’ rendered with default settings
Brickvention 2006
What we’re aiming for
Brickvention 2006
What we will cover.
• Setting up lights in MLCAD
• Setting up the camera in L3PAO
• Creating area lights
• Global settings
• Modifying textures (reflective floor)
Brickvention 2006
Setting up lights in MLCAD
Add lights to your model by adding the part ‘light.dat’
Make sure the colour is set to white.
Brickvention 2006
Use the front and top view to position the light
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Add as many lights as you want
Three is usually sufficient.
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Save the file and open L3PAO
Default L3PAO settings
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Let’s change some stuff
Select ‘light sources from .DAT’ and deselect any other lights
Run L3P, open the file in POV-Ray and render.
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The result so far
Not very different to the default settings yet.
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Modifying lights.
If the lighting arrangement is unsatisfactory -
•Move the light.dat parts in MLCAD
•Save the file
•Rerun L3P
•Rerender
When you are happy with the light’s positions, close MLCAD
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Setting Up The Camera
For a more natural viewpoint set the camera angle to a lower value.
Use ‘Radius’ to change the framing of the image.
Use ‘Camera Look At’ to set the target of the camera.
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The Camera
45°
0°
15°
Camera ‘Look At’ point. (x,y,z coordinate)
Latitude
Longitude
Radius (ldu)
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Looking better already
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Creating ‘Area Lights’ in POV-Ray
Open the file created by L3PAO, in this case, duckbot.pov
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It’s not all that bad…
At the bottom of the file there is always something like this.
Add an area light just above the existing lights.
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A bit of C ‘n’ P later
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Global Settings
The render is still a little dark…
At the top of the file add these global settings.
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The finishing touch
Add reflection to the floor, and play with the ‘ambient’ and ‘diffuse’ settings.
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Recap
• Add light.dat parts in MLCAD for greater control over light positioning. Keep in mind the camera angle when placing lights.
• Adjust the camera in L3PAO.• Use the light’s coordinates to create area lights, which soften
the shadows.• Use the global settings to make fine adjustments to the
brightness and contrast of the image.• Add reflection to the floor for a nice finishing touch.• Do lots of test renders at a low resolution.• The POV-Ray help file is brilliant. Use it.
Brickvention 2006
Examples