A Moon

[RobA]

I had started dabbling with an idea for the October challenge, that needed a moon.

After searching high and low for decent images, then wasting an hour looking for dem data, I resorted to POVRay and got the three following variants...

Just using a texture map (wrinkles and granite pigment maps):
moon1.png

The same with a wrinkles and granite bump map:
moon_bump.png

The same pigment, but with an rendered isosurface (mathematically combining a sphere with the wrinkle and granite pigments converted to functions):
moon_iso.png

I couldn't believe the improvement with the isosurface over normal rendering (but the rendering time confirmed the additional detail!)

All thee used a POVRay include file I found called RealSky (down at the bottom) that has all the stars visible to the human eye.

And since I am posting in the Elements forum, here is one with a transparent BG to use as you please:
moon.png

-Rob A>

[Steel General]

That's pretty cool-looking...

[Tom_Cardin]

Nice results from those textures.

I had a similar project for this holloween. Here's the moon I made using 3DS Max.

[Coyotemax]

Oooh those are both pretty.

*steals both to use as boulder traps in the next dungeon map - hah!*

[selden]

They do look great!

I used to use POVRay a lot back before they added the GUI. I even made a simple animation with it. The GUI made it completely unintelligible to me, though, and I haven't used it since.

I haven't looked at it for a few years, though. Hopefully the interface has improved.

[nolgroth]

I like RobA's second moon. The texture sort of reminds me of a desaturated Vorlon ship hull.

Both are excellent resources.

[RobA]

They do look great!

I used to use POVRay a lot back before they added the GUI. I even made a simple animation with it. The GUI made it completely unintelligible to me, though, and I haven't used it since.

I haven't looked at it for a few years, though. Hopefully the interface has improved.

There's a gui?

WinPov has a file editor with syntax highlighting, but that is it that I have.

-Rob A>

[selden]

There's a gui?

WinPov has a file editor with syntax highlighting, but that is it that I have.

-Rob A>

That's what I'm referring to. I started with DKBTrace on an Amiga and later POVRay v2 under Windows. Those programs interpreted text files that had to be created with your favorite text editor. For some reason, the design choices they made for POVRay v3 confused me completely. I managed to find other ways to accomplish what I wanted, though. No biggie.

[RobA]

That's what I'm referring to. I started with DKBTrace on an Amiga and later POVRay v2 under Windows. Those programs interpreted text files that had to be created with your favorite text editor. For some reason, the design choices they made for POVRay v3 confused me completely. I managed to find other ways to accomplish what I wanted, though. No biggie.

Ah- I thought you meant a GUI like blender or something.

-Rob A>

[Redrobes]

How does syntax hi-lighting make it unintelligible ? I think I must be missing something here not being up on POV Ray. I tried it for an incy wincy time but I don't think it was for me.