Quote from njahnke:
both.
It's the paradox of paradoxes.
Or just a really confusing thought. You decide.
<insert joke about Schrodinger's Samus>
Archived M2K2 Forum
okay, at a request from USBCD36, I'm GPLing the sources for the four-ball render. They are here:
http://www.ali1548.ukshells.co.uk/grenola_morphballs_povray-1.0.0.zip
The main file to render is metroid_morphballs.pov. The other files (with the exception of uxb.pov) are included by metroid_morphballs and should not be rendered directly.
uxb.pov defines a macro which depicts a morph ball bomb, which I played with in some test scenes, but isn't actually used in the four-ball scene.
I don't know how you set the paths up correctly on windows to enable povray to find the includes (both mine and povray's) - I use UNIX so your mileage may well vary.
You'll want to use anti-aliasing to get any sort of decent quality. If you're rendering a 5:4 ratio scene (1280x1024) rather than a 4:3 ratio scene (1024x768) you'll want to use Spectere's tip in the camera block (see earlier in this topic) to get the aspect ratio correct.
Important - this scene is slow. Rendering the 1280x1024 on an AMD 2700+ took roughly 24 hours. If you're going to render a big one, make sure your CPU fan is in full working order and your machine has adequate ventilation. I believe the slow speed is largely due to the ugly constructive solid geometry I used on the sides of the spiderballs, coupled with the fact that the concave sides cause rays to bounce around in there for ever. Anyone who can manage to optimise the CSG so it doesn't take weeks will be my hero.
Finally, remember that as this is released under the GPL it comes with absolutely no warranty whatsoever. ;)
~g
http://www.ali1548.ukshells.co.uk/grenola_morphballs_povray-1.0.0.zip
The main file to render is metroid_morphballs.pov. The other files (with the exception of uxb.pov) are included by metroid_morphballs and should not be rendered directly.
uxb.pov defines a macro which depicts a morph ball bomb, which I played with in some test scenes, but isn't actually used in the four-ball scene.
I don't know how you set the paths up correctly on windows to enable povray to find the includes (both mine and povray's) - I use UNIX so your mileage may well vary.
You'll want to use anti-aliasing to get any sort of decent quality. If you're rendering a 5:4 ratio scene (1280x1024) rather than a 4:3 ratio scene (1024x768) you'll want to use Spectere's tip in the camera block (see earlier in this topic) to get the aspect ratio correct.
Important - this scene is slow. Rendering the 1280x1024 on an AMD 2700+ took roughly 24 hours. If you're going to render a big one, make sure your CPU fan is in full working order and your machine has adequate ventilation. I believe the slow speed is largely due to the ugly constructive solid geometry I used on the sides of the spiderballs, coupled with the fact that the concave sides cause rays to bounce around in there for ever. Anyone who can manage to optimise the CSG so it doesn't take weeks will be my hero.
Finally, remember that as this is released under the GPL it comes with absolutely no warranty whatsoever. ;)
~g
Ok, still having a problem with the files. It says it can't find "colors.inc", and I think there was another one it couldn't find last time too (something like "metals.inc" I believe). Is there a place I could download them, or can you provide me with the actual ones you used?
Edit: copying the files from the include folder to the metroid folder solved the problem; works fine now.
Edit: copying the files from the include folder to the metroid folder solved the problem; works fine now.
okay, those should be distributed with povray somewhere - just it won't be able to find them because of some path problem.
this may help (at the bottom):
http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/16/
If you still have problems, probably the easiest way is to copy colors.inc and metals.inc (and any others I might have used) into the metroid directory containing my files.
this may help (at the bottom):
http://www.povray.org/documentation/view/3.6.1/16/
If you still have problems, probably the easiest way is to copy colors.inc and metals.inc (and any others I might have used) into the metroid directory containing my files.
Finally done rendering! [url=www.metroid2002.com/usbcd36/Pictures/metroid_morphballs_final.png]This[/url] is a WUXGA version (1920x1200) of the pic, so if you want something smaller, you'll need to do some scaling and cropping (or you can ask me, I'd be happy to size it to your needs). There IS one thing I am unhappy about with this picture, which you may be able to see below:
My rendering:
DJGrenola's original rendering:
It seems that there is one less stream of light coming from inside each of the morph balls. I suppose it's not bad or anything, just different.
Oh, and 57-some hours on a 2.3 GHz dual-core Power Mac G5 (using one core for rendering and the other for everyday use).
Note: This is still DJGrenola's artwork, just rendered on my computer for size.
My rendering:
DJGrenola's original rendering:
It seems that there is one less stream of light coming from inside each of the morph balls. I suppose it's not bad or anything, just different.
Oh, and 57-some hours on a 2.3 GHz dual-core Power Mac G5 (using one core for rendering and the other for everyday use).
Note: This is still DJGrenola's artwork, just rendered on my computer for size.
meh, sorry. I guess this is what happens when you don't implement proper version control. I deliberately changed the colour of the light in the regular morph ball from white to yellow, but I'm surprised that the intensity of the light coming from the balls changed, and I have no idea what happened to the media inside the phazon and gravity spiderballs - although IMO the media looks much better now - so much more texture inside the phazon ball, and notice how you can see it through the glass side of the gravity ball - beautiful. ;)
good job !
good job !
Hey, wasn't me! Thank my version of Pov-Ray. It does look more like you wanted it to when your version was released though…
Edit: I figured that with my success at rendering the first one I'd try the source from the original in your first post. Problem is it is giving me "Parse Error: Illegal character in input file, value is ca." whenever I try to render. Any suggestions to rectify this or should I just give up?
Edit: I figured that with my success at rendering the first one I'd try the source from the original in your first post. Problem is it is giving me "Parse Error: Illegal character in input file, value is ca." whenever I try to render. Any suggestions to rectify this or should I just give up?
Was bored. Conceived vaguely amusing concept. Wrote code for 20 minutes. Did cursory test. Began render. Waited four hours. Realised that 3, 3.5 and 3.6 are not equal in any number system I've ever heard of. Invented two new swear words. Sent SIGINT. Fixed idiotic bug. Had idea of using bomb to excite cradle, changed code accordingly, adjusted lighting. Began render. Went to bed. Result below.
I'm not so sure I'm happy with it - like many things, it looks lit correctly on my mac's TFT but too dark on the CRT plugged into my Linux box. I think I'm going to try suspending another light source somewhere up near the crossbar of the supporting structure - in the scene you see below the only light in the scene is actually produced by the morph balls and the bomb explosion. I think I'm going to move the camera down slightly as well, so I'll see you in another ten hours, fifteen minutes and forty seconds.
I'm most excited to see that the Ubuntu POV-Ray build now has (experimental and unsupported) PVM clustering support. Next time I do one of these, I'm going to throw all six of my available CPUs at the problem. (That's an x86_64 @ 2 GHz, a PowerPC G4 @ 1 GHz, a Celeron @ 700 MHz [in my xbox ;)], a Sun UltraSPARC-64 @ 400 MHz, a Pentium-II @ 233 MHz, and an Athlon XP @ 2.2 GHz, just in case you were wondering.)
I'm also pleased by the appearance of YAPRM (stupid name, though), a POV-Ray modeller for X-Windows. Writing the code oneself is fun but boy, it doesn't half take a long time to get anything done, and my inept constructive solid geometry really does eat CPU as if it were smoked salmon.
I'm not so sure I'm happy with it - like many things, it looks lit correctly on my mac's TFT but too dark on the CRT plugged into my Linux box. I think I'm going to try suspending another light source somewhere up near the crossbar of the supporting structure - in the scene you see below the only light in the scene is actually produced by the morph balls and the bomb explosion. I think I'm going to move the camera down slightly as well, so I'll see you in another ten hours, fifteen minutes and forty seconds.
I'm most excited to see that the Ubuntu POV-Ray build now has (experimental and unsupported) PVM clustering support. Next time I do one of these, I'm going to throw all six of my available CPUs at the problem. (That's an x86_64 @ 2 GHz, a PowerPC G4 @ 1 GHz, a Celeron @ 700 MHz [in my xbox ;)], a Sun UltraSPARC-64 @ 400 MHz, a Pentium-II @ 233 MHz, and an Athlon XP @ 2.2 GHz, just in case you were wondering.)
I'm also pleased by the appearance of YAPRM (stupid name, though), a POV-Ray modeller for X-Windows. Writing the code oneself is fun but boy, it doesn't half take a long time to get anything done, and my inept constructive solid geometry really does eat CPU as if it were smoked salmon.
Very, very nice, Sir Grenola. The explosion "sprite" thingy looks a bit misplaced to me, for whatever reason.
...
For the next project, I suggest "Metroid Marbles". One big morph ball for a shooter, a few various color smaller morphballs mixed in with actual marbles... could be cute. Or, if you're going for a Metroid game-related idea, how about the DBJ over the bars in Great Tree Hall? Of course, this would have to be done using the Varia morphball, probably spiderless. Using the gravity morphball would be silly, considering the sequence break being used. Using the phazon morphball would be paradoxical. And, using the power suit morphball would mean you were either (a) engaging in illegal secret world activity, or (b) smilingjack13 (he of the 3-tank VMR).
...
Glad to see you brought this topic back. Your 4-morphball render was my desktop for almost a year. (Don't know why I switched... guess I just needed a change...)