How can I create the .POV files needed for POVRay from my bitmap .BMP files?

The last question is one I get all the time, when people don''t understand what ray tracing is.

Ray tracing is a form of rendering that casts light rays to determine what parts of different objects are in shadow. In the case of POV-RAY, you create the scene out of primites, like boxes, spheres, etc. You use CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) to add together various shapes, and carve bits and pieces out of others, to create your final, complex image.

You cannot raytrace a bitmap. The most common misconception is that raytracing is a magic filter for photoshop, or something, that will automagically make their sprites look real.

If you want to use povray, you''ll need to create your scene file (.pov) with a text editor, defining where the spheres, boxes, etc that make up your object, go.

There are modellers, like Moray, that let you do this visually, but its amazing what some people can do with no more than graph paper and their imagination.


Anyways, the bottom line is, if you want to raytrace something that looks like your bitmap, you''ll need to create a 3D representation out of shapes, of whatever is IN your bitmap.

Is there any other way I can make my .BMP files look nice, sharp, and photo-realistic? BTW, those games I was talking about, that say their graphics are ray-traced, I don''t think they used 3D modellers to make their gfx. The graphics in those games completely flat and 2D. They are really nice and realistic, though.

If you want to make your pictures look 3d-ish you could try makeing bumpmapping in photoshop. But this has nothing to do with ray-tracing, though.



























Edited by - Intruger on July 31, 2000 10:46:32 PM

There''s no such thing as a flat photorealistic sprite. If you want to achieve any sense of realism then it''s necessary to have some sense of depth in the object, for example having sprites be shaded to fake lighting. Ray tracing is simply a method of rendering, as opposed to polygon projection or any others. Ray tracing gives the best results but is generally too slow to be done in real time (and if you did it in real time, to get the necessary speed you''d have to sacrifice some of the realism). But that makes it great for things like sprites, which are rendered beforehand. Also, it''s a lot easier to simply render a 3d model in different poses (especially if you''re using a program with IK!) than to redraw the sprite by hand for every single frame.
If you still don''t understand then please, tell us of these programs that have photorealistic flat-looking sprites.

-RWarden (roberte@maui.net)

I have a few BMP files on my computer that represent the quality that I want from my BMPs. If u want, e-mail me using the second button above this post and ask me for it. I have used a program called ImageResizer which resizes images and makes them look nicer, I can also send an image of my best attempts to make my bitmaps look nicer with that program. Maybe you can e-mail me and I can send you those two images, and you can tell me what you think.

Edited by - mmarvi on August 1, 2000 3:27:48 AM