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Note that SSS in POV-Ray (called SSLT) is very sensitive and will give different results if the mesh normals are smooth shaded or flat.
Illumination from the back of a surface is considered as a second and optional diffuse argument in POV-Ray.
IOR Mirror
This option is for using one consistent IOR for raytrace reflection and refraction and not breaking the law of conservation of energy between the two.
(Newton's thin film coating)
Caustics
- Chromatic dispersion for refractive caustics
- Fast fake caustics (somewhat like Blender Raytransp)
- Refractive caustics using photons
- Reflective caustics using photons (high IOR or no mirror IOR for easier effect.)
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| Faster Photons |
| To set up some caustics, try moving from the smallest photon depth value to a minimum at which you start to see the effect you are after.
Check off the Receive Photons object property for any object that does not really need it.(A glass object casting caustics often doesn't need to receive any itself.)
Then you can balance other parameters to tune photons distribution and smoothing (gathering).
Don't set the global spacing too fine in scene settings, because then you can still make it finer on each object using its spacing multiplier.
If your system has several threads, they can be used in the photons stage: one thread per light, so you can then complexify your scene lighting without overhead. |
shadersEmulation is attempted from blender for:
- Specular and diffuse toon (no edges yet)
- Phong and Cook Torrence (both the same)
- Blinn (not perfectly matched)
- Fresnel and Minnaert, started but not finished yet
| Glass Like Materials |
| When trying to achieve some glass like material, keep low diffuse value, dark or totally black to avoid dull surface and keep clear transparency. |
Texture Properties
UV coordinates
best with planar projection for now. (Silvio Falcinelli)
Texture channels
Texture influences currently exported are: Alpha ; Diffuse ; Bump ; Specular ; Mirror (uses same channel as specular)
--(No other channel because of POV-Ray non uniform syntax for them)
For image textures (read POV-Ray 3.7 doc before using since it generally needs not be used.)
Using Image Sequences
Link to the original Tutorial by Markku Myllymäki
Note to the reader: this functionality works in Blender Internal, Cycles (see the end this document) and now it works with POV-Ray render (little change in POV-Ray exporter). For Blender itself it is old feature.
This document assumes that the reader is able to UV unwrap and texture a model and animate with keys.
Also, it is safest to set render engine to POV-RAY at the beginning. Otherwise some datablocks may vanish when you change renderer.
Image sequences are changing textures. For example, if your 3D scene has a TV set, and you want to animate, what the TV shows, you could use image sequence. There are many uses. Here, we will be using it for facial animation.
For facial animation, we want to be able to change texture (i.e. facial expression) with a key, so when something happens to a character, the expression changes as a reaction.
Pre-requisite
You need UV mapped model:
File:uvmapped.png
You need a sequence of images:
File:allfacetex.png
These are separate images, here together only for illustration.
IMPORTANT NOTE: There is a limitation to how you can name the sequence files. For the exporter to work correctly, use this kind of naming:
filename.001.png filename.002.png ... etc.
For example, I used facetex.001.png etc. here in this example.
The dot, three number sequence and another dot. It is mandatory. The exporter fails otherwise. This also applies to some other image sequences in Blender, and the naming convention is from Blender docs.
Defining the image sequence
You can define the material normally. Also, the texture is defined as normal UV mapped texture:
File:uvcoords.png
But when you define image name, select first (filename.001.png) image in sequence and change Single Image to Image Sequence:
File:sequence.png
Now you have image sequence defined!
Using the image sequence in animation
In an animation, you need to be able to to make keys for texture changes. It is useful to set viewport shading to GLSL and put textured mode on, so you can see what happens without rendering the animation.
You can make keys this way:
File:i key.png
Set "Frames:" to 1. Set "Start:" to 1. Now you can with "Offset:" change the texture in sequence. You can set keys to animation by hovering over "Offset:" and pressing I-key.
Remember to set key Interpolation Mode to Constant:
File:constant.png
That's because Blender's default is Bezier. It would change the value of the "Offset:" fractionally and that is not usually a good idea, because usually you want certain texture to show until you define a different one... Constant Interpolation Mode is good for textures.
Now, when you render your animation using POV-Ray, texture changes should work!
Example, frames 1, 5 and 10:
250px
250px
250px
Sidenote: Cycles usage
For those who wonder how Cycles does this (you need to begin from scratch, because Cycles has different datablocks than BI or POV-Ray).
Set renderer to Cycles Render:
File:cycles.png
This is the material node setting for Cycles. As you can see, you can define image sequence there too!
File:cycles nodes.png
Custom POV Code
POV-Ray files are not just pure data files (unlike with most other renderers).
They are programs, with loops, functions, etc.
This means that no matter how many features this exporter could support, POV-Ray will always have much more under the hood.
Video Tutorial
Here is a demonstration of the exporter by SMcA. This video is currently being worked on and may get replaced in the future.
Step by step
You can add custom POV code directly in Blender's text editor, all you have to do is to make sure this pov code has directly or indirectly a #declare keyword, followed by the name of your choice and the pov item you want to use. (Current POV syntax is closer to C than Python, so anything that follows two slash character ( // ) is a comment)
Adding POV code directly
Pov items can be anything but for now only the equivalent of Blender materials can be replaced with this method. In Povray, it is called texture {} don't get confused, it really includes all the material properties.
Though you can directly specify a texture {} block in POV-Ray files, the #declare directive allows to assign it to a variable and reuse it more easily. The exporter makes use of this feature by default, so you won't be able to use your custom texture, unless you declare it. Here is an example:
#declare MyTexture =
texture{
pigment{
brick color rgb< 0.99, 0.99, 0.99> // color mortar
color rgb< 0.75, 0.5, 0.30>*0.75 // color brick
brick_size <0.25, 0.0525, 0.125> // format in x ,y and z- direction
mortar 0.01 // size of the mortar
scale 3
} // end of pigment
normal {wrinkles 0.75 scale 0.01}
finish {ambient 0.15 diffuse 0.95 phong 0.2}
rotate<0,0,0> translate< 0.01, 0.00, 0.00>
} // end of texture
| 1. Navigate the text window menu to display the text properties or use the ⌘ ctrlT shortcut
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| 2. In the text view properties option, you can chose to render 3d view and/or text. Enable Both.
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| 3. Syntax highlight detects the following file extensions:
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| 4. Some complete POV-Ray scenes are available to menu from the text header.
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| 5. And an Menu to add just some pov code snippets at cursor's location.
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| 6. Then you have to go into the material properties to the Custom POV Code field, and just type in the name of your declared item to use: MyTexture in the example Given. Then you can render your image normally and the material will be replaced.
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Blender and POV-Ray do not have the same coordinates systems: POV is Y up while Blender is Z up, so it is to be expected that text generated content is not turned the same as exported UI items since the exporter adds a transform matrix to all exported entities. So if you want to specify orientations more intuitively by looking at the interface, some transforms have to be specified at the end of your custom blocks, for instance as follows :
scale <-1, 1, 1>
rotate <90, 0, -90>
}
Adding POV code from include files
In any Povray scene you can use the #include directive to add items from an external Povray file. It's like the import function in Python. The files to be included have .inc as their name extension. Then in the replacement field, you can type in any of the declared names available in the include file. "Out of the box", Povray ships with a lot of include files.
So you can use them for your textures, but you can also use them for some of their elements. For instance a very often used include file is one that allows to call colors by their names instead of numbers called colors.inc, so the previous example could also be written:
#include "colors.inc"
#declare MyTexture =
texture{
pigment{
brick color White*0.99 // color mortar
color rgb< 0.75, 0.5, 0.30>*0.75 // color brick
brick_size <0.25, 0.0525, 0.125> // format in x ,y and z- direction
mortar 0.01 // size of the mortar
scale 3
} // end of pigment
normal {wrinkles 0.75 scale 0.01}
finish {ambient 0.15 diffuse 0.95 phong 0.2}
rotate<0,0,0> translate< 0.01, 0.00, 0.00>
} // end of texture
Some other POV-Ray specific objects are also available: In POV-Ray a triangle mesh is just one primitive among many. You can explore the POV-Ray language by modifying the output file. and with the same method, add these primitives by hand, OR you can just pick some from the Add menu.
POV-Ray Primitives
Pressing ⇧ shiftA in the 3D View allows you to add POV-Ray specific objects in addition to native Blender objects.
They are mathematically defined as opposed to Triangle meshes. The sphere, torus, cylinder or cone side will always be round and smooth when rendered, no matter how close you get, and regardless of their appearance in the 3D view, which is only a proxy.
These objects are the type of objects that get created when you import a POV-Ray file, so that ideally, you could "exchange" data back and forth between POV-Ray and Blender.
The rendered plane is actually infinite, but represented by a proxy in the 3D view, which is just very big, but still finite. Please report if you'd rather have a différent default scale.
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Based on a mesh cube the object can be transformed using move/rotate/scale
The sphere has a radius parameter, a location and a scale.
In POV-Ray, cylinders are defined by radius, base point and end point. For convenience, move/rotate/escale can be used to the same effect.
Cones have a basis radius and end radius
Torus has a main radius and a section radius.
This is a surface generated from the combination of three mathematical equations
The rainbow is a view dependant effect
This object behaves like the Blender screw modifier to create surfaces by revolving a spline except instead of being tesselated beforehand, it follows the mathematical curvature of the spline so you won't see any polygons no matter how close you zoom.
This is a POV-Ray primitive that simply extrudes a shape
A quite versatile tool that can provide quick models for cushion or star shaped objects
 
This is a displacement of a surface following a texture. Tessellation also happens at render time, so you don't need to subdivide anything before.
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Read More
This POV-Ray primitive sweeps a sphere a long as spline to create an interpolated form that can have variations of radius along the spline.
It is also used to export hair strands.
Like Blender Metaballs
In POV-Ray isosurfaces are objects that can combine and be deformed using pigments or equations
Isosurface Box
An isosurfacecomponent shaped as a box
Isosurface Sphere
An isosurfacecomponent shaped as a sphere
Supertorus
An isosurface shaped as a torus with deforming parameters equivalent to those of t.
Parameters (POV-Ray names):
- MajorRadius, MinorRadius = Base radii for the torus.
- MajorControl, MinorControl = Controls for the roundness of the supertorus. Use numbers in the range [0, 1].
- Accuracy = The accuracy parameter.
- MaxGradient = The max_gradient parameter.
Macro based primitives
Two primitives are actually macros that generate a mesh from curves before render time:
- Polygon to Circle Blending
Parametric surfaces
The primitive requiring user to activate Add Mesh: Extra Objects addon is Parametric surfaces: that other addon was indeed very well suited to create the 3D view mesh preview, so there was no need to reinvent the wheel. However it is considered bad practice for an addon to enforce activation of another addon so that decision has to be left to the user of activating that other dependency, even though it's still internally shipped with Blender and nothing else has to be done but mere checking of a box at first run (next sessions will remember it). The only consequence is that If you were to enable all addons, Blender would take slightly longer to startup.
Importing POV-Ray files
| 1. From the same ⇧ shiftA menu, you can also import povray files
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| 2. Or otherwise, clicking from the main header menu
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| 3. You can then select one or several files (holding ⇧ shift or pressing B for drag box selection
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Merging POV scripted Animations
link to original tutorial
While Blender is one of the best modelers in existence, it is primarily a polygon modeler. There are some cases when you want to use something like POV-Ray's CSG features, which are very good at pure, mathematical forms. But compositing POV-Ray and Blender output is hard work. However, there is a way to combine animations to one render with Blender's POV-Ray Exporter!
Let's make an (very simple) example case: Spaceship flying out of hangar. We wanted to make a dilating door animation in POV-Ray, spaceship animation in Blender and combine them.
Preliminary function declaration
def exportCustomCode():
# Write CurrentAnimation Frame for use in Custom POV Code
file.write("#declare CURFRAMENUM = %d;\n" % bpy.context.scene.frame_current)
#Change path and uncomment to add an animated include file by hand:
file.write("#include \"/home/quantum/povray_animation/animation_include_file.inc\"\n")
The exporter doesn't include an interface to this functionality yet but it's quite usable already.
The folowing lines are from Blender's POV-Ray Exporters file, render.py. The only change you need to do is to write the file path for your own .inc file (which can be named as you want) and check that those two file.write statements are not commented out (i.e. no '#' in the beginning...).
This example uses Linux, so file path is Unix-style, in MS Windows paths are written differently...
Blender animation
500px
500px
We defined 100 frame animation in Blender. Basically just move (linearly) the spaceship.
Of course the world paramaters, lighting and objects materials/textures need to be what POV-Ray needs. Here, they are very basic. No image textures, one light, little ambient light.
POV-Ray animation
#include "colors.inc"
#declare doorpart = difference {
cylinder { <0, 0, -0.1>, <0, 0, 0.1>, 3 }
box { <-10, -10, -10>, <0, 10, 10> rotate <0, 0, (-3*CURFRAMENUM+3)> }
box { <-10, -10, -10>, <10, 0, 10> }
}
#declare wall = difference {
box { <-100, -100, -0.2>, <100, 100, 0.2> }
cylinder { <0, 0, -1>, <0, 0, 1>, 2.9 }
}
object {
wall
pigment { Green }
}
#if (CURFRAMENUM<30)
object {
doorpart
rotate <0, 0, 0>
translate <0, 0, 0>
pigment { Green }
}
object {
doorpart
rotate <0, 0, 90>
translate <0, 0, 0>
pigment { Green }
}
object {
doorpart
rotate <0, 0, 180>
translate <0, 0, 0>
pigment { Green }
}
object {
doorpart
rotate <0, 0, 270>
translate <0, 0, 0>
pigment { Green }
}
#end
We wrote the POV-Ray animation code. This is the animation_include_file.inc which was included in Python code. Note, that CURFRAMENUM is used. It is the animations current frame number in Blender! This way we can know what should happen and when in POV-Ray code.
Here is the resulting animation:
POV-Ray specific concepts
object (geometry+material)
Objects are the building blocks of your scene. There are a lot of different types of objects supported by POV-Ray. they are also sometimes called primitives. The mesh object often exported from Blender is just one of the possible primitives supported by POV, but it's one that allows to make the most profitable use of the exporter because a sculpted mesh is easily done in Blender interface and practically impossible to do with POV-Ray alone. The second stage of the exporter's development will allow to use more POV native primitives through Blender interface.
In any case the pov object contains the geometry and can also have the material block, if there is one, at the same hireachical level. This type of construction could be compared to Blender use of "Object Material"
material (interior+texture)
In POV-Ray, there used to be only texture properties inside an object and interior properties such as Index of Refraction could be declared in the same block.
But the developers thought "It is totally illogical to have a ray enter an object with one index or refraction and then recalculate with another index" in the case of multitextured objects.
Nowadays, POV-Ray texture still contains the properties ruling interaction between an object and its environment, such as reflectivity, roughness etc. while Interior stands for internal properties that have an incidence on the light that crosses the surface: index of refraction, media scattering or absorbing light, etc.
For easier reference with a single identifier in a texture library, a wrapper around texture and interior has been created which we call 'material'
texture (pigment+normal+finish)
POV-Ray textures are combinations of pigments, normals, and finishes.
Pigment is the color or pattern of colors inherent in the material.
Normal is a method of simulating various patterns of bumps, dents, ripples or waves by modifying the surface normal vector.
Finish describes the reflective properties of a material.
pigment / normal
finish
A little more powerful as it can be patterned, that is two finishes can be mixed depending on values of a bitmap file
texture_list
If the texture is not put inside a material statement, it can be put directly inside the geometry of the object, it allows to apply different textures to different parts of the object through a texture list and texture indices assigned per face.
The exporter exploits this feature for meshes with several materials. This type of construction could be compared to Blender's Data material. However, in POV-Ray, all the textures still share one common set of interior properties per object.
The most complex blender materials case
Blender materials being able to map alpha, diffuse, normal, specular, specular hardness, specular color each depending on a different bitmap file value, they are in their native logic, impossible to translate in POV (e-g: map with various specular colors)
What most complex material case remains translatable?
On various parts of a mesh, thanks to texture lists,
shader emulation alpha to filter
pigment normal
diffuse color
blurred reflection
all this duplicated with min and max specular
mapped at both extremes of a bitmap or procedural value.
a colored specular, which is the NPR feature turns off texture influences.
not to be confused with metallic keyword which does a photorealistic colored spec and still allows texture influences
what is impossible in POV: map with various specular color What remains: most complex exported material case
Renderer versions
UberPOV features can be written to a POV file inside the scope of a specific condition to enable the files to be retro compatible with POV-Ray 3.7 syntax:
reflection { 1 metallic
#ifdef(unofficial)
#if(unofficial = "patch")
#if(patch("upov-reflection-roughness") > 0)
roughness 0.1
#end
#end
#end
}
It enables you to export a file for UberPOV while still rendering it with standard POV, but this solution makes files slightly heavier and longer to parse, so it might change in the future: cleaning up exported pov when the features get available in all versions.
Standard Script Information
Blender Normalized Addon Info
| name |
POV@Ble (render_povray repository)
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| tooltip |
Renders Blender scenes with POV-Ray 3.7, and edits native POV files
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| menu |
Renderer rolldown menu
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| usage |
If POV-Ray 3.7 is installed, activate the addon in the menu Choose it as the renderer and render with F12
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| version |
0.1.8
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| author |
Campbell Barton, Silvio Falcinelli, Maurice Raybaud, Constantin Rahn, Bastien Montagne, Leonid Desyatkov
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| blender version |
2.79b to 4.4
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| category |
Render, Pipeline, Text Editor, etc.
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| license |
GPL3
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| distribution |
Extension
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| note |
After May the 10th 2011, some development to the script limited backwards compatibility: If you set up some files prior to that and always use the latest exporter from SVN. It is advised to run the update script and resave your scene with the new version: get to the search bar with Space and type pov to access this command.
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| exe |
Blender (Embeds the necessary Python interpreter) + POV-Ray 3.7/3.8
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| download |
- You can download the latest development snapshot of the addon at once by clicking
-->HERE
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| modules |
Only Python Standard Library modules and the ones shipped with Blender are used. No outside package should have to be installed
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| dependencies |
Requires versions of POV-Ray 3.7+, it won't work directly with POV-Ray 3.6
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| data |
Test scenes available upon request
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| bugtracker |
Gitea
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| warning |
Please report any bug or request!
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| link |
povray.org
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| releaselog |
Here are the logs of every commit to the source
and for specific Releases
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| issues |
Many properties have been broken in Blender 2.8... Use 2.79b if you want to be safe
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