Sure. What ever you are using for the pigment of your current work looks good enough. You need to make a good finish and normal, though. Well, actually I think you can let the normal go. Unless, you want to go back and clip out the individual panels, then the normal would make this too complicated a project.
In Mega-POV I use the following texture for the aluminum base:
#declare USAAF_Aluminum = texture {
pigment { color rgb .6 }
finish { ambient 0 diffuse .5 reflect_metallic reflection_type 0 reflection_min .152 reflection_max .261 phong 0 specular .99 roughness .000005 metallic 1 }
normal { dents -.25 scale .04 } }
I scaled my 51 model down a ton, in order to fit universal scaling into animation variables, etc. The only thing you have to change, in order to fit any larger models with the above declaration, is the scaling of the normal.
To use this with the official version of POV, remove all of the reflection definitions and replace them with reflection .8*<reflection_max vector>, or 2.61 as above.
I have a blur model for aluminum too, but unless you are using one of the new 1.2Ghz TBird machines at 1.6Ghz (or similar) you won't want to wait for a render of it.
I recommend layering the texture with different pigment statements. In other words, for spots like the insignia you would want to create an image map and simply define a texture as several pigments, but all with the same finish and normal. Of course, your painted P-47 will not use the same reflectivity, as the naked aluminum I defined.
I don't know how you defined the various points of your Thunderbolt like the red section of the cowling, but I use two methods of defining a particular section. The first method is the intersection with primitives, or unioned primitives. The second method is to define a primitive and define a sub-object as the larger mesh bounded_by a defined object(bounded_by { insignia_primitive}), and finally clipped_by the bounding object (clipped_by { bounded_by })
This would make the rudder hinge line come out more to scale, depending upon how you defined the bounding object. Always perform bounds and clips on untextured meshes. Otherwise, the process is unproductive.
My P-51 has a texture definition that contains more then 100 different pigments. There are a lot of stenciled warnings and errata on these aircraft. Worse, I used as much as five different textures within a material_map in order to reproduce surface anomalies, artifacts, and objects like flush fasteners. It's a mess, and it uses a ton of memory during the render.
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Also, with Mega-POV you will want to make use of the global_settings block. You were having trouble controlling your light before. The way to avoid that is to use zero ambient light (ambient_light <0,0,0> ) and adjust diffuse lighting to get the best results. Also, you get the best results with radiosity. If you make skins I recommend rendering with radiosity and then optimizing for performance later. The more detail you add the lower you want to set aliasing. So, if you go so far as to add fasteners and panel lines and stencils, etc., then set aliasing down as low as +a0.01 for awesome results.
The motion_blur declaration goes in the global area too. Use Rhino to make a scale prop. Then, define your m_b in the global as "motion_blur 24,64" and instance the prop as:
motion_blur { prop_object rotate clock*prop_rpm*axis_of_interest }You can find Mega-POV over at:
http://nathan.kopp.com/patched.htm </edit off>
Always willing to help. Hope I made sense and it helps you out.
Voss
[This message has been edited by Voss (edited 02-04-2001).]
