I found a lot of fun while working on this project. Of course, that was not fun all the time. Sometimes, the image just did not appear as I expected. That upset me for a short period of time until the correction was done.
I had faced many difficulty while creating this picture. Here below list some of the difficulties and how I solve them:
In fact, my initiation was correct: cutting the corner and union with a quater of a circle. However, when I cut the cornet, it just shows a black corner instead of a cutting corner. I had no idea what I had done wrong until I decided to cut a bigger corner. The corner was then suddenly disappeared. I, then, learned that the seconde object must be over the edge, but not just on the edge, of the first object when using the difference between two objects.
I spent lots of time on setting the camara of the picture. The world coordinate of the picture was using left hand rule. That was different compare to the OpenGL. After understanding this fact, everything became easier. In order to make the picture more realistic, I also used focal point and blur sample.
Setting the light source of this picture was a little tricky. I used a light source from the rear left. It just not appeared nicely, quite dark, actualy. I, then, set up another light source from the same spot and same direction. It becames too bright. So, I need to move the second light source to a further distance. Another problem raised. The shadow side was too dark. Another light source was needed, but it cannot be too bright. I made it color Gray35 with fade distance. This made the lighting just as I wished.
I kept finding the material (texture) to paste on position of the windows. I tried many material and still did not get what I want. Finding the alternate way to finish the window was nessary. I used difference to cut out the windows. That worked very nicely. Filling the window with glass was the next step. Again, I started to look around to find the right material for the glass. Unfortunately, I cannot find the perfect match. I needed to find the alternative once again. When reading the help section on the PovRay official site, I found the keyword, "reflection". This helped me alot to finish the window. After applied this setting, the windows just looked good and real.
I planned to use marble setting for the outside of the building. The result was very disappointed, none was good for this building. By chance, when I was reading a website about how to make the white marble, I found some code was very useful. I applied the code to the building. Althought the outcome was not satisfied, it showed the idea was very close to what I wanted. I started to modified the data of the code. With many tests, the final result was acceptable. One more thing, the actual picture was too wash out on the bright side. It did not show what material was made of for the wall of the building. But it could see more clear under the shadow, and it was very similar to what I applied. I was satisfied on the apperance of the building.
I had learned many things through this project. PovRay was not the best 3-D program, and I was planning to study the 3-D Studio Max during the reading break.
PovRAY source file