[Chimera-users] pov-ray problem

[Elaine Meng]

On Apr 7, 2008, at 5:27 AM, Fabian Gmail wrote:
>
> Dear chimera experts,
> I have some difficulties creating high-quality pictures with pov-ray I
> get them very dark, so in pockets for example I can not distinguish
> colors. How I could make a pov-ray picture less dark?
>

Dear Fabian,
Maybe you are using the production release (version 1.2470, November  
2007).  After that release, we made some changes to the default  
lighting in Chimera that should make the pov-ray results brighter.   
If you are using the production release or older, I recommend trying  
a newer version such as the Feb 2008 snapshot or a daily build.

If you *are* already using a newer version of Chimera, however, you  
can change those lighting parameters even more (Tools... Viewing  
Controls... Lighting).  As mentioned in this page, it may be helpful  
to decrease the "key-to-fill ratio":
http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera/docs/UsersGuide/raytracing.html

You might want to play around with other lighting settings too, but  
decreasing key-to-fill is the first thing to try.  I hope this helps,
Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                          meng at cgl.ucsf.edu
UCSF Computer Graphics Lab and Babbitt Lab
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco
                      http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/meng/index.html