Example 1

Let us take a look at the way of generating the following:

Click here to download a complete scene file.

The red sphere is defined as follows. It has center < -2.5, 2.5, 2.5 > and radius 1.5. Its phong value is 1, the maximum. In fact, all shapes in this scene have phong value 1.

sphere {
     < -2.5, 2.5, 2.5, > 1.5
     pigment {
          color  Red
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
The smaller yellow sphere is defined as follows. Its center is < 2, 1, -1 > and radius 0.6.
sphere {
     < 2, 1, -1 >, 0.6
     pigment {
          color  Yellow
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
The blue sphere has its center the origin and radius 1.
sphere {
     0*x, 1
     pigment {
          color  Blue
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
The upper-right pink sphere has center < 3, 5, 9 > and radius 2.5. It is a little farther away from the origin.
sphere {
     < 3, 5, 9 >, 2.5
     pigment {
          color  Pink
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
The small yellow box is defined by two points, < -4, -1.5, 0.5 > and < -2, -0.5, 1.5 >.
box {
     < -4, -1.5, 0.5 >, < -2, -0.5, 1.5 >
     pigment {
          color  Yellow
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
The large magenta box is defined by < 2.5, -2, -4 > and < 4, -1, 4 >.
box {
     < 2.5, -2, -4 >, < 4, -1, 4 >
     pigment {
          color  Magenta
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
The floor is a plane. Its normal vector is y, pointing upward, and the distance from the origin to the plane is -2. Therefore, this plane is beneath all shapes; but, none of the shapes lies on the plane (shapes are "floating" in space):
plane {
     y, -2
     pigment {
          color  Cyan
     }
     finish {
          phong  1
     }
}
We only use a single light source, which is above all shapes. Hence, shadows are directly below the shapes. You might want to change the position of this light source for further experiment.
light_source {
     < 0, 10, -3 >
     color  White
}
Finally, where is our camera? Its location is < 0, 1, -8 >, which is in the negative direction of the z-axis and above the xy-coordinate plane. This position can be changed to cut off some unwanted area (brining the shapes closer to your eyes). The viewing direction is the positive direction of z-axis. up and right are standard. Note that the length of direction is 1, which sometimes looks like a moderate wide-angle lens. An experiment worthwhile to do is moving location further back and increasing the length of direction.
camera {
     location  < 0, 1, -8 >
     direction z
     up        y
     right     4/3*x
}

Note that since there is no background specified, those open space will have the default background color (i.e., black).

If you take a look at the read and pink spheres, their bottom parts seem disappearing in the dark. The blue and yellow spheres look a little better; but, they still look strange. Usually, adding some ambient would improve the situation. The following scene is exactly identical to the above one, except that all spheres now carry ambient values of 0.2:

Click here to download a complete scene file.