TACHYON-NOX(1)

📦
version 0.99~b6 · 6 versions
, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ TACHYON-NOX(1) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the tachyon-nox girlypop page — it's from section 1 of the Tachyon Manual, and it's literally the whole vibe. 💅

💖 NAME 💖

tachyon-nox — a parallel/multiprocessor ray tracer with no X support. like, it renders, but it does not do windows. 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

tachyon-nox modelfile [options]

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

okay so here's the tea: the valid options and the accepted formats are all down below. and whenever you see **, that means default behaviour, no cap. 🫶

🍓 Model file formats supported:

  • filename.dat — the model files that originated with this package. the OGs. 👑
  • filaname.ac — AC3D model files. (yes, it's spelled like that, i'm not fixing it, that's just what the page says 💀)
  • filename.nff — the NFF scene format used by Eric Haines' SPD. iconic crossover.

💌 Message Options:

  • +V — verbose messages on ✨
  • -V — verbose messages off ** (this is the default, bestie)

🔥 Speed Tuning Options:

  • -raydepth xxx — maximum ray recursion depth 🌀
  • -numthreads xxx — how many threads you wanna throw at it (** the default is auto-determined, she picks for you 💅)
  • -nobounding — (yes, that's the whole option. no extra words. she's mysterious like that 🙈)
  • -boundthresh xxx — the threshold (** default threshold is 16)

👑 Shading Options:

  • -fullshade — best quality rendering (and slowest) ** — the main character option fr
  • -mediumshade — good quality rendering, but no shadows
  • -lowshade — low quality rendering, preview (and fast)
  • -lowestshade — worst quality rendering, preview (and fastest) — it's giving "i just need to see if it works"

🌈 Lighting Options:

  • -rescale_lights xxx — rescale light intensity values by the specified factor. (heads up: this happens before the other lighting overrides take effect, so order matters bestie 🫶)
  • -auto_skylight xxx — force use of ambient occlusion lighting, auto-rescaling direct light sources to compensate for the ambient occlusion factor. (pro tip from the page itself: use value 0.7 as a good starting point ✨)
  • -add_skylight xxx — force use of ambient occlusion lighting, manually-rescaling direct light sources to compensate for the ambient occlusion factor
  • -skylight_samples xxx — number of sample rays to shoot 🏹

💅 Specular Highlight Shading Options:

  • -shade_phong — Phong specular highlights
  • -shade_blinn — Blinn's specular highlights **
  • -shade_blinn_fast — fast approximation to Blinn's highlights ⚡
  • -shade_nullphong — disable specular highlights. no shine. matte era. 🧚

🦋 Transparency Shading Options:

  • -trans_max_surfaces xxx — limit the number of transparent surfaces shown to the number specified
  • -trans_orig — original implementation **
  • -trans_raster3d — Raster3D angle-based opacity modulation
  • -trans_vmd — opacity post-multiply used by VMD

🌸 Transparent Surface Shadowing Options:

  • -shadow_filter_on — transparent objects cast shadows **
  • -shadow_filter_off — transparent objects do not cast shadows

🌫️ Fog Shading Options:

  • -fog_radial — radial fog implementation **
  • -fog_vmd — planar OpenGL-like fog used by VMD

🔄 Surface Normal/Winding Order Fixup Mode:

  • -normalfixup [off|flip|guess] — (** off is default, periodt)

⭐ Antialiasing Options:

  • -aasamples xxx — maximum supersamples taken per pixel (** default is 0, or scene file determined — she'll decide, honestly)

📸 Output Options:

  • -res Xres Yres — override scene-defined output image size
  • -o outfile.tga — set output file name
  • -clamp — clamp pixel values to [0 to 1) **
  • -normalize — normalize pixel values to [0 to 1)
  • -gamma val — normalize apply gamma correction
  • -format BMP — 24-bit Windows BMP (uncompressed)
  • -format JPEG — 24-bit JPEG (compressed, but lossy 😭)
  • -format PNG — 24-bit PNG (compressed, lossless 💖)
  • -format PPM — 24-bit PPM (uncompressed)
  • -format PPM48 — 48-bit PPM (uncompressed)
  • -format PSD48 — 48-bit PSD (uncompressed)
  • -format RGB — 24-bit SGI RGB (uncompressed)
  • -format TARGA — 24-bit Targa (uncompressed) **
  • -camfile filename.cam — animate using a file of camera positions
  • -nosave — disable writing of output frames to disk (only used for doing real-time rendering, iykyk)

🕹️ Interactive Spaceball/SpaceNavigator Control:

  • -spaceball — enable Spaceball/SpaceNavigator camera flight 🚀
  • -spaceballport serialportdevicename — (only for serial devices, bestie)

🆘 Getting Help:

  • -help — display help message and exit
  • -version — display version string and exit
  • -banner — display banner and exit
💀 reminder: -fullshade is the prettiest and the slowest, and -lowestshade is the ugliest and the fastest. pick your fighter.

that's the whole page, you ate it, no notes. 💜

— this was Tachyon (Debian 0.99~b6+dsx-1...) and the dates said February 2026, so yeah, she's serving TACHYON-NOX(1) energy. mwah. 💅✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from