TACHYON-OGL(1)

✨ TACHYON-OGL ✨

okay bestie, so this is tachyon-ogl from the Tachyon Manual, section 1 — a parallel/multiprocessor ray tracer that also serves looks with an OpenGL display. she renders, she sparkles, she eats every time 💅 no cap.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

tachyon-ogl — a parallel/multiprocessor ray tracer with OpenGL display 🦋

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

tachyon-ogl modelfile [options]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so here's the tea: all the valid options and accepted formats are listed below, and heads up — ** means default behaviour, okay? periodt.

📁 Model file formats supported:

• filename.dat — the model files that originated with this package 💾
• filaname.ac — AC3D model files (yes, spelled exactly like that, iykyk) 🎨
• filename.nff — the NFF scene format used by Eric Haines' SPD 🌈

💬 Message Options:

• +V — verbose messages ON 🔊
• -V — verbose messages OFF ** 😶

⚡ Speed Tuning Options:

• -raydepth xxx — maximum ray recursion depth 🌀
• -numthreads xxx — number of threads (**default is auto-determined) 🧵
• -nobounding — turn off bounding 🚫
• -boundthresh xxx — (**default threshold is 16) ⭐

🍓 Shading Options:

• -fullshade — best quality rendering (and slowest) ** 👑
• -mediumshade — good quality rendering, but no shadows 🌤️
• -lowshade — low quality rendering, preview (and fast) 💨
• -lowestshade — worst quality rendering, preview (and fastest) 🏃♀️

🔥 Lighting Options:

• -rescale_lights xxx — rescale light intensity values by specified factor (performed before other lighting overrides take effect) 💡
• -auto_skylight xxx — force use of ambient occlusion lighting, auto-rescaling direct light sources to compensate for ambient occlusion factor (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 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 🙈

🫧 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) 🔄

🦋 Antialiasing Options:

• -aasamples xxx — maximum supersamples taken per pixel (**default is 0, or scene file determined) 🌸

🖼️ 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) ** 🏆

🎬 Animation Related Options:

• -camfile filename.cam — animate using file of camera positions 🎥
• -nosave — disable writing of output frames to disk (only used for doing real-time rendering) 💾🚫

🛸 Interactive Spaceball/SpaceNavigator Control:

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

🆘 Getting Help:

• -help — display help message and exit 🙋♀️
• -version — display version string and exit 🏷️
• -banner — display banner and exit 🎏

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lowkey the vibes here are immaculate — go render something iconic, bestie 🫶

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that's the whole thing, fr fr 💜 mwah! this page came from Tachyon (Debian 0.99~b6+dsx-1... and it's dated February 2026 — slay, go forth and ray trace ✨👑