Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> 
> In article <36FAC0EB.A0255447@infomagic.com> , Xplo Eristotle
> <xpl### [at] infomagiccom>  wrote:
> 
> > Using POV-Ray 3.1d for Mac 68k w/o FPU on a Performa 475 (68LC040/25) running
> > MacOS 8.1, I encountered the following problems:

> > 2. Despite what the dox claim, there is no way to #include files from any
> > directory other than the one in which the current scene file resides; messing
> > with .INI files and setting an alternate folder in the prefs has no effect.
> 
> Hmm, there is no known problem with these, however, please note this: The
> application preferences may not get saved (but they are in effect!) until
> POV-Ray quits _without_ crashing. Did you check that the prefs are still
> there after it crashed?

It occurred to me that something like this might be happening, so I
specifically set the folder, quit, and relaunched. It had no beneficial effect.

> If they are listed and it still does not work, are there other problems
> shown in the status window?

Not really; it's simply unable to locate the files. Evidently it just flat-out
refuses to look anywhere else but the directory that contains the saved scene
file, but doesn't say so.

> > 3. Regardless of the mosaic size you specify, the minimum starting size seems
> > to be four pixels.. even if you turn mosaic off. If the mosaic is set to
> > something like start 128/end 32, it will render down to 32 pixel mosaic and
> > then jump to 4 instead of jumping to 1.
> 
> I cannot reproduce this bug either. Did you change the preference before
> rendering?

Yes. I tried various number combinations, and I also turned mosaic off (to no effect).

> Also note visible in the Render Preferences dialog, the
> magnification is the preview window is part of the preferences. In case the
> prefs get corrupted the magnification might go up to the limit which is 400%
> and would explain the size of 4. If you enter the magnification popup menu
> in the preview window, but leave it without making a choice, does the window
> display or the menu change?

I haven't messed with the magnification popup, so I can't say. But after
rendering in 4-pixel chunks, it starts going down to 2- and 1-pixel chunks
(unless it hangs), so I don't think that's the problem, unless magnification
works a lot differently from how I think it does.

> > 4. Additionally, once the mosaic size gets down to 8 (or 16? I forget), the
> > giant "pixels" are blurred, as if POV-Ray were trying to antialias them.. even
> > when anitaliasing is turned off.
> 
> I am not sure what you mean.

The effect is similar to what you get when you blow up an image in Photoshop
(using interpolation): the image looks jaggy, but the edges of the jags are
blurred together.

> Are you sure you are not rendering with
> radiosity on?

I think it does it with radiosity off as well.. but since I hadn't considered
that, I wasn't paying much attention, so I can't say for certain.

> > 5. And the worst is saved for last: about 80-90% of the time, a preview render
> > will lock up the machine. The complexity and composition of the scene seem not
> > to matter, and it almost always happens when POV-Ray gets down to 2 pixel
> > mosaic.
> 
> It seems that by the time you see this the POV-Ray application has been
> completely corrupted and the crash is only the result of all the previous
> problems.

*shrugs* Fresh installs suffer from the same problem, so if it's corrupted,
it's corrupted at the source.

> Another idea I have: Are you running SoftFPU?

Not at that time, no. I turned it off, since it's not too stable itself (not
on this chip, anyway). In fact, I tried running POV-Ray with all extensions
off just in case, but that didn't help either.

> However, if you do _not_ touch the application and render preferences dialog
> before rendering but POV-Ray still crashes, it would be great if you could
> fill out the bug report form in the docs folder and e-mail it to us.

I'll look into it.

> Anyway, the best I can say for now is for you to wait until 3.1e is out and
> see if we (finally) have found a source code workaround for the tabs so you
> no longer have to worry about it. I suspect that all the other problems are
> somehow related to this problem and will go away.

Any idea of a date (or a month, whatever) on that?

> In case you still have problems with 3.1e which will be our _final_ official
> 68K supporting version you may want to try out the following unofficial
> version of POV-Ray: <http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh/>
> 
> Disclaimer: Mentioning this unofficial version is no recommendation, just a
> possible solution other than not using POV-Ray at all.

Noted. I'll look into that too. Thanks.

-Xplo

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