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:
>
> 1. "Preview" tab in render settings seems to have the same crashing bug as
> "Output" tab (the latter bug having been documented). "Editor" tab in
> preferences has the same problem. Workaround seems to be the same, but
> occasionally fails.

The bug is random in these tabs to be precise...we (hope) to finally have a
fix for these problems in 3.1e due in a few days.

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

> 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? 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?

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

> 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.
Another idea I have: Are you running SoftFPU?

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.

> Is anyone else out there with a similar configuration suffering similar
> problems?

We are not aware of any problem except those (serious) ones with the dialog
tabs. This problem is a bug in the Appearance manager and Apple seems to be
aware of it. Our problem is that Apple charges for developer level support
and that is a bit hard for the development of freeware...

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.

I am sorry for all this problems.


     Thorsten


PS:

> POV-Ray looks like a great piece of software. Too bad I can't use it. *_*

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.


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: pov### [at] csicom

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://www.povray.org and
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/povraymac/

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