John VanSickle wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know what new features will definitely be a part of v3.5?
> --
> ICQ: 46085459

Chris Cason rumored a possible distributed rendering addition but that
is not promised. Beyond that the only "official" statement to date on
what might be expected is this from Chris Young:

USER PATCHES AND VERSION NUMBERS

  When we started on 3.1 it was supposed to be a "quick" release before our
planned total rewrite in C++ for 4.0. Unfortunately version 3.1 took a year
longer than expected.  Meanwhile a number of excellent user-created patches
had appeared.  When 3.1 was released without these patches we were
criticized for ignoring them.  Many of the patches were not available until
after 3.1 was well under way.  Some of the patches we were not aware they
existed. (Its that nasty CY-doesn't-read-newsgroups problem again <heheh>)
Hey the Team Coordinator can't coordinate what he doesn't know existed can
he?
   Anyway, I think we've recognized and corrected this problem too. I did
know about a user-submitted #macro patch and although we didn't use his code
directly, it was a VERY BIG help in designing our own.  As you know, #macros
made it into 3.1 along with much requested arrays and file i/o which was
pretty easy to include.  Also halo author Zsolt Szalavari told me about his
idea for generalizing all patterns such as bozo, gradient, wood etc. for use
with halo.
   As one of the major purposes of 3.1 was to turn halo into media, it was
the perfect chance to add this feature. So version 3.1 was either based on
user-created patches or some strongly demanded user features. However we have
to recognize that the whole reason for having a 3.1 version was to correct
problems with a haphazard integration of a user-submitted patch into 3.0.
   We had already implemented atmosphere when we first heard about halo. Halo
was so wonderful that we could not resist putting it in even though we were
nearly ready to release 3.0.  While the original design looked good, it was
confusing. It was inconsistent with atmosphere. It created big problems within
the core code and it aggravated other long-standing design problems. Our zeal
to drop in a user patch late in the game caused lots of problems and it took
lots of work in 3.1 to fix them.
  So we recognize that there is a BIG backlog of user patches with features
we REALLY want.  But do we really want to force them to wait until a major
4.0 rewrite in a new language?
  After much debate the answer is no. Therefore the current plan is to create
a POV-Ray 3.5 whose primary purpose is make official, as many user-submitted
patches as possible.  To borrow Ron Parker's term, this will be a "Super Patch"
version.  Note however we will not simply be rubber-stamping Ron's work in
collecting patches as they currently exist.  Ron's super-patch is proving
useful to the team in evaluating various patches (thanks Ron) however some
work must be done to integrate the new features in way that won't conflict
with future plans.
  Also some of the features will be modified or eliminated.  For example
cross-platform portability is a major design priority and the iso-surface
patch makes use of DLLs that are not portable.  We will likely eliminate
that part of the patch. At this point we can't say what will or will not
make the final cut.  We'll be contacting authors of all the patches we know
about.
   We'll be asking their permission to use their patch but WE CANNOT GUARENTEE
that it will be used and you should expect that it may be modified or rewritten
in some way if it does make the cut.  If you have a POV-Ray 3.1 compatible patch
and do not receive email from me by February 1, 1999 then I don't know about
your patch and you should email me at c_y### [at] compuservecom to tell me about
it. We'll try to keep everyone informed of our progress as best we can.

-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 1000+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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