Takahiro Horie <tho### [at] ucdavisedu> wrote:
: In the official POV-Ray docs, the explanation on Bicubic Patch Objects
: uses "Moray" -- which I can't use. I tried to create a few objects
: typing in my own points, but it is _extremely_ time consuming (I was
: trying to make it wrap around and connect). My friend told me that is
: would have taken only a few minutes to do that in a modeller. Doh!

  I think that you should forget bicubic patches for now and concentrate
on the other primitives. Bicubic patches are not intended to be created
by hand (and I don't know of anyone who is able to do it).
  Usually bicubic patches are made with a program, either modelling it
with a mouse or calculating it from a mathematical formula. The latter
one is quite easy to do with povray itself (I have done it), but requires
a bit of knowledge about math and about how bicubic patches work.

: So I was wondering if anyone know of some hand-code *ONLY* tutorials.
: I don't know if they exist, or even if anyone can produce scenes with
: hand-code as fast as with, say, 3DStudio MAX, but I'd like to find out.

  I think that it depends on the scene. I think that an expert modeller
user can create almost any scene (which is possible to do with a modeller)
faster than typing the code.
  However, making the scene by hand is not that hard. You only need practice
and more practice. I make almost all of my scenes by hand and seldom use a
modeller. I have learnt everything from the povray documentation. I have not
needed any 3rd party tutorial.
  There are some advantages of making the scene by hand: You can create lots
of mathematical shapes and arrangement of objects which are completely
impossible to do with modellers (unless they support some kind of scripting
language). You can also use all of the great include files around there,
like at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/

: Also, please tell me if I'm posting to the right newsgroup. I didn't
: want to cross post everywhere.

  Perhaps povray.newusers could be better?

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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