All:

Some people say that the POV Ray SDL is a turn off for new users, others say
that modeling programs are a turn off to scripters. There seems to be a real
schism here. There are issues with Moray's right handed polar coordinates,
and others think sPartch or Hamapatch are a better choice (though I have not
heard why they are).

When I was speaking of putting Moray text in a gray box I did not mean that
text would reproduce the user docs in Moray. I don't see this book idea as
competing with either Moray or POV Ray docs, that would be a waste of trees.
I want to improve the tutorials, not compete with them. I think that the
tutorials in the POV Ray and Moray docs are very uneven, some are great,
some are okay, and some are poor (meaning not step by step)

I know very little about these other products: blender, spatch, hamapatch,
anim8tor, amapi, rhino. I have tried blender but it would not run properly
on my Win2K machine with dual LCD monitors. Are these all freeware programs,
because the one disconnect with Moray is that its retail product and that
does not work very well with the free nature of POV. What about including
some of these products in the gray text, would that be a turn off?

I wonder about the statement "it's impossible to really unleash povray's
power without learning the scene description language"? How is that true?
"And some of the coolest povray stuff is not implemented in these modelers
yet." Well there is SO MUCH stuff in POV Ray that is implemented in these
modelers that I am not sure a book needs to cover everything in POV Ray,
that seems like a daunting and almost impossible requirement.

"Furthermore the structure of a book about Moray would should be quite
different from one about Povray." I don't see how this follows. Why would
they have to have different structures? Seems like "here is how to do
something in POV" could easily be parallel with "here is how its done in
Moray", or whatever modeler you are using.

I very much appreciate the feedback, its helping me calibrate my ideas for
the team that is forming. Nothing has been decided so this is a great time
for people to jump in and help shape this project.

Mitchell Waite
former publisher of Ray Tracing Creations (the first offiicial POV Ray
retail book), Fractal Creations, Image Lab, Ray Tracing World and too many
others to put here. See www.mitchwaite.com for the history of Waite Group
Press.

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