On Wed, 05 Feb 2003 05:06:29 +1100, Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <3e3fbb38@news.povray.org> , Not My Real Email Address
> <ano### [at] anoncom>  wrote:
> 
>> Sorry in advance for the rude tone of this post.
> 
> Same for this one.
> 
>> 1) documentation: dead link at 'complete list' in paragraph at
>> povdoc_082.html#target_141
> 
> No, it leads you to section 3.6.3.7 as it is supposed to.

I'm sorry but it does not. It leads to the same paragraph it occurs in,
as I said. It self-references. It goes nowhere. I will paste the source
html:

<div class="divh4">
<a name="target_141"></a>
<h4>3.6.3.4  internal functions</h4>

  <p>There are a lot of internal functions available in POV-Ray. For example
  a sphere could also be generated with <code>function { f_sphere(x, y, z, 2) }</code>
  These functions are declared in the <code>functions.inc</code> include file.
  Most of them are more complicated and it's usually faster to use them instead of a
  hand coded equivalent. See the
  <a href="#target_141">complete list</a> for details.</p>

Section 3.6.3.7 is titled 'accuracy, max_gradient, etc.' -- doesn't seem
to be a 'complete list' of anything. Certainly nothing to do with the
'noise generator' function or patterns generated any which way. It is
talking about isosurfaces.


>> 2) #version does not set correct value of noise_generator in order to
>> recreate images from source code created with previous versions of
>> povray (if I am to believe what I hear here).
> 
> Not a bug.  It works exactly as documented.

So the documentation matches the behaviour. I still perceive it as a bug.
 
>> 3) povray 3.5 does not recreate image correctly from my source code
>> generated for previous version of povray (3.0, 3.1-compatible
>> megapov0.5) even with global_settings { noise_generator 1 }, optionally
>> also with #version 3.0 or #version 3.1.
> 
> Not a bug.  The #version directive sets the language version, not the
> scene rendering style.  this is pointed out in "6.2.5 The #version
> Directive" as well.

See above.

Do you mean the 6.2.5 that starts out "As POV-Ray has evolved from 
version 1.0 through 3.5 we have made every effort to maintain some amount
of backwards compatibility with earlier versions."

 
>> 'noise and pigment functions' in the TOC takes me to
>>
>>     3.6.3.6  noise and pigment functions
> 
> Well, if you are looking in the completely wrong place.  This is a
> subsection of "3.6.3 Isosurface Object".  Surely not what you are
> looking for.  And the TOC makes quite clear to which section a
> subsection belongs...

Thanks that is a good point. And yet the title of the subsection is 'noise
and pigment functions'.
 
>> So I am still in the dark of
> 
> Hardly a surprise if you seek information in sections of the
> documentation that are unrelated to textures at all...

Could you please provide a pointer to the section of the documentation
which explains this?

>> whether the 'noise generator' parameter is theoretically supposed to
>> fix the problem. But I can tell you it does not in practice.
> 
> If you don't know how to use it, you should ask here.  The old noise
> generator does work exactly as before.  Thousands of users have
> successfully used the old noise generator, so blaming POV-Ray for you
> not knowing how to use it without having read (not randomly searched)
> the manual, well...

Did you ever look at my images or try the source I posted? You give no
indication that you did so.
 
>> And in my opinion, it should NOT be necessary. What is #version 3.0 or
>> #version 3.1 supposed to do, if not set values like this to the
>> necessary values to recreate a scene made using a previous version of
>> povray?
> 
> RTFM.
> 
>     Thorsten

You know where to put the manual.

Thanks in advance,

Simeon

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