"Matt Harbers" <gte### [at] prismgatechedu> wrote in message
news:3e81a944$1@news.povray.org...
> Hey, I'm pretty much just starting Povray.  I did a tiny bit with it a few
> years ago.  What would be the best thing for me to do to get really good
at
> it.  Are there books that will help me or what do you people suggest?
> Thanks
>
>     - Matt

I checked with Barns & Noble a couple of months ago, and there has been
nothing new published in hardcopy on POV or its Scene Description Language
in a few years-- all current books would be dealing with earlier and less
capable versions. That might change soon since recent improvements in
desktop hardware mean a lot more people now have the means to do ray tracing
in an effective way. At the least, I expect something like a "POV for
Dummies" book to be published in the next year or so.

As others have said, study the documentation (it is HUGE-- allow several
weeks to work through it all). You can get it online at
http://www.povray.org/documentation/ but it may be more convenient to get to
it through your own POV installation. It would print out to several hundred
pages, but it is designed for on-line use-- a printed version wouldn't be
anywhere near as good.

As Tom points out,  Read Warp's FAQ at
http://www.students.tut.fi/~warp/povQandT/

 Explore the resources at the official POV-Ray web site resource pages--
there is a huge amount of material available through the resources and
download pages. http://www.povray.org/

I've found a lot of information in the archives of several of the online
groups. Check them out from the above link.

Web rings of value: the POV-Ray Ring at http://webring.povray.co.uk/  and
the POV-Ray New Ring at http://webring.povray.org//

http://www.3dlinks.com/tutorials_povray.cfm has a bunch of useful toots.

http://www.f-lohmueller.de/pov_tut/pov__eng.htm also has some very good
toots

You'll probably need a math reference. I like Ask Dr  Math at
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ and some of my old college books (mostly
because I halfway remember where to find things in them).

I also found  Bram de Greve's toots on 3D geometry useful:
http://www.flipcode.com/geometry/

There's lots more available. Googling on a specific topic and including
"POV" in the query will usually be useful.

Have fun with it!


--
Will Woodhull
Thornhenge, SW Oregon, USA
willl.at.thornhenge.net

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