Francois Labreque wrote:

> The best way is to find a project to work on ( modelling your room, 
> summer cottage, dream car, a cartoon character, etc...)  and post your 
> progress in povray.binaries.images or specific questions about problems 
> you're having here.   Lots of people will gladly offer help.
> 
What Francois said.  There is simply too much there to try and organize 
a comprehensive introductory treatment.  You need to isolate different 
technical areas and attack them one at a time:  Texturing, modelling, 
lighting, scene building.  Most beginners are seduced by the problem of 
modelling.  At least I was and still am.  Real sophistication and 
realism comes with mastery of texturing and lighting.  Many people work 
toward the final achievement of entire scenes.  But this ability 
requires that technical building-block skills be acquired first.

Secondly you need to isolate a subject or interest.  This can be 
anything from building detailed scifi scenes to modelling mathematical 
equations to nature or humanist themes.  You can pursue the classic 
genres of still life, landscape, or figure representation.  The interest 
can involve a highly specialized technical area of POV such as using 
media and lighting to obtain the effects of sky and atmosphere in the 
general case. Those interested in advanced Art often begin from a 
critique of the medium itself.  Raytracing is peculiar in that it 
involves three dimensional (though virtual) modelling in order to 
achieve a two dimensional result. The possibilities are as endless as 
the world in which we live.

I am sure if you want to open discussions on any of these topics you 
will get a lively response.

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