Greg M. Johnson wrote:
> It shouldn't be too hard to go from robot to man to woman to puppy
> dog once you've got the system.

Those all have four limbs, placed relatively the same way. How about bird,
dragon, three-armed alien, spider, worm?

> You would however be locked into designing the
> character within this system--or to put another spin on it, blessed
> by having a totally procedurally generated, portable, 100% povray,
> SDL-only character.

You just don't do detailed or realistic models that way. You haven't done
it, I haven't done it, nobody have yet. Meshes are the way to go for any
serious purposes (or possible bicubic patches). And I know you can do
procedural meshes, but those too are not of the detail level you can do with
a modeler. If you only need toons, you might do fine, but for serious work
it won't do.

> I intuitively appreciate this philosophy,
> especially if it were politically incorrect with certain artsy-fartsy
> types. To quote a recent winner of an IRTC Animation round, (from
> memory),  "Using povray for character animation must be a complete
> waste of time".

I've been very much a POV purist. My animation attempts with AL the Alien
proves that. Despite that I've come to the conclusion that doing character
animation *completely* within POV-Ray *is* a waste of time. That is, if
you're not satisfied with blobby toons, unsmooth joints etc.

Rune
-- 
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
rune|vision:  http://runevision.com
POV-Ray Ring: http://webring.povray.co.uk

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