Shay wrote:
> Gilles Tran wrote:
>> 2. Turn POV-Ray into a "pure" rendering library, <snip> Problem 1: 
>> there's already some lively competition (Yafray, Indigo,
>> Kerkythingie...) in the "pure" renderer field.
> 
> IMO, any renderer with a shader language is not a "pure" renderer. "Drag 
> and drop" might be great for some surface shader effects, but will not 
> create as many WOW shaders as are possible with programming.
> 
> Geometry tweaking is, with some models, as important as shader tweaking. 
> I have created nice models which would look like crap with *any* kind of 
> algorithmic vertex normal scheme. Yafray, AFAIK, doesn't even allow 
> explicit definition of vertex normals!
> 
> I'm assuming from your Problem 2:
> 
>> Problem 2: will it be possible to keep intact the original simplicity
>> and human-writeability of the SDL without excluding the non-programmer
>> users?
> 
> ... that by "Turn POV-Ray into a "pure" rendering library", you in fact 
> mean "Turn POV_Ray into a 'pure(ish)' rendering library with a bit of 
> accessible tweakability." Doing so would keep POV in a different 
> category from the competition.
> 
> And as far as Problem 2, yes it will be possible if all potential 
> additions to the SDL are very carefully measured by their utility in 
> creating WOW pictures.
> 
>> Problem 3: the attractiveness (to users and programmers) of the software
>> is linked to its attractiveness to artists able to create WOW pictures.
>> Now, a language too "programmy" is going to limit those to the smaller
>> population of good artists that are also serious programmers.
> 
> Exactly. I believe that POV-Ray should be a "pureish" renderer with nice 
> Blender or Wings integration and the additional feature of accessible 
> tweakability and scene scripting. The hand-coding contingent will figure 
> out a way to do what we want to do with whatever the SDL becomes.
> 
Not much to add to my fellow-geek here ;)
I only want to stress again that POV as it is now, and even more is it 
will be as POV4 is a fantastic tool to use in highschool math and 
physics classes. Nobody likes geometry (well nearly nobody except for us 
geeks) but if you want to build a chandelier for your virtual barbie 
hous, you do want your two torus sections to match up perfectly. If you 
build a car (or import one from a library) you do want to let the wheels 
behave physically correct when driving and when turning a corner.

As to what my solutions to some of Gilles problems are: Create 
(maintain) a simple POV4 SDL understandable for highschool kids. Add 
features of ordinary languages (assignment (or binding), functions, flow 
control things etc). Add support for multiple camera's, our beloved 
raytracer but also a fast scanline/DirectX/whatever previewer that 
accepts the same scenes but without reflections and such. Make it 
flexible enough to build a third party GUI or enhance Moray. That should 
do it.

So who is going to write that book and interactive course for POV4?

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