Fran & Melissa wrote in message <6k650e$rno$1@oz.aussie.org>...
>But don't look at me for the codeing thou.... I haven't the experience,
yet.
>I'm working on it slowly.


Actually, I have followed up on my own idea, made some changes, and already
begun with a test version. It looks promising!

I will not create a custom version of POV-Ray. The parsing time for each new
frame would be to long anyway, to make it really "real-time".

Instead I found this solution:

I use Thomas' already existing custom version to create POB-files for the
whole animation: One binary POB file for each frame.
I then read those POB files and show them via OpenGL as a real-time
animation, plus the ability to control the animation (slower, faster, back,
etc.) so that one can really study it.
The turnaround time should be quite good:
Make some changes to your POV-Script, then you have a waiting time equal to
the sum of the parsing times for all frames, but after that, you can view
your animation in OpenGL. That is a lot faster than waiting for the render,
and then maken a FLI or whatever out of the frames.

But don't expect too much: The fancy POV-Ray stuff will not be supported: No
Textures, Halos, complicated Objects like Quadrics, Surface of Revolution
etc. I will try to implement some sort of placeholder for unsupported
objects though. No CSGs either, that is: Union/Merge/Intersections simply
show all objects in them, Difference shows only the first or optionally all
too.
It is really thought for quick preview of animations, not for a real view of
the model (you can always render for that, can you ;-)

And: Since NT is my home, and MFC is my hobby, it won't be portable: Windows
only, sorry!

Johannes.

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