That's disappointing in some ways but take into account that after, what?, 30
years?, if you go back to DKBTrace, POV-Ray is still around, a pioneer in open
source, the "stone soup group" it was called on CIS, and still has a devoted
following. SketchUp and Blender are only about half that old and really only
caught on in the last few years. After all POV is fundamentally a coder's
program which is both it's strength and why many people don't feel comfortable
not being able to see what they will get. In the 2D world Processing is also a
coding graphics tool but they have done much more to cool-ify it & to make it
more accessible and more in touch with current mediums of presentation,
especially on the web. My only suggestion for sprucing up this old house would
be to do some modernizing of the front end and put a few coats of paint and add
a few new time-saving appliances on the editor, which hasn't changed much from
when it was put up.

Post a reply to this message

"Stephen Klebs" <skl### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> That's disappointing in some ways but take into account that after, what?, 30
> years?, if you go back to DKBTrace, POV-Ray is still around, a pioneer in open
> source, the "stone soup group" it was called on CIS, and still has a devoted
> following. SketchUp and Blender are only about half that old and really only
> caught on in the last few years. After all POV is fundamentally a coder's
> program which is both it's strength and why many people don't feel comfortable
> not being able to see what they will get. In the 2D world Processing is also a
> coding graphics tool but they have done much more to cool-ify it & to make it
> more accessible and more in touch with current mediums of presentation,
> especially on the web. My only suggestion for sprucing up this old house would
> be to do some modernizing of the front end and put a few coats of paint and add
> a few new time-saving appliances on the editor, which hasn't changed much from
> when it was put up.

For such an effort to be noticed is hard because other programs do that all the
time, changing website theme (not by much) or even changing software name though
as a user, I wouldn't be against any of these... even switching back to an older
name and theme would be cool for the renderer's image, people forgot them
they're as brand new... Renaming pov DKB trace /PVRay/Persistence or anything
would look like it's really back for instance, any change is better than
asleep...  Anyway these are easy quick changes to decide after discussions

The hardest part of the job is really being done by pov developers currently I
don't think more than what is being done is necessary, but it does take time!
almost done, the good thing is that changes are more apparent now that they
happen in the main trunk because developers of experimental versions like
Uberpov pay attention to synchronise with trunk regularly and port back their
stable changes as opposed to the pov vs megapov gap of older days.

I agree with previous statements on one other thing that could currently be done
more, as said before:For end users to post more work in progress and finished
images outside of here!

Blenderartists.org does have an "other software" section, CG society,
Behance... whatever works.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/14/2016 05:43 AM, Mr wrote:
>
> Indeed, as one of the latest capture shows in his thread, we strived hard with
> Lanuhum to make the pov primitives dynamic into Blender and they are more
> dynamic and parametric than all native Blender primitives ! They are all shipped
> with official version of Blender.
> https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Render/POV-Ray
>

I've "borrowed" several of the sample materials over time - Thanks.

I'm not much of a modeling user. My POV-Ray use over the years being 
primarily utilitarian-work or utilitarian-community related. Creating 
figures, presentation, advertising and event materials, etc. with 
POV-Ray. It's a VERY capable, general tool in this respect.

Weighting my view as an infrequent user of modelers, it's my opinion any 
further investment in a general scene modeling interface should be 
Blender based.

I know there were plans for Moray on its acquisition, but given the 
actual state of Moray today with respect to 3.7 support today, I think 
it very unlikely it will be upgraded to support 3.7 onward(1).

I think we should admit this reality and change the last sentence of the 
opening paragraph of the Wikipedia POV-Ray wiki page at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POV-Ray

from:

"Many methods for generating the 3-D models are used, including a 
companion program "moray" for interactive modeling."

to perhaps:

"Many methods for generating the 3-D models are used, including the
the free and open source 3D creation suite Blender."

and then only lightly mention Moray in the body of the page. No new user 
to POV-Ray will pick up Moray as is. Thoughts? Want me to make this 
update?

Yes, there are other things on the POV-Ray Wikipedia page that should be 
updated I think. Of late, I've been making updates to the preview 
release portion of the page as Christoph puts out 3.7.1 releases, but 
nothing more.

Aside: One thing Blender, MakeHuman and the like do better than POV-Ray 
with respect to attracting new users is create cool, splash advertising 
web pages for features old and new. Another is there tends to be ready 
to grab linux packages - via the debian/ubuntu Personal Package Archive 
(PPA) mechanism, for example.

Bill P.

(1) - As important as any initial modeling implementation, is ongoing 
support. Blender has this covered to a degree due the Blender Foundation.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/13/2016 8:37 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Age? well above average I am sure.

Not to be discounted.


> So, what to do about it?

Well, I am going to spend some more time in Blender. To see what I can 
break. ;-)


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Sherry K. Shaw <ten### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> I Do Not Fingerpaint.
> 
> I Do Not Use Software That Expects Me To Fingerpaint.
> 
> I Am A Grownup.  I Can Read And Write.  I Can Do Math.
> 
> Reading And Writing And Math Are Accurate.  Fingerpainting Is Guesswork. 
>  I Like Accuracy.  I Do Not Like Guesswork.
> 
> I Like Reading And Writing.  I Like Doing Math.  I Want To Read And 
> Write And Do Math.  I Do Not Want To Fingerpaint.
> 
> And that's why I do POV-Ray.*  :)
> 
> --Sherry Shaw
> 
> * Oh, and also because it is awesome.

I agree; I enjoy coding my scenes, using loops, macros and etc.. I hate the
imprecision of most 3d software I have tried. I suppose I have some degree
of OCD going on because that imprecision bothers the heck out of me.

Most modeling software makes my blood boil, I find it terribly frustrating
as I must spend so much time beating the crap out of some UI that insists
that I learn it instead of just making what I want when I want it in the
fashion that I desire and by the means I dictate.

The UI is why I could not work with Blender and spent the loot for
Lightwave, and the scripting (in C#, yay!) is why I have Rhino and
Grasshopper. I use FormZ as well. Not much a fan of Python, which LW uses,
though it was one of the first languages I messed with. PlantStudio and Vue
Complete are pretty but good luck keeping them from filling their diapers
randomly when you try to do anything (and thats on a hexacore xeon with
24gb and dual 8gb nvidia/512gpu cores! Wtf).

Guess what? I prefer PovRay and can do far more with it far faster (not
rendering though lol) than I can with anything else I have. I like C
based/styled languages. Curly braces are nice.

The way I see it, if I am going to go to the masochistic trouble of
learning some infernal UI from the outer dark, it is going to be a
commercial package.

I am not a professional 3d artist by any means of course, my area of work
is in software architecture and algorithms, so my opinions here are of
nonpositive worth haha.

I wonder if there is an extension to Visual Studio that would support Pov?
I know that sort of thing is easier to do now since they opened up their
intellisense and language api.

Ian

Post a reply to this message

David Buck <dav### [at] simberoncom> wrote:
> What POVRay needs is its own user interface tailored to POVRay. Other 
> user interfaces tend to break the world into triangles which don't 
> translate well to POVRay.  The POVRay text files are cumbersome because 
> they are non-visual and they force you to constantly switch from text 
> mode to render mode.
> 
> I would like to see a user interface that supports all of the POVRay 
> primitives.  It would allow you select components of the scene with 
> parameters that are alterable.  You don't necessarily need to see the 
> text but rather a graphical representation of the text.  It would allow 
> you to change any parameters and would re-render the scene automatically 
> with those changes.  The rendering might be incremental - it renders in 
> low resolution first and refines the image as you wait or renders 
> without textures then with textures or it renders without reflections 
> and later adds reflections - just some ideas.
> 
> I often find myself asking "What happens if I change this parameter?" 
> To answer that I need to keep editing and rendering until I understand 
> it.  I'd rather select the parameter in a UI and use the mouse to change 
> the value and see in real time what it does to the image.
> 
> Thoughts?
> David Buck

Some form of node based editor would be nice. I built one of those for
picking up MEF plugins that allows the company to add code made by other
units to a common pool and thus enables composition of apps from already
tested production code instead of reinventing the wheel for each new app,
and requires no knowledge of code to use....just flowchart skills.

Node based UI is now very common, and Houdini has a good one. That app is
the easiest to use IMO of any commercial package I have tried.

Ian

Post a reply to this message

Stephen Klebs <skl### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> That's disappointing in some ways but take into account that after, what?, 30
> years?, if you go back to DKBTrace, POV-Ray is still around, a pioneer in open
> source, the "stone soup group" it was called on CIS, and still has a devoted
> following. SketchUp and Blender are only about half that old and really only
> caught on in the last few years. After all POV is fundamentally a coder's
> program which is both it's strength and why many people don't feel comfortable
> not being able to see what they will get. In the 2D world Processing is also a
> coding graphics tool but they have done much more to cool-ify it & to make it
> more accessible and more in touch with current mediums of presentation,
> especially on the web. My only suggestion for sprucing up this old house would
> be to do some modernizing of the front end and put a few coats of paint and add
> a few new time-saving appliances on the editor, which hasn't changed much from
> when it was put up.
> 

I use Processing as well to prototype reaction diffusion solvers, cellular
automata and other such.

The app supports language plugins too. A Pov one would be interesting,
which could then call up the renderer...

Ian

Post a reply to this message

Am 14.11.2016 um 20:02 schrieb [GDS|Enropy]:

> I wonder if there is an extension to Visual Studio that would support Pov?
> I know that sort of thing is easier to do now since they opened up their
> intellisense and language api.

I recall someone posting about a Visual Studio plug-in for POV-Ray a
while ago. Not sure what's become of it though.

There's also PovClipse for people who favour Eclipse.

Post a reply to this message

[GDS|Enropy] <gdsHYPHENentropyAThotmaolDOTcom> wrote:
> Sherry K. Shaw <ten### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> > I Do Not Fingerpaint.
> >
> > I Do Not Use Software That Expects Me To Fingerpaint.
> >
> > I Am A Grownup.  I Can Read And Write.  I Can Do Math.
> >
> > Reading And Writing And Math Are Accurate.  Fingerpainting Is Guesswork.
> >  I Like Accuracy.  I Do Not Like Guesswork.
> >
> > I Like Reading And Writing.  I Like Doing Math.  I Want To Read And
> > Write And Do Math.  I Do Not Want To Fingerpaint.
> >
> > And that's why I do POV-Ray.*  :)
> >
> > --Sherry Shaw
> >
> > * Oh, and also because it is awesome.
>
> I agree; I enjoy coding my scenes, using loops, macros and etc.. I hate the
> imprecision of most 3d software I have tried. I suppose I have some degree
> of OCD going on because that imprecision bothers the heck out of me.
>
> Most modeling software makes my blood boil, I find it terribly frustrating
> as I must spend so much time beating the crap out of some UI that insists
> that I learn it instead of just making what I want when I want it in the
> fashion that I desire and by the means I dictate.
>
> The UI is why I could not work with Blender and spent the loot for
> Lightwave, and the scripting (in C#, yay!) is why I have Rhino and
> Grasshopper. I use FormZ as well. Not much a fan of Python, which LW uses,
> though it was one of the first languages I messed with. PlantStudio and Vue
> Complete are pretty but good luck keeping them from filling their diapers
> randomly when you try to do anything (and thats on a hexacore xeon with
> 24gb and dual 8gb nvidia/512gpu cores! Wtf).
>
> Guess what? I prefer PovRay and can do far more with it far faster (not
> rendering though lol) than I can with anything else I have. I like C
> based/styled languages. Curly braces are nice.
>
> The way I see it, if I am going to go to the masochistic trouble of
> learning some infernal UI from the outer dark, it is going to be a
> commercial package.
>
> I am not a professional 3d artist by any means of course, my area of work
> is in software architecture and algorithms, so my opinions here are of
> nonpositive worth haha.
>
> I wonder if there is an extension to Visual Studio that would support Pov?
> I know that sort of thing is easier to do now since they opened up their
> intellisense and language api.
>
> Ian

I feel much the same. What I've always loved about POV-Ray, and I've been
addicted for a long time, is that you DON'T know exactly what you're going to
get. Every render is a bit of a surprise and a discovery and the only modelling
tool you really have is your imagination and what you envision in your head. It
reminds me of what photography was like in the pre-digital age. You fool around
with light-meter readings, and estimate distance, and dial in what you calculate
will be the right f-stops and press a little button. Alt-G. But you never really
know what the picture looks like until you get it into the darkroom and wait a
while and gradually watch it develop bit by bit. At no point in Blender or
Cinema 4D or any modern, real-time renderer do you get that same moment of wow.

Little off topic. Sorry. But I always wanted to say that. In appreciation and
encouragement of those who still keep this old, somewhat antiquated ship afloat.

Post a reply to this message

>
> For such an effort to be noticed is hard because other programs do that all the
> time, changing website theme (not by much) or even changing software name though
> as a user, I wouldn't be against any of these... even switching back to an older
> name and theme would be cool for the renderer's image, people forgot them
> they're as brand new... Renaming pov DKB trace /PVRay/Persistence or anything
> would look like it's really back for instance, any change is better than
> asleep...  Anyway these are easy quick changes to decide after discussions
>
> The hardest part of the job is really being done by pov developers currently I
> don't think more than what is being done is necessary, but it does take time!
> almost done, the good thing is that changes are more apparent now that they
> happen in the main trunk because developers of experimental versions like
> Uberpov pay attention to synchronise with trunk regularly and port back their
> stable changes as opposed to the pov vs megapov gap of older days.
>
> I agree with previous statements on one other thing that could currently be done
> more, as said before:For end users to post more work in progress and finished
> images outside of here!
>
> Blenderartists.org does have an "other software" section, CG society,
> Behance... whatever works.

It's a problem too that from the occasional coding I do the last thing I look
forward to is playing around with interface buttons and sliders and trying to
catch all the possible traps the end-user might fall in. UI is really a whole
different skill.

Post a reply to this message