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

Stephen Klebs <skl### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> 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.
> 

It isn't really OT, what better way to figure out what to promote about the
current iteration of Pov than to discover not only what people like about
it, but who those people are and why they feel as they do?

One of the great things about Pov is that it forces you to utilize
visualization techniques, which improves your spatial skills and overall
mental proficiency in imagining complex things. This translates very well
into software development skills, as I will explain later.

An exercise I taught my wife and 6yo son which I have found to be very
effective, is to imagine a V8 engine in your mind, as a transparent
assembly, then run it, imagining each part operating properly at the same
time while rotating it around mentally and pulling pieces away, changing
the color, texture and transparency levels the entire time. You can even
cause it to fail in a number of ways.

You can then extend the idea to even more complex machines. A good place to
start is with a 2 stroke engine and work your way up to successively more
complex devices.

Envisioning chemical reactions down to the bonds/electron shell/valency
interactions can be very effective as well, which then builds into the
ability to visualize mathematical expressions as surfaces and volumes.

This technique is relaxing and really develops many skills such as thinking
along multiple, even contradictory, lines simultaneously. It isn't hard and
can be learned fairly easily.

A huge roadblock people unwittingly foist upon themselves is falling prey
to thinking linearly in words and speech, instead of multidimensional
images. This gets you into the habit of self constraint in mental
processing.

That constraint is also what stops people from reading a page or paragraph
at once, as instead they read to themselves in their mind. Your eyes
capture the page at once, and if you train yourself you can assimilate the
information at that same rate.

Most of the work I do with software is handled as a visualization exercise
and a background process, as I spend time doing other things or sitting
there with a bowl of fine Virginia flake tobacco, letting my mind process
all of the algorithmic interactions. Once that is all wrapped up, I spend a
few hours coding, and I am done. It is basically hours or days of quiet
contemplation followed by moments of frenzied typing. ;-)

This technique of visualization has enabled me to develop the reputation at
work for writing fully formed software with few to zero bugs, and in most
circumstances to debug legacy code without running it, once I memorize the
code base.

I wasn't kidding when I credited Pov and the Dev team for my career. While
my memory has always been very close to eidetic (but alas, I age...), I
doubt my mind would function as it does now without the influence Pov has
imparted to me, thus granting the ability to visualize code interaction as
stated. Cheers to all, and my undying thanks.

Perhaps this post will be of benefit to those who are considering a career
to which such modes of thinking would be advantageous. Give it a try, you
will likely surprise yourself with what you can do in short time.

Now this really IS off topic lol!

Ian

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:

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

Speaking ex cathedra as a developer here:

ALWAYS the best test of any software.  :)

--Sherry Shaw

-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

Post a reply to this message

[GDS|Enropy] wrote:

>
> 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.
>

I have a Big Giant Truckload of OCD going on and that imprecision is 
_precisely_ what bothers me.

OCD and I are old friends.  We have reached an agreement.  Whenever I 
find myself starting to count, I instead start to sing (preferably 
subvocally, out of consideration for the rest of the world).  I don't 
REALLY know how many steps it is from the front door of my house to the 
driver's door of my car, because that would be creepy.*

But deliberate imprecision...???  When precision is readily available...???

The human fingertip makes a really crappy mouse cursor.  It doesn't have 
a hotspot marked, and it obscures the point of contact just as a basic 
factor of its structure.  And there's a keyboard with a number pad on it 
RIGHT THERE...

So.....one million bonus points to whoever remembers the name of that 
Asimov story about the little genius boy who could do simple arithmetic 
without a calculator, since I think it sort of applies to this issue.

--Sherry Shaw

* 43, unless I park funny.  OH, GACK!  "The ants go marching one by one, 
hurrah, hurrah.  The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah..."

-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

Post a reply to this message

Stephen Klebs wrote:
> ...why many people don't feel comfortable
> not being able to see what they will get.
>

Maybe this falls under the general heading of "You Know You've Been 
Ray-Tracing Too Long When...," but possibly the best moment of 
POV-userdom comes in that first shiny, shimmering, dark chocolate, sharp 
cheddar, soft black velvet, cork-popping-on-New-Year's-Eve, 
puppy-breath, giggling-baby, green-flash-at-sunset, sparkly moment when 
you type in a few dozen lines of code and know _exactly_ what you'll get.

--Sherry Shaw

-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

Post a reply to this message