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In article <36B### [at] pacbell net> , Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet>
wrote:
> Well Thorsten Froehlich seems to read the majority of the messages posted
> here. Perhaps he would like to comment on this ?
There has been some discussion (about *perhaps* somehow handing the tutorial
doc section over to users in the future), I suggest to contact Chris Young
(again) at C_Y### [at] compuservecom (just remind him (friendly) if you sent an
e-mail some time ago, I think he gets lots of e-mails...) or better: Leave a
message in the CompuServe POVRAY forum (if you have CSi access).
NOTE: This is *no* official POV-Team statement!!!
Thorsten
BTW, I am not the only one in the team reading the messages! (Hi Alan!)
____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: Tho### [at] csicom
I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://www.povray.org
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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
>> BTW, I am not the only one in the team reading the messages! (Hi Alan!)
<lurking>...
re: User docs and tutorials - haven't had further discussions since
09-Jan-1999. Chris Young's priority is bug fixes at the current time, AFAIK.
One concern the Team had was to attempt to keep all future docs/tutorials
cross-platform, i.e. try to eliminate platform-specific references such as a
certain Mac button, the Windows 95/98 Registry, the use of Moray, etc.
The last I heard was that Twyst was going to coordinate the User docs
effort but according to recent posts in this thread this may have changed
due to other projects he is working on. IMO, first and foremost for this
work to proceed, it requires one person to step up to the plate and assume
coordinator duties otherwise I see and endless number of newsgroup and
e-mail posts concerning duplication of tutorials already written by others.
The project coordinator should probably be the main contact with Chris Young
or the POV-Team via e-mail (although some of us read the newsgroups fairly
regularly).
respectfully,
- Alan
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Ok. I was waiting to hear back from Chris Young. Here's his response ( from
a variety of posts ) (reposted with permission)
I had e-mailed him a while ago , and sent him the original idea. This is the
first response:
/*--- Quote from 12/28/1998 ---*/
While I wouldn't swear that the reference section is perfect, I personally
spent a lot of time rewriting and updating the reference sections. All of
the syntax definitions were polished to the same standards and notations as
Ray Tracing Creations. For the time being I'd prefer to keep the reference
sections entirely "in house".
<Ka - Snip!>
I'm not sure I like the idea of outsiders selling printed docs even at cost.
The issue of what is or is not profit becomes nasty. Many movie actors have
sued studios for percentage points of films that cost $50 million, grossed
$200 million but had no "profit". Linux allows damn near anybody to reprint
their docs even for profit and that's crazy. I'm not going to spend hours
of volunteer time writing POV-Ray docs and have somebody else make money on
it. I'm not sure how the team will feel about this. My opinion is that the
more you distance yourself from the endorsement of the team, the better
chance you have and doing a commercial deal. The closer you are, the more
we'll insist its free. So if its "Twyst's Guide to POV-Ray" and you wrote
most or all of it, you're in good shape. If its "The Official POV-Ray 3.1
Tutorial" and is just a touch-up of the current tutorial, its likely gotta
stay freeware.
The only commercial deals we have really endorsed are two items:the RTC
books, and the Official/IRTC CDs. The key reasons are: A) They were
initiated and managed by long standing team members whom we know and trust.
B) They had contributed so much to the team that if anyone deserved to make
some money then they did. C) They agreed to put some of the profit back into
the team. D) They put sufficient effort into the money-making venture that
they really EARNED the money and they weren't making money off our freeware.
So anyway, I think if you hadn't turned up volunteering, we'd have been
recruiting someone to help with tutorials anyway. I think we can work
something out. But 75% of the above information is just my opinion. Its
all really up to the team to decide. As you'll see in a day or so, the team
has a full agenda coming up. It may be a day or two until we're ready to
even discuss this. We all kinda agreed to take a break until after New
Years.
/*--- End Quote ---*/
Then, Jan 22 ( I didn't find out till yesterday, BTW -- shows how often I
check my CompuSmurf mail ), Chris wrote:
Sorry its taken so long to get back to you but I've been very busy
with POV & non-POV work lately.
The team has approved the idea of splitting our docs into separate
tutorial and reference sections. We are giving you permission to rewrite
and expand our existing tutorial and to continue to call it an official
POV-Team product. You may recruit help as needed. We'll work to keep you
posted on progress on 3.5 so that you can add its features as they become
finalized.
Two editorial requests have come up. Although we want to give you
freedom to develop this as you wish, I hope you'll give this serious
consideration.
1) The team feels strongly that the tutorial be 100% generic and
have no platform-specific material at all. For example the section on
bicubic_patch is based entirely on using Moray and is highly Windows/MS-Dos
specific. That needs to be eliminated. Also examples involving utilities
such as DTA, QuickTime, or other platform-specific tools should be avoided.
As a separate project, you might develop platform-specific tutorials or
faq's but do not scatter lots of platform-specific content throughout the
main tutorials. Even suggestions like "Render at 320x240 then when
finished, do 640x480" are somewhat platform-specific. Say low res or high
res and even then, such advice better belongs in some general stratigy
section than scattered throughout the text.
2) This is just my personal feeling... Our original tutorial started
assuming you knew nothing. It never used a feature before it had been
explained. You don't make example #1 be a sphere with a phong highlight
unless you introduced the finish{} statement first. You avoid saying "do
this, this, and this because I say so and I'll explain later." You say here
is a coordinate system. This is a vector. Use it to locate a sphere. Then
locate a camera (use location, angle, look_at only). Then a light source.
Don't try to teach it all at once. Unfortunately for 3.0 we decided every
topic needed a tutorial (not a bad idea) and that the outline of the
tutorial exactly match the outline of the reference section (a VERY BAD
IDEA). The thought was that a user wanted a tutorial on say...
height_fields. They had a choice of reference or tutoral to look at and it
was organized the same way. For current users learning a new feature,
perhaps such stand-alone, one-topic tutorials are ok. But for novices it
sucks. You don't organize tutorials the same way you do a reference.
Tutorials must flow. Our current tutorial teaches bicubic_patch before box
& cone because it comes first alphabetically! That's stupid! As Dennis
Miller says after his ranting: "Of course that's just my opinion -- I could
be wrong."
/*-- End Quote --*/
As Well. Ken wrote:
My concern right now is who is going to coordinate this effort ?
Is this a project that even has a life right now ?
I believe it was Twyst that started the discussion but I also
know that he is very busy with several other projects right now.
So busy in fact that he is closing down twysted.net so counting
on him for leadership is probably out of the question.
/* --- End Quote ---*/
This is true. I'm having serious brainmelt at the moment. But after the new
povray.org site is done (soon! soon!) I'll have more free time. I can
certainly set up a website for this -- but I suck at coordination. I'll give
it a whack -- In fact, I had an idea -- a web based job tracking system. But
it's going to have to be on hold for a little while.
Synopsis:
It's been okayed by the pov-team, and as long as we stay within these
guidelines, it will be endorsed by the pov-team. =)
--
Twy### [at] twystednet
------------------------------------------------------------
A Social Life? Where do I download that from?
------------------------------------------------------------
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hey, now this is great..
I can't apply as coordinator, because of my current way of life, i'd _really_ suck at
it.
(I generally suck on everything that needs a long term dediaction and work...)
as for the system, a web-based data-base??
Someone makes a list over what is needed...(Coordinatoooooor....) and then put that
online, linking to a cgi for data-transfer, then those who feel FORCED to do it, write
some part and upload it...
Well, it's impractical, it cuts off some of the "flow" feeling of writing a
tutorial...
But, It's an idea...
//Spider
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When I first downloaded POV, I got to the bicubic patch section of the tutorial,
was utterly and totally confused, put it aside and let it sit idle for around
6 months..... I almost purged it from my system until I entered IRTC
with Ray Dream Studio and received several comments that I should have
used POV-Ray instead. So instead of following tutorials, I tried
to reproduce my Ray Dream Studio image in POV by using the reference section,
realized how elegent and simple it was, and became hooked. But the tutorial
almost lost me..... I came very close to uninstalling it from my disk.
Dan
> Tutorials must flow. Our current tutorial teaches bicubic_patch before box
> & cone because it comes first alphabetically! That's stupid!
--
http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/
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I skipped that section. :)
Actually, that's not entirely true. First I drew out some patches on
grid paper, tried to input it by hand, rendered it...then skipped that
section.
-Mike
Dan Connelly wrote:
>
> When I first downloaded POV, I got to the bicubic patch section of the tutorial,
> was utterly and totally confused, put it aside and let it sit idle for around
> 6 months..... I almost purged it from my system until I entered IRTC
> with Ray Dream Studio and received several comments that I should have
> used POV-Ray instead. So instead of following tutorials, I tried
> to reproduce my Ray Dream Studio image in POV by using the reference section,
> realized how elegent and simple it was, and became hooked. But the tutorial
> almost lost me..... I came very close to uninstalling it from my disk.
>
> Dan
>
> > Tutorials must flow. Our current tutorial teaches bicubic_patch before box
> > & cone because it comes first alphabetically! That's stupid!
>
> --
> http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/
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hehe, am I the only one who took a look at the jibberish in the file, gave up, and
opened
te example files in a normal text-editor, trying to find out what was what ?
Well, once that was passed, I had the basics on it, I went into the doc's and read all
of
the things I had caught, learning the tips and trix on the way :-)
//Spider
Mike wrote:
>
> I skipped that section. :)
>
> Actually, that's not entirely true. First I drew out some patches on
> grid paper, tried to input it by hand, rendered it...then skipped that
> section.
>
> -Mike
>
> Dan Connelly wrote:
> >
> > When I first downloaded POV, I got to the bicubic patch section of the tutorial,
> > was utterly and totally confused, put it aside and let it sit idle for around
> > 6 months..... I almost purged it from my system until I entered IRTC
> > with Ray Dream Studio and received several comments that I should have
> > used POV-Ray instead. So instead of following tutorials, I tried
> > to reproduce my Ray Dream Studio image in POV by using the reference section,
> > realized how elegent and simple it was, and became hooked. But the tutorial
> > almost lost me..... I came very close to uninstalling it from my disk.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > > Tutorials must flow. Our current tutorial teaches bicubic_patch before box
> > > & cone because it comes first alphabetically! That's stupid!
> >
> > --
> > http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/
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Spider wrote:
>
> hehe, am I the only one who took a look at the jibberish in the file, gave up, and
opened
> te example files in a normal text-editor, trying to find out what was what ?
> Well, once that was passed, I had the basics on it, I went into the doc's and read
all of
> the things I had caught, learning the tips and trix on the way :-)
>
> //Spider
>
> Mike wrote:
> >
> > I skipped that section. :)
> >
> > Actually, that's not entirely true. First I drew out some patches on
> > grid paper, tried to input it by hand, rendered it...then skipped that
> > section.
> >
> > -Mike
> >
> > Dan Connelly wrote:
> > >
> > > When I first downloaded POV, I got to the bicubic patch section of the tutorial,
> > > was utterly and totally confused, put it aside and let it sit idle for around
> > > 6 months..... I almost purged it from my system until I entered IRTC
> > > with Ray Dream Studio and received several comments that I should have
> > > used POV-Ray instead. So instead of following tutorials, I tried
> > > to reproduce my Ray Dream Studio image in POV by using the reference section,
> > > realized how elegent and simple it was, and became hooked. But the tutorial
> > > almost lost me..... I came very close to uninstalling it from my disk.
> > >
> > > Dan
> > >
> > > > Tutorials must flow. Our current tutorial teaches bicubic_patch before box
> > > > & cone because it comes first alphabetically! That's stupid!
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/
I learned how to use Pov before the documentation even had all
of those pretty, little pictures. In fact you folks would
get a real kick out of reading the docs for DKBTrace and Pov v1.0.
Now those were the days - Not !
--
Ken Tyler
tyl### [at] pacbellnet
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> Now those were the days - Not !
Great, then you can tell all of us what a great job we do compared to POV 1.0 !!!
//Spider
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Don't be too sure about this :).
Some of the old stuff is pretty darn good.
Dan
Spider wrote:
>
> > Now those were the days - Not !
> Great, then you can tell all of us what a great job we do compared to POV 1.0 !!!
>
> //Spider
--
http://www.flash.net/~djconnel/
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