Twyst wrote in message <37459e1c.0@news.povray.org>...
/.../
>
>I'm possibly thinking of restoring twysted.net - but I'm also thinking of
>expanding its scope, to include all the other non-commercial renderers,
such
>as radiance, BMRT, PolyRay, etc, etc.
>
>In order for me to do this, however, I do need to know what kind of support
>I'll be getting. Will it be worth my effort to start handling BMRT?
>


Well, I think BMRT has a lot of potential, and a rather steep learning curve
is the main inhibiting factor I see. Any help as to writing and configuring
shaders etc. is never too much.
I know of no such central repository of information on non-commercial
renderers, so you certainly have a "market niche" here. But the workload
might become horrendous and quality might suffer... Unless you manage to
enlist support from users of all those programs. Basically, I think 3-4 of
the biggest renderers should be more than enough, with perhaps links and
some info to the smaller ones. But if you have too much time... :)
I'd be glad to help, but my main expertise <ahem> is with POV. I know little
about BMRT and next to nothing about the others.

Margus

Post a reply to this message

Ken wrote in message <374770DD.27ADB3E0@pacbell.net>...
>
>
>  A links data base where visitors can add links to build on the
>collection so you don't have to find them all yourself and a
>reliable broken link reporting system that is easy for you to
>delete inoperable links in a timely manner.


I have just set up such a list on my site,

http://welcome.to/HoustonGraphics or http://members.xoom.com/HoustonGraph/

and follow Links.

Not many on there at the moment, so please add your links.

Regards

Peter H.

Post a reply to this message

Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:374770DD.27ADB3E0@pacbell.net...
>
>
> Twyst wrote:
> >
> > Well, I had been intending to kill twysted.net - but dammit, I liked
running
> > it. Sure, I was busy a lot, and maintaining it single handedly was
tough -
> > but it was fun. <sigh> This is what happens when you start thinking
about
> > stuff, I guess.....
>
>  Welcome back. I am glad you came back to your senses or perhaps
> you have lost your sanity again instead ? Either way I for one
> am pleased by this announcement. Over the next few days I will be
> thinking about the issues you mentioned in the remainder of your
> message and then offer whatever suggestions/opinions I can think
> of concerning them.
>

Well, I certainly want to get a team going on the site - It's far too much
work to do it all by myself. There is enough of a userbase out there to be
able to do a "magazine"-styled site, with articles, reviews, tutorials, and
other such things. It's also why I was thinking of other packages , because,
let's face it, apart from the speed factor, there is very little difference
in quality between these "free" renderers and the high-end packages.

I also think I may have to bow to the way of the web, and put advertising on
the site, if only amazon.com, etc.

> BMRT ?

Blue Moon Rendering Tools - an almost free renderer based upon the Renderman
standard. Very nice - but hard to use, imho. mmm, shaders.
Radiance - a radiosity based renderer - I've seen some truly impressive
images made with it.


>
>   A couple of quick suggestion sould be:  More resource related
> materials like a textures archive, scene files collection, and
> possibly a 3d model repository. I know you have been hosting
> the Pov objects collection (that is probably where most of the
> traffic wascoming from ) but it is restricted to single model
> objects only or a file that creates a single object type object.

So you mean, like full scenes, such as IRTC submissions? Well, that can be
done, too.


I also had a texture archive - I was hosting a mirror of the TexLib.
The biggest problem that I am  going to have is bandwidth. the old
twysted.net was pulling 3-4 gigs a month - which is the limit on my local
server (damned ISP - they give me a 50 Gig download limit, and a 4 gig
upload. Go figure.)

What's nice about owning my own domain, however, is that I can do
subdomains. If I can find either a) someone to donate FTP space/ file space
for just downloading (no web) or b) purchase some more webspace on a
different server, I can set up files.twysted.net for example - and refer all
download links to that.
I have a couple of possibilities -

1) I can put just the actual files on a server on the old connection - ISDN
only, at the moment. This means slow downloads, but no bandwidth
limitations. The actual webpages would be served off my Cable connection.
This seems to be the best tradeoff I can do right now

2) Just have links to the homepage/files on the remote servers - I'd really
not want to do this, tho.


>   A links data base where visitors can add links to build on the
> collection so you don't have to find them all yourself and a
> reliable broken link reporting system that is easy for you to
> delete inoperable links in a timely manner.

Actually, that's what I did have. Nobody ever added anything. <shrug>

>   Possibly a new programs announcement area where program developers
> with new/updated programs and utilities can post their announcements.

Hmm. Sounds like an idea... I think it would also be a good idea to get
authors to use .plan files, or whatever, and do a finger on those. (for an
example, do a finger on twy### [at] twystednet - all that is required is access
to a linux box - all they need to do is create a .plan file in their
account.)


> This would help those who suffer missing usenet group messages
> either from having been away for a while or because their ISP's
> dos not archive messages for very long or mismange them in a way
> that they never appear when posted.
>

hmm. that's an idea as well....



Ah yes, please note: twysted.net IS currently down - so I have no mail thru
twy### [at] twystednet. (trying to fix. GRRR)

If you want to e-mail me, please use twy### [at] v-wavecom


Twyst

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 May 1999 11:48:24 -0600, Twyst wrote:

>>   Possibly a new programs announcement area where program developers
>> with new/updated programs and utilities can post their announcements.
>
>Hmm. Sounds like an idea... I think it would also be a good idea to get
>authors to use .plan files, or whatever, and do a finger on those. (for an
>example, do a finger on twy### [at] twystednet - all that is required is access
>to a linux box - all they need to do is create a .plan file in their
>account.)

Correction: all that is required is access to a box that has 24/7 
connectivity.  Linux is neither necessary nor sufficient.  For 
example, finger ron### [at] gwmicrocom, my address at work.  Not much 
there right now, but the astute will note that that box is running
a third-party NT mail server which provides the finger support.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 21 May 1999 11:48:29 -0600, "Twyst" <twy### [at] twystednet> wrote:

>Well, I had been intending to kill twysted.net - but dammit, I liked running
>it. Sure, I was busy a lot, and maintaining it single handedly was tough -
>but it was fun. <sigh> This is what happens when you start thinking about
>stuff, I guess.....
>
>
>I'm possibly thinking of restoring twysted.net - but I'm also thinking of
>expanding its scope, to include all the other non-commercial renderers, such
>as radiance, BMRT, PolyRay, etc, etc.

Yay! I've nevr seen PolyRay, or even heard of BMRT... but way to go.
Might not cut down on your workload much though...

>In order for me to do this, however, I do need to know what kind of support
>I'll be getting. Will it be worth my effort to start handling BMRT?

Hard to tell without knowing more about it. My main interest is that
the Patchstation and macro resources will still be avilable (macros
presumably at povray.org) but that's *now*. Who knows what I'll want
tomorrow?

>In any case, twysted.net will be starting over from scratch. Possibly, I'll
>just put my webdesign company on there as a subdomain, or something.
>
>As users of twysted.net , what would you like to see? I'm open to
>suggestions, comments, offers of help, etc.
>
Bob and Ken both put forward better ideas than I could gather from my
cloudy brain.

>After all - feedback is the only way things change. If you don't like
>something about the old site, speak up! If you have a radical new idea for a
>site - let me know!
>
>After all - twysted.net was averaging 2-3 gigs of outgoing traffic a month -
>I know you guys are out there....
>
Ack! I've been discovered. /Nick Joseph bloggs. Damn - that doesn't
work over Usenet...


Cheers,

Cliff Bowman
Why not pay my 3D Dr Who site a visit at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/7855/
PS change ".duffnet" to ".net" if replying via e-mail

Post a reply to this message