POV-Users,

 From your replies we have a pretty good indication of what you people think
about the current Texture Library. It appears just about everyone thinks that
it needs some serious work to become a viable resource and we will see what
we can do to rectify this situation. It may take us a while to get something
in place so please be patient with us.

--
POV-Ray Texture Assistance Group

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It's not good to miss checking this section of the newsgroups for a week, I
just found out :) On to the questions:

> 1.) Do you think this a useful resource in it's present form ?

Dunno. Never seen it before. Will check it out.


> 2.) Do you think it would be a better resource if more people contributed
>     to it and the textures were updated to work correctly with the latest
>     versions of POV-Ray ?

Sure. It only makes sense to let everybody in on the texture-making, for
everyone is different, and many people might not like the existing ones.


> 3.) If this became a active resource for POV-Ray textures would you help
>     contribute to it ?

Definitely, but would like to submit textures for a superpatch category, since
that is my patch of choice. I can't get over the versatility of the superpatch
to make new textures; I still haven't found a limit.


> 4.) Would you use the textures from this site in your scenes ?

Probably not. I rarely actually finish my scenes; I'm more of a
feature-tester. I experiment with shapes and textures as one who looks at
flowers, or paintings: I learn from what I do, but never seem to do anything
constructive with my knowledge (except for the test scenes I post sometimes).
I would probably use the textures as inspiration for more textures, though.


> 5.) Should we just get rid of it because it serves no purpose, it's a dumb
>     idea, who cares anyway ?

According to the popular vote on this, I would have to say no.

--
Samuel Benge

E-Mail: STB### [at] aolcom

Visit the still unfinished isosurface tutorial: http://members.aol.com/stbenge

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I am too new at the job to have had time to seriously study the textures. If
they should go I would be too late, and since I have never tried to make one
myself, I should say: LET'S KEEP THEM FOR A WHILE. Do you hear me? Don't
listen to the experienced boys...
--
Regards,
Sander


Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> schreef in berichtnieuws
384CA6FF.C1237279@pacbell.net...
>
>
> Greetings POV-Users,
>
>
>   As many of you know there is a POV-Ray texture library hosted at
> povray.org ( http://texlib.povray.org )
>
> The Technical Assistance Group and the POV-Team are debating whether it is
> serving any useful purpose and if it is worth the space it is taking up on
> the POV-Ray home page.
>
> For this reason we have five easy questions for you -
>
> 1.) Do you think this a useful resource in it's present form ?
>
>
> 2.) Do you think it would be a better resource if more people contributed
>     to it and the textures were updated to work correctly with the latest
>     versions of POV-Ray ?
>
>
> 3.) If this became a active resource for POV-Ray textures would you help
>     contribute to it ?
>
>
> 4.) Would you use the textures from this site in your scenes ?
>
>
> 5.) Should we just get rid of it because it serves no purpose, it's a dumb
>     idea, who cares anyway ?
>
>
> We are listening and would like everyone's input on this.
>
> --
> Your TAG dollars at work.

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"Ken" <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote in message
news:384CA6FF.C1237279@pacbell.net...
>
>   As many of you know there is a POV-Ray texture library hosted at
> povray.org ( http://texlib.povray.org )
>

    I did but I'd forgotten about it and on revisting it I remember why...

>
> 1.) Do you think this a useful resource in it's present form ?
>

    No, not, as other have already said, in its present form. This is
exactly the reason I never revisited it - it's far too hard and time
consuming to find anything useful.
    Also, like someone else said, I think it would be better if the textures
where placed in context - glass textures on bottles, wood textures on
tables, etc...

>
> 2.) Do you think it would be a better resource if more people contributed
>     to it

    Definatly. One thing that would be nice is if textures could be taken
from IRTC entries - so they could be shown along with a an example of them
in use.

> and the textures were updated to work correctly with the latest
>     versions of POV-Ray ?
>

    For it to be of any use, yes. I think this kind of resource will be most
useful to newbies and having to update them just to use them is just going
to annoy a newbie.

>
> 3.) If this became a active resource for POV-Ray textures would you help
>     contribute to it ?
>

    Possibly - if I felt any of my textures where up to scratch.

>
> 4.) Would you use the textures from this site in your scenes ?
>

    I might use them as a basis for textures in my own scene.

>
> 5.) Should we just get rid of it because it serves no purpose, it's a dumb
>     idea, who cares anyway ?
>

    No certainly not - it's a good idea badly executed (though I think a lot
of that is down to the limitations imposed by it being a web resource).

    Lastly, as someone else said, it would be good to see more complex
texture examples. Oh and less of the minor variation on a theme type
textures - once you've seen one "mid-brown with slightly darker brown bands"
wood texture you've seen them all.

--
Scott Hill. (sco### [at] innocentcom)
Software Engineer.
Author of Pandora's Box (coming to a web page soon(ish)).

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AC wrote:

> ....... Note..........
> If there was a good way to search for textures ot would be realy nice. A
> place where I could write in key_words during the search for example if I
> wanted a wood texture with a red touch in it typing "Red , Wood" would bring
> up a list of woods that are redish....

We are looking into adding a search engine for the texture library and hope
to have it on line when we open the new site.

 Thank you for your suggestion.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings, A Merry Christmas, and A Happy New Year !

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Simon de Vet wrote:

> If there is a popular trading post, I'd probably donate my favourites, though..

Your contributions will be most welcome when the new site is opened.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings, A Merry Christmas, and A Happy New Year !

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Phil Clute wrote:
> 
> I totally forgot that page existed.
> Perhaps it should just be included on the IRTC disc(I still need to get
> my copy so please excuse me if it's already included).

I will pass on your idea to Chris Cason though I cannot gaurantee that
he will do it. If you want all of the textures that are currently on
the site you can download them now in a single archive provided on the
site. There are close to 1600 declared pigments and textures in the
current collection.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings, A Merry Christmas, and A Happy New Year !
Ken Tyler -  1200+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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Fabian Brau wrote:
> 
> 1) This could be useful for beginner.

  We are hoping that this new library will be useful for not only new
POV-Ray users but also act as an idea guide for expericenced users as
well. Textures are such a complex subject even experienced users seldom
use all of POV-Ray's potential when texturing their objects.

> But not all the textures are good.

We will probably have some form of acceptance policy for new textures.
We realize that anyone can make a simple texture so we want the ones
that are special or unique. How we will judge these is still open to
debate and we have not worked out the details yet.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings, A Merry Christmas, and A Happy New Year !

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Marc Schimmler wrote:
> 
> Ken asked: Do you think this a useful resource in it's present form ?

> No. Why not? It's very time consuming to click through the textures.

  We agree with this.

 We will likely remove many of the older textures and concentrate on
not having every possible texture that can be made. Instead we will
concentrate on the difficult, nifty, and the best of the best of the
best textures we can get.

> It's difficult to find the one you are looking for.

 We will also be adding navigation short cuts and a search engine to
facilitate speedier texture searches. We are painfully aware of how
difficult it is to find something useful in the library the way it
is currently formated.


> Together with a remaking of the webpage design it surely can. The
> textures must be updated to be interesting! I would also recommend to
> automate the creation of the webpages. A good example for this is the
> IRTC submission. Perl scripts ...

We are working on automating as much of the site as possible. There
are going to be some minor restrictions but we are working out the
details on that so I can't say more until we have figured out what
er are going to do.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings, A Merry Christmas, and A Happy New Year !

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omniVERSE wrote:
> 
> Waiting for the 3rd Year IRTC cd-rom to arrive here; too late to get those
> textures added if not already there I'd say,

They will not be on your 3rd Year disk. I'll talk to Chris about
the 4th Year disk though :)

> Although a collection of unique or great common textures would be a good
> thing wouldn't it?

 We agree with this. We want to get rid of the simple textures like -

texture{pigment{red 1)}

and concentrate on those that are a little less obvious to the beginner
and even the advanced users out there.

-- 
Wishing you Seasons Greetings, A Merry Christmas, and A Happy New Year !
Ken Tyler -  1200+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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