Is it just me, or does POV seem to be turning more and more into a 
programmers toy...

I started back in the days of 2.2, when the requirements for using POV 
were more 3D geometry, but now, with Isosurfaces, loops etc. it seems to 
require programming skills to use to the full.

I am not a programmer, this is why I use Moray to put scenes together, 
but this question was prompted by the number of people in the 'Most 
common way to make POV files?' thread that have said thay they write, or 
have written prgrams to output POV code.

<sigh> Maybe I'm just bitter and twisted, but I'd still like to know what 
people think.

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

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Jamie Davison <jam### [at] ntlworldcom> wrote:
: Is it just me, or does POV seem to be turning more and more into a 
: programmers toy...

  Yes. I don't mind. In fact, I like that.

  Of course new rendering features are added as well (eg. photons,
dispersion...).

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

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Jamie Davison wrote:

> Is it just me, or does POV seem to be turning more and more into a
> programmers toy...

Well, there have been some very hot (or chilling) threads a few months
(years) ago where a few programmer-type users described their ideal POV
scripting. It was nothing like anyone sane would consider :-)

More seriously, I don't think that the nature of the Povray script has
changed that much. After all, the original isosurface patch was created for
Povray 2.2, and loops and other programmins structure were available in 3.0.
Even in the days of Povray 1.0 people developed simple utilities like
Connect-the-dots or Suds (remember this one ?) to enhance the fun.

What has changed is us : we've become much more demanding in terms of quality
and realism, and this in turn calls for more complexity, which can be
obtained either by programming or by using modelers.

Actually, I believe that the biggest jump for Povray in 3.5 is the mesh2
format with uv mapping support, allied with radiosity, because it opens the
way to the use of Povray as an inexpensive, popular rendering engine for big
apps. A couple of days ago, someone (mistakenly) posted a Povray export
plug-in for Maya in the beta-test group and I find this little event quite
significant.

G.
--

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
Graphic experiments
Pov-ray gallery

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> : Is it just me, or does POV seem to be turning more and more into a 
> : programmers toy...
> 
>   Yes. I don't mind. In fact, I like that.

Somehow I didn't think that you would, but it seems to me that quite a 
lot of non-programmers (like me) may feel frozen out of POV for that very 
reason.
 
>   Of course new rendering features are added as well (eg. photons,
> dispersion...).

This is true.  And for those, I am grateful, but the 'flavour' of POV 
seems to be changing, and maybe I'm just a crusty old relic of the old 
days, but I'm not sure I like what it's changing into.

(All IMO only, of course)

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

Post a reply to this message

> > Is it just me, or does POV seem to be turning more and more into a
> > programmers toy...
> 
> Well, there have been some very hot (or chilling) threads a few months
> (years) ago where a few programmer-type users described their ideal POV
> scripting. It was nothing like anyone sane would consider :-)

I think I saw some of them - some maniac suggesting XML as a scripting 
language was one of them, wasn't it?
 
> More seriously, I don't think that the nature of the Povray script has
> changed that much. After all, the original isosurface patch was created for
> Povray 2.2, and loops and other programmins structure were available in 3.0.
> Even in the days of Povray 1.0 people developed simple utilities like
> Connect-the-dots or Suds (remember this one ?) to enhance the fun.

Nope, sorry, I started with 2.2, and have never seen CTD or Suds (BTW, 
what is/was Suds?) although I've seen plenty of references to CTD in 
various places.

> What has changed is us : we've become much more demanding in terms of quality
> and realism, and this in turn calls for more complexity, which can be
> obtained either by programming or by using modelers.

I don't deny that, it's just that as time has gone on, more and more of 
what I consider to be programming features have been implemented, such as 
loops, conditional if statements, file i/o, and suchlike.  I don't deny 
that they're useful in the right hands, it's just that to me they're 
utterly useless, as I have no programming inclination (or possibly 
talent) and thus will never use them.

The SDL raytracer in the docs is an example of how in some ways POV can 
start to look less like what I have been using for the past 8 years and 
more like a C compiler which got lost along the way :)

> Actually, I believe that the biggest jump for Povray in 3.5 is the mesh2
> format with uv mapping support, allied with radiosity, because it opens the
> way to the use of Povray as an inexpensive, popular rendering engine for big
> apps. A couple of days ago, someone (mistakenly) posted a Povray export
> plug-in for Maya in the beta-test group and I find this little event quite
> significant.

It very possibly is.

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

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"Jamie Davison" <jam### [at] ntlworldcom> wrote in message
news:MPG.1611b55c78a84a05989a11@news.povray.org...

> Somehow I didn't think that you would, but it seems to me that quite a
> lot of non-programmers (like me) may feel frozen out of POV for that very
> reason.

There are a lot of features of POV that are beyond my full understanding,
isosurfaces are one, most mathematics beyond extremely basic stuff, and lots
more, and I find the docs on most of these things only serve to confuse me
more (this is probably my lack of brain power rather than the docs being
vague). However, I am happy with the situation that POV can do far more than
I am able to code.

Andy Cocker

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"Jamie Davison" <jam### [at] ntlworldcom> wrote in message
news:MPG.1611c6f0124855b9989a13@news.povray.org...

> Nope, sorry, I started with 2.2, and have never seen CTD or Suds (BTW,
> what is/was Suds?) although I've seen plenty of references to CTD in
> various places.

SUDS was/is a dos program that fills a sphere with smaller spheres, of
random size, and of user-defined textures IIRC. I have it somewhere, and
could post it if you want.

All the best,

Andy Cocker

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> > Nope, sorry, I started with 2.2, and have never seen CTD or Suds (BTW,
> > what is/was Suds?) although I've seen plenty of references to CTD in
> > various places.
> 
> SUDS was/is a dos program that fills a sphere with smaller spheres, of
> random size, and of user-defined textures IIRC. I have it somewhere, and
> could post it if you want.

Nah, no need.  I have far too many POV utils that I never use sitting on 
my HDD as it is <grin>

Besides, I'm pretty sure that people have posted macros on these 
newsgroups somewhere that do pretty much the same thing.

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

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Jamie Davison wrote:
> 
> Is it just me, or does POV seem to be turning more and more into a
> programmers toy...
> 
> I started back in the days of 2.2, when the requirements for using POV
> were more 3D geometry, but now, with Isosurfaces, loops etc. it seems to
> require programming skills to use to the full.
> 
> I am not a programmer, this is why I use Moray to put scenes together,
> but this question was prompted by the number of people in the 'Most
> common way to make POV files?' thread that have said thay they write, or
> have written prgrams to output POV code.
> 
> <sigh> Maybe I'm just bitter and twisted, but I'd still like to know what
> people think.

I see your complaint, but I don't quite understand your position. AFAIK,
you can do everything with POV-Ray 3.x that you could with 2.2. Evenb if
you lack the patience or ability to use many of the newer features, you
have lost nothing (and many of them are potentially slow, RAM-hungry, or
both, so in that way it's just as well).

The only solution to your complaint that I can see that would add value
to POV-Ray would be to turn it into something like a commercial 3D
package, with a dedicated modeller and a zillion preset textures and
such all wrapped up in a friendly GUI interface (and indeed some of the
people here would NOT want that, even if it was offered to them, because
it would get in the way of controlling their code). Can you really
expect that from a free product, coded by a handful of volunteers?

-Xplo

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I made an export plugin for Hash's Animation Master available several years
ago that can potentially support parametric image mapping and animation but
no one seemed to be interested in an updated version so I have just kept it
to myself.  It's a $299 program and the price puts POV users off which makes
me wonder why POV support for Maya, a $4000 program, would be so different.

I've already expressed my regret that the rational bezier patch was omitted
from POV 3.5 because I feel the rendering method for patch type 2 was faster
and more accurate in many cases.  Most likely I will patch it back into 3.5
once the source code becomes available for my own personal use.

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