All:

Some people say that the POV Ray SDL is a turn off for new users, others say
that modeling programs are a turn off to scripters. There seems to be a real
schism here. There are issues with Moray's right handed polar coordinates,
and others think sPartch or Hamapatch are a better choice (though I have not
heard why they are).

When I was speaking of putting Moray text in a gray box I did not mean that
text would reproduce the user docs in Moray. I don't see this book idea as
competing with either Moray or POV Ray docs, that would be a waste of trees.
I want to improve the tutorials, not compete with them. I think that the
tutorials in the POV Ray and Moray docs are very uneven, some are great,
some are okay, and some are poor (meaning not step by step)

I know very little about these other products: blender, spatch, hamapatch,
anim8tor, amapi, rhino. I have tried blender but it would not run properly
on my Win2K machine with dual LCD monitors. Are these all freeware programs,
because the one disconnect with Moray is that its retail product and that
does not work very well with the free nature of POV. What about including
some of these products in the gray text, would that be a turn off?

I wonder about the statement "it's impossible to really unleash povray's
power without learning the scene description language"? How is that true?
"And some of the coolest povray stuff is not implemented in these modelers
yet." Well there is SO MUCH stuff in POV Ray that is implemented in these
modelers that I am not sure a book needs to cover everything in POV Ray,
that seems like a daunting and almost impossible requirement.

"Furthermore the structure of a book about Moray would should be quite
different from one about Povray." I don't see how this follows. Why would
they have to have different structures? Seems like "here is how to do
something in POV" could easily be parallel with "here is how its done in
Moray", or whatever modeler you are using.

I very much appreciate the feedback, its helping me calibrate my ideas for
the team that is forming. Nothing has been decided so this is a great time
for people to jump in and help shape this project.

Mitchell Waite
former publisher of Ray Tracing Creations (the first offiicial POV Ray
retail book), Fractal Creations, Image Lab, Ray Tracing World and too many
others to put here. See www.mitchwaite.com for the history of Waite Group
Press.

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hi mitchell,

there's no doubt that whether you should include information or objects from
other software packages is a very big question.  on one hand, somebody is
buying a book on povray.  why should they have to deal with other software?
on the other hand, the use of other software enriches the povray experience.

i feel that the bottom line (and from your last post, i believe this is
where your
thinking is headed) is that you need to include a few chapters on some
modeller.
povray is a great raytracer.  doing a lot of 3D stuff requires a modeller
too.
and obviously the modeller (or modellers) you choose should be priced close
to povray.  it would be ridiculous to use studio max or maya as the
modeller.
you should definitely choose a package that exports to pov.  having to go
thru
another conversion app is messy and just muddies the water.

although you are hesitant about moray because it is not free, it is still
closely
integrated to pov, and complements it well.

hamapatch has a strong following also.

spatch is dead.  its a nice program but no longer under development.  avoid
it.

blender and some of the other apps you mention are full-blown tracers AND
modellers.  they are both modellers AND renderers.  if you model with them,
there's some question as to why you would want to come back to povray to
render.  although a povray render might be superior, a lot of people might
question the trade-off value.  it would lessen the impact and value of your
book.

my recommendation:  at least use hamapatch, and consider using moray
also.

good luck, miker

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"Rick [Kitty5]" wrote:
> Mitchell Waite wrote:
> > I have been considering using Moray as the tool for modeling since it
> allows
> > on to focus on the scene rather than the statements. The idea would be to
> > teach the statements but at each statement show how to do the same thing
> in
> > Moray. I would like to hear opinions on this idea. I have been told the
> most
> > people DO NOT use modeling tools and that mixing up pure pov ray
> statements
> > and a modeling program would be useless for many users. I was thinking the
> > Moray parts would be in gray boxes inside the pages so they could be
> > ignored, but that may still turn some people off. Comments?
> 
> personnally think the pov script itself is the biggest turn off for pov
> newbies, it also has to be noted that pov script while being very suitable
> for some projects it totally unsuited to others.

If it weren't for Moray, I would have given up on POV.  

However, as the complexity of my objects increased, the display (at that
time) got more and more cluttered, to the point where it became
unusable.  But by that time, I had learned enough about POV (and seen
enough examples of how Moray generated my scenes) to be able to give up
Moray, for the most part.  

> --
> 
> Rick

-- 
Tom A.
"No doubt many that post deserve to be flamed.  And many that are flamed
didn't deserve it.  Can you give them the latter?  Then don't be so
quick to deal out the former!" - not Gandalf.
Deja mail is gone.  Look for me at raugost at yahoo . com

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