What's this MegaPov thing you all keep talking about?

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In article <38c00e2e$1@news.povray.org>, "David" <dav### [at] maccom> 
wrote:

> What's this MegaPov thing you all keep talking about?

MegaPOV is a "patched" version, meaning people have added features or 
made other modifications to the source. It is an unofficial version 
containing most of the patches that have been created, it has many new 
features as well as bug fixes. The biggest ones are probably the media 
enhancements, which can give higher quality media with much shorter 
render times, the radiosity improvements, which remove a lot of the 
limitations of the older radiosity and make it easier to use, photon 
mapping, which simulates the way light is refracted and reflected 
through the scene, and the isosurface object, which allows you to 
specify an object using an equation.

MacMegaPOV is available here:
http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh/

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

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In article <38c00e2e$1@news.povray.org> , "David" <dav### [at] maccom> 
wrote:

> What's this MegaPov thing you all keep talking about?

Welcome to the POV-Ray newsgroups! So you got Outlook Express to work as it
should, great!

Regarding MegaPOV, Chris explained it very well.  There is only one little
point to add: As MegaPOV is an unofficial version changed by others, the
POV-Team does not support it.  Except for that, it is mostly a normal
POV-Ray :-)


    Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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What I don't understand tho, is that on every Mac I've tested it on, Mega Pov
renders faster than the official version. That's what I don't get. I thought
the actual rendering procedure was the same.

Josh

Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <38c00e2e$1@news.povray.org> , "David" <dav### [at] maccom>
> wrote:
>
> > What's this MegaPov thing you all keep talking about?
>
> Welcome to the POV-Ray newsgroups! So you got Outlook Express to work as it
> should, great!
>
> Regarding MegaPOV, Chris explained it very well.  There is only one little
> point to add: As MegaPOV is an unofficial version changed by others, the
> POV-Team does not support it.  Except for that, it is mostly a normal
> POV-Ray :-)
>
>     Thorsten
>
> ____________________________________________________
> Thorsten Froehlich
> e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg
>
> I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
> Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

--
Josh English
eng### [at] spiritonecom
"May your hopes, dreams, and plans not be destroyed by a few zeros."

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In article <38C442A4.64666004@spiritone.com> , Josh English 
<eng### [at] spiritonecom>  wrote:

> What I don't understand tho, is that on every Mac I've tested it on, Mega Pov
> renders faster than the official version. That's what I don't get. I thought
> the actual rendering procedure was the same.

And I have never, on now five different Macs - only three with an Mac OS
installed by myself - managed to reproduce this.  In fact, MacMegaPOV is
significantly slower as on all other platforms when I test it.
And indeed, before MegaPOV, there was no real difference between the
versions except the different ways preview is implemented.

And as these facts (and after all it is even the same compiler) don't leave
any other conclusion, it is all due to user error - or actually, the failure
of the official version to default to the fastest setting after being
installed...

Solution: POV-Ray 3.5 for Mac will default to the fastest setting. I can
already see users complaining about the low responsiveness of POV-Ray while
rendering, but what can I do? :-(


    Thorsten


PS: If you have a new Mac around with nothing else but POV-Ray installed (as
you don't want me to invade your private system), and that Mac has a fast
network connection, there would be a way to figure out what is going wrong
on your site:
The free VNC at <http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/> is a free client and
server application allowing another user to exactly see and use the screen
of another system.



____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich
e-mail: mac### [at] povrayorg

I am a member of the POV-Ray Team.
Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote...
> And I have never, on now five different Macs - only three with an Mac OS
> installed by myself - managed to reproduce this.  In fact, MacMegaPOV is
> significantly slower as on all other platforms when I test it.

The latest release of MegaPov has some very ineffecient algorithms in a
important places that have been causing speed problems.  This will be fixed
with the next release.

-Nathan

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In article <38c56f48$1@news.povray.org> , "Nathan Kopp" <Nat### [at] Koppcom> 
wrote:

>> And I have never, on now five different Macs - only three with an Mac OS
>> installed by myself - managed to reproduce this.  In fact, MacMegaPOV is
>> significantly slower as on all other platforms when I test it.
>
> The latest release of MegaPov has some very ineffecient algorithms in a
> important places that have been causing speed problems.  This will be fixed
> with the next release.

I know :-)  And yet some Mac users do not get even the speed of the current
MacMegaPOV with the official POV-Ray 3.1g.r2 on Macs due to setup errors :-(


      Thorsten


____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> In article <38C442A4.64666004@spiritone.com> , Josh English
> <eng### [at] spiritonecom>  wrote:
>
> > What I don't understand tho, is that on every Mac I've tested it on, Mega Pov
> > renders faster than the official version. That's what I don't get. I thought
> > the actual rendering procedure was the same.
>
> And I have never, on now five different Macs - only three with an Mac OS
> installed by myself - managed to reproduce this.  In fact, MacMegaPOV is
> significantly slower as on all other platforms when I test it.
> And indeed, before MegaPOV, there was no real difference between the
> versions except the different ways preview is implemented.
>

Well I usually do have the preview on so I can watch a scene being rendered. I'll
be honest in that I've never sat down and compared the two without the preview.

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