>> The camera "projects" the mapping to the object: lower left corner of the
>> rendered image is uv:<0,0> on the object, upper right is uv:<1,1>
>
>  I still didn't fully understand. :(

I understood it to mean texture coordinates generated from the screen 
coordinates.  Like a projector at the camera point projecting a texture into 
the scene.

>> > > - Blurred reflection
>> >   Already possible. (See eg. 
>> > http://warp.povusers.org/pics/RubiksRevenge2.jpg )
>
>> Ups.. didn't know this. How is the syntax for this?
>
>  There's no syntax. There's a technique to achieve it (IIRC it was first
> discovered by Ron Parker). It's describe here:
>
> http://tag.povray.org/povQandT/languageQandT.html#blurredreflection

Could be tidied up into just 1 or 2 extra paremeters inside the reflection{} 
block though?

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> > http://tag.povray.org/povQandT/languageQandT.html#blurredreflection

> Could be tidied up into just 1 or 2 extra paremeters inside the reflection{} 
> block though?

  With the same flexibility? Hardly.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

"Tom York" <alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom> wrote:
> "nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > but really povray is in bad need of a Steve Ballmer and his mantra...
> > "developers, developers, developers"

> Isn't it a bit early? From what I see here the requirements for POV 4 aren't
> anywhere near known, and until they are you don't need programmers.

No programmers also mean povray 3.7 in beta status for a few more years and
povray 4 nowhere in sight.  Povray needs developers, not offtopic whinners.

Post a reply to this message

"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> "Tom York" <alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom> wrote:
> > "nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > > but really povray is in bad need of a Steve Ballmer and his mantra...
> > > "developers, developers, developers"
>
> > Isn't it a bit early? From what I see here the requirements for POV 4 aren't
> > anywhere near known, and until they are you don't need programmers.
>
> No programmers also mean povray 3.7 in beta status for a few more years and
> povray 4 nowhere in sight.  Povray needs developers, not offtopic whinners.

I can't find anything about more developers being wanted for 3.7 on
www.povray.org, which might be one reason why there's any shortage. I didn't
even realise you could apply to work on 3.7 - are you entirely sure about this?

Tom

Post a reply to this message

"Tom York" <alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom> wrote:
> "nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > "Tom York" <alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom> wrote:
> > > "nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > > > but really povray is in bad need of a Steve Ballmer and his mantra...
> > > > "developers, developers, developers"
> >
> > > Isn't it a bit early? From what I see here the requirements for POV 4 aren't
> > > anywhere near known, and until they are you don't need programmers.
> >
> > No programmers also mean povray 3.7 in beta status for a few more years and
> > povray 4 nowhere in sight.  Povray needs developers, not offtopic whinners.
>
> I can't find anything about more developers being wanted for 3.7 on
> www.povray.org, which might be one reason why there's any shortage. I didn't
> even realise you could apply to work on 3.7 - are you entirely sure about this?

Being in beta stage for well over 3 years and still with subpar radiosity and
photon mapping should ring a bell?  It's not like you'll see a "Hiring now" ad
on povray frontpage:  it's a semi-open-source project!  How do you cope with
that to attract developers?  How can I contribute to the project?  There's no
source I can download and play to test and debug!

In the meantime, several different raytracers and renderers have been developed
and are thriving integrated to modellers like Blender and Wings3D.  Indigo,
Luxrender, Yafray... heck, Blender Internal and simple raytracer is capable of
incredible images by just employing (fast) Ambient Occlusion alone.  It even
comes with pretty good true subsurface scattering calculations!  It uses
multiple threads and passes!

that's all the difference a lot of motivated developers and huge community can
make...

Post a reply to this message

"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Being in beta stage for well over 3 years and still with subpar radiosity and
> photon mapping should ring a bell?

As long as I've been here I've got the impression that the development cycle is
as the POV team wants it to be. Perhaps they want only to ensure that 3.7 is
fully tested before release, I don't know.

> It's not like you'll see a "Hiring now" ad on povray frontpage:  it's a
> semi-open-source project!

Does not follow. To pick one of your random examples, I know that Yafray is
fully open source, and so they will get developers whether they want them or
not via public source repository, but they also have a whacking great
"Contribute" button plainly visible on the first page of the website, which
then takes you to a simple email address. There is no reason why a project with
a closed source development stage can't do adopt that particular method *if*
they really do want more developers. If at a point where nobody is needed, the
"Contribute" page can simply say that.

On the other hand ISTR that the POV TAG was set up because too many people were
spamming the developers, so perhaps things are the way they are because that's
as the POV team want it.

As a counter-example, toXic Render was a very nice renderer with lots of
potential that had an open source development policy and died completely.

Tom

Post a reply to this message

"Tom York" <alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom> wrote:
> As long as I've been here I've got the impression that the development cycle is
> as the POV team wants it to be.

yes, we can only sit and hope it eventually gets released.

> Perhaps they want only to ensure that 3.7 is
> fully tested before release, I don't know.

In order to test, there should be features to be tested.  Radiosity has been in
alpha stages ever since.  No matter how much testing, that won't get it
properly implemented.  Development resources will.

> There is no reason why a project with
> a closed source development stage can't do adopt that particular method *if*
> they really do want more developers. If at a point where nobody is needed, the
> "Contribute" page can simply say that.

so, they don't want more developers and we just sit and wait... BTW, yafray has
got development issues too, despite being open-source.  You know, rendering
techniques are some of the most difficult software hurdles out there: nobody
quite knows the necessary math alright, it's difficult to come up with proper,
efficient implementations...  But yafray's source is available for anyone who
has the guts to try to implement something.  With povray 3.7 there's no such
choice as of now.

> As a counter-example, toXic Render was a very nice renderer with lots of
> potential that had an open source development policy and died completely.

the main developer got hired by MentalImages and couldn't work on it any
further.  Without a main interested developer and with a small comunity, the
project dies regardless of the source...

Post a reply to this message

"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> BTW, yafray has
> got development issues too, despite being open-source.  You know, rendering
> techniques are some of the most difficult software hurdles out there: nobody
> quite knows the necessary math alright, it's difficult to come up with proper,
> efficient implementations...  But yafray's source is available for anyone who
> has the guts to try to implement something.  With povray 3.7 there's no such
> choice as of now.

Did I not read somewhere on here recently that the 3.7 beta source will be
released soon?

At least in my case, I'm not interested in fiddling with Yafray source because
of blender. I don't enjoy using blender, and yafray is meant to be used with
blender; trying to improving yafray is kind of pointless if I'm going to hate
interacting with the result. I think I'm in a minority there, though.

I think the main reason that Yafray may be lagging is not really complexity but
that Blender itself is so successful. I suspect more people are interested in
animation using blender's own internal renderer at speed than in large stills
rendered using yafray. In that context, more people are going to be adding
tools and features to blender rather than yafray because it better fits their
needs (and is probably quite a bit more immediate).

> the main developer got hired by MentalImages and couldn't work on it any
> further.  Without a main interested developer and with a small comunity, the
> project dies regardless of the source...

In toXic's case I think it just wasn't well known by the time he left. Last time
I looked at aqsis it was in a similar state, but the main developer was still
around (and vexed that it wasn't getting much use, IIRC).

Tom

Post a reply to this message

>> Could be tidied up into just 1 or 2 extra paremeters inside the 
>> reflection{}
>> block though?
>
>  With the same flexibility? Hardly.

Well of course for the same flexibility you can use the current method, but 
just having something like a blur_amount and blur_samples would make it much 
simpler and tidier for those of us that don't need the flexibility.

Post a reply to this message

hi Warp,

here a little mpeg to show a camera, working as a projector.

-holger-

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'cm2.m1v.mpg' (617 KB)