I would like to design two things. The first would be a program similar the ones
used in by plastic surgeons. The idea being that you start with a base model
of a human head then adjust the displacement of the eyes, nose, lips, etc.
This should make it possible to model almost any face, without having to
directly model them. I plan (if I can figure out how) to add the ability to morph
from one type to another as well, like from a the pattern of a lupine head to
human or anyplace between, since the specific dimensions for them could
be described (I assume) using the same ratios. The problem I am having is that
I do not want to use an external program (which I can't afford anyway or is
not for windows) to calculate the normals needed for use in a POV mesh. I
have searched for articles, etc., but they all seem to assume that you already
know how to make the calculations and instead just provide a synopsis. :p

The second idea is more complicated and may not happen till 4.0 comes out
and the restrictions on code loosen up. The basic idea is to build a POV like
tracer into a telnet client. While some client have begun to include the ability
to display images transfered from the mud, the current method requires that
a pre-made image be used. However, it occured to me that  a renderer
based on the POV script language would be more versitile. The problem in
this case is of course that you can't use POV code to do this and even if you
could a number of features would have to be stripped out and possible the
entire rendering process converted to allow multi-passing. Since by doing
more than one pass, you could render a quick image, then if the player
remained in the room, continue to add other things that take more time to
generate with each successive pass. Using a script also allows for adding
weather effect, time of day, changing in lighting, etc., all of which would
require seperate images to be stored, either on the mud side on the users
computer. The only problem is, I haven't a clue how to even begin and
barely qualify as an beginner at C let alone C++. In fact, til recently I didn't
even have a compiler. Now I have 4, Cigwin, Borland, an outdated
version of Visual C++ and MingW32. Haven't a clue how to program
in any of them. lol

What I am looking for is a resource that explains both the theory and the
math behind things, since in both cases I will have to start practically from
scratch and I don't have more than a limited understanding of even the
theory behind how some of it is done. Trying to use Yahoo/Google and
other engines to find what I am looking for is driving me nuts. ;)

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