Rick Gutleber <ric### [at] hiscom> wrote:
: I don't think it's too much to
: ask is they think they are 6 months away, a couple months away, a couple
: weeks away, any day now, etc.  But if it is, that's OK with me.

  As Chris Cason said in p.general, he estimates that 8 weeks would be a
definitive maximum, and it will most probably be less.
  The program itself is practically complete, aside from minor implementation
details and perhaps a couple of minor bugs which should not take too much time.
  The biggest work right now is getting the documentation and example scenes
complete. The idea is that a public beta should be a complete pack, with
nothing intentionally missing, as if was just a complete release.

  Of course it's impossible to say how much exactly. There can perfectly
happen something which delays it again, who knows? Originally 3.5 was
intended to be ready in the year 2000, but it wasn't such a small job
after all. POV-Ray 3.5 is not just an "official MegaPov"; it has genuine
new features (which include really nice improvements to the WinPov interface)
and some of MegaPov's features have been greatly improved. Those took
unexpected time to make, but IMHO it has been worth it.
  It's great that the team wants a high-quality program, not just a "hacked
up" bunch of patches (which MegaPov mostly is :) ).

-- 
#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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In article <3b70582e@news.povray.org>, "Rick Gutleber" <ric### [at] hiscom> 
wrote:

> I know the subject of "when" is pretty much taboo around here, and I
> understand why, but this notice is almost a year old.  Would anyone in the
> dev group be willing to make an estimate of the status of 3.5 under the
> caveat that no one is to hold them to it?

Check out the recent discussions in povray.general...just such a post 
was made there yesterday.
Basically, it is currently in pre-beta, and heading toward being ready 
for public beta.

-- 
Christopher James Huff - chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

<><

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:3b705f32@news.povray.org...
<snip>
> and some of MegaPov's features have been greatly improved. Those took
> unexpected time to make, but IMHO it has been worth it.

Would you care to go into more detail here, or should I just wait and see?
Has radiosity been changed/improved?

All the best,

Andy Cocker

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Andy Cocker <big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:
: Would you care to go into more detail here, or should I just wait and see?

  Yes, the team has given permission to talk about 3.5.

  For example functions have been improved in 3.5. You can make functions
returning vectors and you can use splines in functions. You also have
several options (with the dot-operator) to convert a vector to a float
(besides the previous .x, .y and .z) so you can easily use vector functions
in float functions. There are many other improvements as well.
  Another example are the fractal patterns. You don't only have mandel and
julia sets with exponents 2, 3 and 4, but you can, in fact, specify an
exponent up to 33.

: Has radiosity been changed/improved?

  I think some changes have been done (as images look slightly different
when rendered with 3.5 than with MegaPov), but I don't know if any radical
improvements have been made.

-- 
#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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"Andy Cocker" <big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote...
>
> Would you care to go into more detail here, or should I just wait and see?
> Has radiosity been changed/improved?

No.  The major changes have happened to other features, such as isosurfaces,
splines, light groups, and many others.

Plus, there have been lots of bug fixes.

-Nathan

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Yes, I did.  Cool!

"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
news:3b705eb0@news.povray.org...
> In article <3b70582e@news.povray.org> , "Rick Gutleber" <ric### [at] hiscom>
> wrote:
>
> > I know the subject of "when" is pretty much taboo around here, and I
> > understand why, but this notice is almost a year old.  Would anyone in
the
> > dev group be willing to make an estimate of the status of 3.5 under the
> > caveat that no one is to hold them to it?   I don't think it's too much
to
> > ask is they think they are 6 months away, a couple months away, a couple
> > weeks away, any day now, etc.  But if it is, that's OK with me.
>
> Did you miss this?
>
> From: "Chris Cason" <newsadmin@-despam-povray.org>
> Newsgroups: povray.general
> Subject: POV-Ray 3.5 status
> Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 00:39:18 +1000
> Message-ID: <3b6eac1f@news.povray.org>
>
> ____________________________________________________
> 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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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

> Andy Cocker <big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:
> : Would you care to go into more detail here, or should I just wait and see?

>   Yes, the team has given permission to talk about 3.5.

>   For example functions have been improved in 3.5. You can make functions
> returning vectors and you can use splines in functions.

This is very cool.  I've been doing this with three tied together functions
and a bunch of macros.  Life will be much simpler with this.

Geoff

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:3b71976e@news.povray.org...
>   Yes, the team has given permission to talk about 3.5.
>
>   For example functions have been improved in 3.5. You can make functions
> returning vectors and you can use splines in functions. You also have
> several options (with the dot-operator) to convert a vector to a float
> (besides the previous .x, .y and .z) so you can easily use vector
functions
> in float functions. There are many other improvements as well.

Sounds very good.

Are macros allowed within isosurface functions? eg

#macro Test()
 1
#end

isosurface {
 function {x^2+y^2+z^2-9-Test()}
...
}

Gail
--
*************************************************************************
* gsh### [at] monotixcoza                *   Step into the abyss,           *
* http://www.rucus.ru.ac.za/~gail/   *   and let go.          Babylon 5 *
*************************************************************************
* The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer *
*************************************************************************

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In article <3b73815e@news.povray.org> , "Gail Shaw" <gsh### [at] monotixcoza> 
wrote:

> Are macros allowed within isosurface functions? eg

Isosurface functions will work just like any other POV-Ray feature.  There
will be no special restrictions in the use of function with any other
feature.  Functions can also be used outside of isosurfaces.  The only
exception is that recursive function calls will not be allowed in 3.5 but
are planned for future versions (4.0).


    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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>
The only
> exception is that recursive function calls will not be allowed in 3.5 but
> are planned for future versions (4.0).

..drool...

- Nekar

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