Hi,

This isn't a 'When will the new MegaPOV be released' question... I am in no
hurry.

I was just curious about whether the clever coders out there had thought
about what new features they intended to implement, and if so, if they'd
care to share their thoughts.

Maybe motion-blur will be back.. or post-processing.

All the best,

Andy Cocker

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Andrew Cocker <big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:
> Maybe motion-blur will be back.. or post-processing.

  Of course there will not be such things...

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:3ca7749a@news.povray.org...
> Andrew Cocker <big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:
> > Maybe motion-blur will be back.. or post-processing.
>
>   Of course there will not be such things...

Does the tone of your reply suggest I asked a ridiculous question? Or have I
misinterpreted your reply?

All the best,

Andy Cocker

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Andrew Cocker <big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:
>> > Maybe motion-blur will be back.. or post-processing.
>>
>>   Of course there will not be such things...

> Does the tone of your reply suggest I asked a ridiculous question? Or have I
> misinterpreted your reply?

  I sometimes make too sarcastic replies when I really shouldn't.

  The whole purpose of MegaPov is to maintain and make available the different
useful patches made by people. It contains many patches that people have
found useful and which (usually) can't be achieved with the official
povray (at least not in any easy way).
  Many of these patches and ideas were implemented in POV-Ray 3.5, but some
others weren't (because they were incomplete, too dirty hacks or for other
reasons). However, I don't see any reason why MegaPov would drop out these
patches once 3.5 comes out and the next version of MegaPov is made from it.
I would be quite surprised if it would. After all, it's these patches which
are the main reason for the existence of MegaPov in the first place. Dropping
them out because they are not in the official version would pretty much make
MegaPov have no reason for its existence. If those patches were dropped out,
then what would MegaPov have besides the official features?

-- 
#macro N(D)#if(D>99)cylinder{M()#local D=div(D,104);M().5,2pigment{rgb M()}}
N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

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In article <3ca770ab@news.povray.org> , "Andrew Cocker" 
<big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:

> This isn't a 'When will the new MegaPOV be released' question... I am in no
> hurry.
>
> I was just curious about whether the clever coders out there had thought
> about what new features they intended to implement, and if so, if they'd
> care to share their thoughts.
>
> Maybe motion-blur will be back.. or post-processing.

Unless I missed something, the motion-blur in MegaPOV is still were it always
was.  And so is the post-processing.  I don't get how these features "will be
back" if they were never gone...?

You are not confusing POV-Ray 3.5 with MegaPOV here, are you?  POV-Ray 3.5 is
*not* MegaPOV.  POV-Ray 3.5 includes a few patches also included in MegaPOV
and a lot of similar features that have been completely rewritten from scratch
and are hardly based on other code at all.

    Thorsten

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"Thorsten Froehlich" <tho### [at] trfde> wrote in message
news:3ca82a14@news.povray.org...
> You are not confusing POV-Ray 3.5 with MegaPOV here, are you?  POV-Ray 3.5
is
> *not* MegaPOV.  POV-Ray 3.5 includes a few patches also included in
MegaPOV
> and a lot of similar features that have been completely rewritten from
scratch
> and are hardly based on other code at all.

Hmmm.. perhaps a slight confusion on my part. Of course, I thought I knew
the difference between POV-Ray 3.5 and MegaPOV, but probably always saw
MegaPOV as a kind of 'test-bed' for the next official POV-Ray... hence when
things were dropped from the official release for various reasons, I suppose
I thought that unless they could be rewritten to be less 'hacks', then they
wouldn't be included in the next MegaPOV. But now you have explained the
reason for MegaPOV's existence, all becomes clear...:-)

So, to get back to my original question... what 'new' experimental features
might we look forward to being implemented?

All the best,

Andy Cocker

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"Warp" wrote:
> After all, it's these patches which are the main
> reason for the existence of MegaPov in the first
> place. Dropping them out because they are not in
> the official version would pretty much make
> MegaPov have no reason for its existence. If
> those patches were dropped out, then what would
> MegaPov have besides the official features?

Features in MegaPOV were dropped in POV-Ray 3.5 for different reasons. Some
were dropped because they were too incomplete or messy, but others were
dropped for principled reasons, and it was stated that they would never be
included in any future version of POV-Ray (although I don't think the
POV-Team officially said that).

I think post-processing belonged to the latter category. One POV-Team member
said (again, not speaking for the Team) that post-processing was not a job
of the POV-Ray engine, and if it was ever included in POV-Ray, it would be
in a separate engine or executable or something like that.

Now, knowing this, it's certainly not a crazy thought that MegaPOV would be
mostly dedicated to features that actually have a chance of being
implemented in *some* future version of official POV-Ray. An example of
features I'm pretty sure will not return to MegaPOV are the hf_height_at
feature and the feature to center or left align text. It has been clearly
stated that these features were not included in POV-Ray 3.5 because they
were deprecated (is that the right term?).

So indeed, when a person asks if this and that feature will be implemented,
it's not a ridicules question.

Rune
--
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Rune's World:  http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated Feb 16)
POV-Ray Users: http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk/povrayusers/
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Rune <run### [at] mobilixnetdk> wrote:
> Now, knowing this, it's certainly not a crazy thought that MegaPOV would be
> mostly dedicated to features that actually have a chance of being
> implemented in *some* future version of official POV-Ray. An example of
> features I'm pretty sure will not return to MegaPOV are the hf_height_at
> feature and the feature to center or left align text. It has been clearly
> stated that these features were not included in POV-Ray 3.5 because they
> were deprecated (is that the right term?).

  I was speaking about features which can't be achieved by other means.
hf_height_at and text alignments are quite easily achieved by other means
(and aren't there macros in 3.5 for that?).
  Post-processing is certainly something which can't be achieved by other
means than the patch, and thus I would be quite surprised if it would be
dropped out. (If it is, many people will certainly complain loudly.)
  Motion blur is another example.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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In article <3ca8303a@news.povray.org> , "Andrew Cocker" 
<big### [at] mariner9fsnetcouk> wrote:

> So, to get back to my original question... what 'new' experimental features
> might we look forward to being implemented?

I would guess not too much is left.  A little tweaks here and there and a few
patterns maybe or some new object type also I can't think of any object type
missing.  Surely no "big" global features.  With radiosity and photons nearly
everything that is state of the art is covered.

Keep in mind that code (and thus the feature it implements) added to a future
MegaPOV is unlikely to be much use for the next official version, which is
POV-Ray 4.0, aka "the rewrite" :-)

    Thorsten

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

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

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> Keep in mind that code (and thus the feature it implements) added to a
future
> MegaPOV is unlikely to be much use for the next official version, which is
> POV-Ray 4.0, aka "the rewrite" :-)

all the more reason for pov 4 to be developed openly


--
Rick

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