"Dan Farmer" <dmf### [at] msncom> wrote:
> Hello.  Some of you may know me, some of you may not.  I was involved in the
> early days of POV-Ray and even DKB Trace.  I'm afraid that I probably burned
> myself out after several years of not only creating traces, but doing
> CompuServe support and attempting in a limited way to add functionality to
> the POV-Ray source code, which I barely understood with my FoxPro and Basic
> background.
>

> I've stopped by a few times over the years, posted a couple of messages, and
> have frequently perused the competition sites.  I have to tell all of you
> that I am SO blown away by how you're using POV-Ray, and by the
> mind-boggling features that have been added to it!  We only used to DREAM
> of these days.

I'm real glad to hear from you, Dan! Thanks for helping POV-Ray become what
it is today. An awesome tool for both fun and learning useful skills
(artistic, techincal, and much more) not to mention producing beautiful
works of art.

> I wrote a suite of programs that rendered an image in
> slices on a network of 5 x286's and then pasted the slices together.  It
> took all night to do an antialized 800x600 image of a glass sphere over a
> checker
> board!
>

Funny you should mention that! I had a similiar dream in 2004 and released
MegaPOV XRS this year. I'm glad I followed through and turned a rough
prototype into a useful tool for others too. I learned so much in the
process and I enjoy having something to share with others. And yeah,
renders still take all night
;-)

Still, you beat me to the punch :D
My first computer was an Amiga 2000, and that wasn't until 1993! I only
switched to the PC in 1997 (After getting an A1200 and upgrading it all the
way to an '060 tower). Now I'm thinking of 'switching' to a different
computer...

See MegaPOV XRS on my site: http://www.gammaburst.net

> Enough war stories... I just had to say that I am so very glad to see that
> my dream of a free and totally state-of-the-art raytracer has flourished.
> I also must blushingly admit that I have felt much pride in noticing many
> of my now humble old scene files still proudly available as samples.
>

I use your scene files a lot for my tests! :-)

> I doubt that I will ever get back to creating my own scenes.  I'd have to
> start back at square #1, and there are now so many new squares on this
> checkerboard now!  Still,  looking at what you've all done with what David
> started, and Drew, Chris, and so many others continued has been a very rare
> and precious experience.  And I must also thank Chris Cason.  He has taken
> this project to places we never dreamed of.   Thanks, buddy!
>

You never know until you try! :-)

> Dan Farmer

Regards,
George

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