I'm not sure --- I would rather have a set of standards written OUTSIDE of
pov, an ISO/ANSI/POV-SO? of sorts, that can be conformed to by direct
choice. It would be fantastic to have a format to follow with a scene file,
a way to think about lighting, and all that jazz. But I don't want it
written into pov. User-friendlyness is just another word for
'thinks-it-knows-what-I-want-better-than-I-do.'
 Similar with the object includes. If it is sitting right there, all we end
up with are the thousands of 'big green apple in a little room, with a
paintbrush and a artists' wooden model' scenes, like the big fancy
commercial programs did for so long. Who the heck wants to see another
perfect, mass-produced virtual teapot?

No, as an artistic community we cannot make this choice for technical ease.
I would love to see the return of the object library, don't get me wrong.
And standards for the creation and manipulation of objects, etc? I'd use
them. I'd be all over them. But give me a terrible-looking sink that took
me 2 hours to make over an object{sink} any day. Given less primitive
objects, all we are doing is accepting less control; and control is one of
POV's most competitive features. Besides, if you hard-wire any of this in,
you imply that it ain't gonna change 'till the next installment of POV ---
and that could be quite a while.

I don't know. I'm an idealist (does it show?), but for whatever reason, I
just react to this viscerally. Yeah, I know I don't have to use whatever
you put in. Will that choice even occur to new users, though? Nah. Heck,
who reads the docs *now*, let alone---
Ugh. I keep trying to wrap this up. I just worry about how long it would
take before I wore down hand-crafting scenes and used the telephone, and
then the keys, the light, the floor and the wall and the ceiling from the
includes... I'm not intellectually against using a few accessories to get a
scene done and looking good. But where will it end?

Wow! I've always wanted to say that! heehehehee.

Signing off.

--
Sam Bleckley
stm 31415 (at) g mail . co m

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