>
> Noone's talking about writing anything into POV.  We're talking about
> include files that come with POV.  The SDL would still exist in its
> current form.
>

A question of semantics. To me, if it comes as part of the package, it's
written in.  Yeah, it isn't a binary, but it's there when I download.

>
> overall user friendliness is an important aspect of
> design.
>

I agree with you, in that it should be easy for me to say what I want; I
don't want it to do things for me though. There is a big difference in my
mind between asking for a bunch of boxes and asking for a room.

> However, I've love to see a big green apple inside someone's
> eye, or some other artistic usage of the objects.  Having the objects
> available just means there is one less barrier between the artist and
> his final render.
>

It does seem, though, that some technical depth is required before that
artistic sensibility reaches it's prime. Picasso had to learn to draw
realistically before he was able to forget. Included objects are like
urinals. They're there, sure enough, but what does it take to sign one and
call it art?
I enjoy scribbles in crayon more than I do stencils and stamps, if that
makes sense. Cookie-cutter objects can be art (Worhol, Duchamp et al) but
it's not an easy trick to pull off. Crayon scribblings, well, they're not
perfect but they're always personal.

> > No, as an artistic community we cannot make this choice for technical ease.
>
> Why not?  Many artists are more concerned with artistic composition than
> technical creation anyway.
>

It seems unlikely to me that anyone would use something as (and I say this
in a loving way) asinine as pov if they weren't at least slightly invested
in the technical aspects of creation. Don't we often enough admire the code
just as much as the image?
[Thought: can the code of a scene lead the reader through that scene in a
narrative manner, adding a temporal element to a static scene? SDL =
self-illustrating literature?]

> You wouldn't have less primitive objects.  You'd have all the primitives
> you have now.  You would also have a large library of predefined
> objects, textures, finishes, media, etc to choose from.
>

Yes. I understand. But that library is composed of objects which are less
primitive.
Less, not fewer. Bad word choice on my part.


>
> Around a year ago I was woring on a scene for p.b.i. of a dandelion
> growing in a glass jar, on a windowsill.  Most of the work I did, was
> for the wall and a bottle.  I spent days working on them (status update:
> I lost the code :(, so if I ever return to it I'll have to start from
> scratch), when with a good object library I'd have been done in 5
> minutes.  Then, I could have spent the time on better things.
>
> I would love for this project to get off the ground, and I would
> definitely use the objects it provided.  Of course, there is a certain
> standard of quality: the key factor is that everything provided must be
> *worth* using, meaning we need not only high quality textures, but high
> quality CSG objects.
>

With a Canon Digital Rebel(r) and a 4-in-1 Photoprinter the Mona Lisa could
have been done in under 30 seconds a print --- but somehow it just doesn't
seem the same to me ;)

The POV-Ray community is a school of art, just like impressionism or dada.
Our manifesto is the set of bits that make up the latest distro. While that
inherently invites change, and we must embrace it as it comes, I do think
that part of the beauty that has been created comes from the challenge, the
intellectual pursuit of making a machine produce your vision. Ridding
ourselves of that inconvenience risks turning POV-Ray into so many
craft-store stencils.

Object libraries are fantastic for creating piles of stuff, backgrounds, for
lighting tests, for learning techniques and stealing ideas.  POV-Ray, when
used for academic pursuits, to render data or test vision systems, all that
sort of thing, doesn't need it. As an artistic medium, it just seems wierd
to me to include this. It's not even close to being an integral part of
what pov is; at best it's bit-clutter. Centralize it and when I need a duck
or (and?) a bowl of spaghetti, I'll come and get it.


Aah, what the heck am I whining about. Do whatever, of course. It's not like
I won't deal with it. It makes me darned uneasy, though.

--
Sam Bleckley
stm 31415 (at) g mail . com

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