Hmm, I tried replying this morning but it hasn't appeared, so apologies if
this post subsequently turns up twice...

> What raytracer did you use back then? Hard to imagine that DKB-Trace was
> available for this machine...

POV-Ray of course! Somebody ported POV-Ray 1.0 to the Acorn Archimedes
in the early 90s, I forget when exactly. Prior to that I first used
something called QRT (Quick Ray Tracer - ha, the irony) and then RayShade.
When I found POV I never looked back because it was so much better than the
others...

> My very first PoV-Ray image (and also my first raytraced image at all)
> was generated in October 1995, when I finally managed to get PoV-Ray 2.2

Hmm, wasn't 3.1 available by then? I'm sure I started using 3.1 in 1996
sometime.

>   working on my 80486 40DX... it was nothing special or artistic, not
> even a RSOCP, just a flat box floating in black space, carrying a
> upright standing cylinder and a concave bezier prism, all generated with
> Moray 1.3 and using dull simple textures.

Yes, I remember being endlessly pleased with myself for making shiny balls
and cylinders on flat boxes or in dull rooms! Later I'd start an ambitious
project then abandon it when the render time for 320x240 reached days, and
move onto something new...

> Of course it is long lost after countless system crashes... from this
> early stage, only one image (attached here) has survived until now, and
> only because I printed it on the color laser printer in Cologne
> University computing center, so that I could scan it later.

Not bad at all. I never played with heightfields until quite later on...

Bill

Post a reply to this message