On Thu, 09 Apr 1998 22:24:14 GMT, hor### [at] osuedu (?) wrote:

>On Thu, 09 Apr 1998 15:30:35 GMT, ron### [at] farmworkscom (Ronald L. Parker) wrote:
>>Perhaps we just didn't care, since radiosity is an experimental
>>feature and the POV-Team is likely to change it all in a future
>>release.  

>Don't sweat it. I believe anyone could merely look at the code and find the
>problem immiediately.  These ostracizing responses only go to show that you
>guys aren't looking at these parts of the code at all! 

You must have missed it the first time: radiosity is an experimental
feature and the POV-Team is likely to change it all in a future
release.  Why would we want to build functionality on top of a
temporary feature?  Of course we haven't looked at that part of the
code, because it's not really there.  It's just a placeholder for the
real code, when it comes along.

Okay, for those who missed it, here's the bug in radiosity:  it allows
people who don't understand its status as an experimental feature to
use it and then complain because it doesn't do what they expect it to.
To fix it, I suggest that all images rendered with radiosity should
automatically add

text {
  ttf "times.ttf", "Experimental" .01,  0
  texture {pigment {colour red 1 transmit .9}}
  }

to the image, then transform it so it'll be right in front of the
camera.  This could be disabled by adding an appropriate #declare to
the scene to acknowledge that you understand the caveats and are
prepared to live with them, as with GUI Extensions on Windows.

Either that, or Mr. Horn could grace us with a description of the
error in the program, rather than wasting our time and his telling us
about the error of our ways.

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