ET wrote:
> 
> Now that I've had stirred you lets see if I can get an answer to what is
> surely an annoyingly simple question.
> 
> But, just for the record, as marvelous as Povray may be - and it seems
> as thought if might be fun - the developers of it clearly suffer from
> the same disease most others suffer from - they can produce a great
> program, but why on earth cant they produce a clear, simple how to use
> file!?!?!?!
> And therein lies the source of greatest annoyance...
> 
> Having created a text object standing on a plane with a black background
> I aspired to produce a star in the sky - one star, not a mass...
> And, of course, the help files refer to stars but not how to create one
> (unless I am blind - this is possible, stupidity and blindness often go
> hand in hand).
> I also following many resource links including finding many starry
> efforts - but no instructions, no one star.
> My abortive efforts at trying to strangle reason out of the stars.inc
> stuff only succeeded in getting the camera to look at one star - but
> through the legs of the letters of my text!
> 
> How do I create ONE star in the sky, whilst keeping my text object in
> place?
> 
> Obviously head spinningly simple - but I'm stuffed if I can figure it
> out!!!
> All responses gratefully welcomed.
> 
> Regards,
> Eero Tarik
> Adelaide
> South Australia.........max24C..........sunny.............

Greetings,

  A trip through 
  povray.text.scene-files
  and
  povray.binaries.scene-files

 should yield an include file called polyhedral.inc. It is a file
 the allows you to include (fancy name here} common and tessellated
 polyhedral shaped objects. What these shapes are is basically like the
 many sided dice you see used in the AD&D games and the tessellated
 versions resemble multi faceted stars. You might find a shape in
 that file that will resemble a reasonably realistic looking star
 and it will allow you to produce it one at a time.

   There might be other utilities in the above mentioned groups that
 offer a star shaped pattern but I don't recall any off hand. It
 wouldn't hurt for you to browse through to see what's available there.

--------

   If that does not suit your purposes you could take a look at this
 site which offeres a star shaped include file.
 http://www.fmi.uni-konstanz.de/~willhalm/graphics/povaddon/index.html

--------

  You might also find this site the answer to you design problem.
 There are three include files that produce differnt shaped objects.
 It has been a while since I have been there so I may be off target
 with this one.

 http://www.ww-interlink.net/treshall/treshall_povstuff.html

---------

   If none of these options get you where you want to be then it's
 time to think about making the shape you need yourself. In this
 case you will find few utilities that will rival the abilities of
 the program called SPatch. It is rapidly becoming the program of
 choice for people who need to build a custom shape for Pov to use.
 It also has support for other modelling programs so anything you build
 with it for Pov can be exported and shared with people that use other
 modelling and development software.

 http://home.earthlink.net/~mclifton/spatch.html

-----------

Last and certainly not Least -

   There is the last suggestion, and one I am surprised that you have
 not tried, and that is creating the object using the wealth of shapes
 and procedures already available in Pov itself. There is no way you
 will ever become proficient with this program if you do not learn to
 use it's features. I won't blow smoke up your --- on this because
 Pov is a difficult program to master and the learning curve is both
 long and steep.
   Given a reasonable effort on your part and a little resolve to give
 it time to sink in you will find yourself making more and more
 complex scenes each time you use it. The example scenes that were
 included with the download were not put there to make pretty pictures
 with. Each file demonstrates at least one of the principal features
 that pov offers and much can be learned by rendering these files.
 Take the time to make changes to see what happens, and then move to
 the next one.
   This process may not give you the immediate gratification of
 building that super scene you want to do right now but it will
 make it easier at a later time when you do start the project and
 at least you might have a better idea where to start.
  Also take the time to go through the tutorials section of the docs
one page at a time. It seems overwhelming if you search for specific
 info on a process but it make a lot more sense to you if you actually
 perform the steps that are illustrated and evaluate the results for
 yourself. After going through them you will find yourself able to
 understand the sometimes cryptic instructions for a particular function
 to a much greater extent than you can now.


 Regards,

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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