Hi!

> The drawback is that you really can't safely have multiple copies of
> POV-Ray for windows running at the same time.  This has more to do > with
deficiencies in POV-Ray's GUI-extension interface that with
> Moray (another long story).

Well, it's well known that this doesn't even work with Moray, without
using your anim plugin! - Why would Moray make you set 'Keep single
instance' during installation. - Thus, that's no problem for me. I've
never seen any advantage in running multiple instances of POV-Ray. Renders
just don't become faster. ;-)

> > I've experienced that Povray renders the same scene, using similar
> > settings (no antialiasing tricks!), up to four times as fast.
> 
> As far as speed differences go, it really depends on what you are
> doing.  [...]

I may tell you what scene I used: it's just the object 'Starship Voyager'
which you can get in the objects library. I'd like to make it fly...

> So it is apparent that using solid noise functions is going to
> present a runtime hit.  While I'm sure that purists (I was one once)
> will prefer that technique, it is slower.  another thing in favor of
> image maps is that it is possible to exploit hardware acceleration...

Sorry, but what are solid noise functions? Some examples, please.
And why is POV-Ray faster in rendering them?
I'm not very current in raytracing math.

> No - I'm not going to generate (possibly hundreds) of POV-Ray data
> files.  I find that approach very unesthetic.  I'm attaching to POV-Ray
> as a GUI extension and getting the output image direct.

Well, if you solved the problem that the scene may no longer be edited
during rendering... I just thought of it as a stopgap measure.

> > I hope it's coming fast!
> 
> Next beta.  Seems to be working - still cleaning things up.

Oh, thanks! That's really fast!

> 
> >
> > I'm not missing many features in your plugin, it's few which cannot
> > be done but can be by Povray. But I saw that your plugin was
> > created from Polyray. Now, Polyray has even got features that 
> > Povray misses - e.g. spherical heightfields or area-lights. What
> > about a plugin for them?
> 
> POV-Ray has area lights.
> 
> The problem with spherical hf's and POV-Ray is that it seems I'd 
> have to generate a really big mesh.

That's not what I meant. I thought of features that are supported by
polyray (and probably your anim plugin, too) but not by Moray. It's not
necessary that you export the spherical heightfields created in this
manner to Povray. It's enough if your plugin can do them.

Florian

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