I am unsure this is the proper form for this message. It regards
creating a personal version of POV-Ray, from the supplied source code. I
feel the people here know the most about this subject. If I am posting in
the wrong news group please inform me of the proper one so that I can
approach the proper people. I do not wish to add useless bandwidth and
disrupt those who frequent this group.

    I am a person who has come to a point in my life where I wish to fulfill
personal goals. Do to illness, I find my self with more time on my hands. I
want to use the time remaining to reach my personal goals. Only recently, I
began to feel it was possible. This took me out of a state of feeling
worthlessness caused by the progressive medical problem that ended my
career. Two of three goals involve the use of 3D graphics. The other one is
to go to spend a week at Disney with my closest friends and family, which my
sister is arranging; I owe her a lot.

    However, this message is about the other two goals, both require 3D
graphic models. One is the wish to create 3D animation, for after finishing
college I so wanted to be an animator rather than a programmer. Spending
several years learning drawing, painting, airbrush I want so to be a Disney
animator; a profession that is harder to get into than Harvard. However, I
had to make a living, wanting to eat and have a roof over my head, I went
back to programming as a career. Then the second personal goal came to me,
creating a multi-user 3D RPG game only have the people at EverQuest beat me
to it. :)

    Thanks again to my sister I feel those are very reachable goals again.
Recently she took me to Disney while there; I attended the Disney institute,
taking a computer graphics course. I found that I could still do the things
I always wanted it raised my spirits greatly. Only to return home to find
that the software needed was very expensive.

    Then one day while searching the net, I found a freeware program to do
the same things I did at the class at Disney called Anim8or. Therefore, I
wished to find a way to use that application to create 3D animation and 3D
objects for a small RGP game. I have sight problems making it hard to use
that application. However, the author was kind enough to make changes to
meet some of my needs. However, I can not and will not, expect someone to
put their life on hold meeting my needs. I then remembered that POV-Ray was
an application that allowed one to use a text editor to create 3D scenes
from basic primitives using powerful manipulation tools. This filled me with
great hope.

    Alas, I could not find an object export/import to allow me to tie the
two applications together. Anim8or has then but the scripting language in
POV-Ray did not. It could my own stupidly, if so, any correction is wanted.
However, I found that the source to POV-Ray was open for download. This
meant that I could try to add these commands to it myself. This brings me to
my questions.

    Does POV-Ray convert primitives to triangles for any processing? Can
this data/functions be accessed for formatting and output into a 3D file
format (ASCII Vectors, 3DS, LWO, OBJ, etc.). Where/what are they. I have
been looking though the code and feel it is possible, but would like to know
as to not waste my time or mess up the code. The code is very well
organized/done and makes me feel very inadequate as to my own programming
skills.

    Is there a function that one can pass an object to from the database and
have it converted to a mesh, triangles, or vectors?

    I figure one can import objects in and just add them to the Object
linked list. Does this seem right?

   In the end, am I completely wrong wasting my time on such a project?

    Please do not give this anymore time than it really needs. I know the
people here are very busy with their own projects. I do not wish to be of a
nuisance so will understand if I get no answers. Any will be greatly
appreciated, but will only be used by myself. They are no use by the average
user and are very proprietary. I am also sorry this message is longer than
it needed to be.

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