> It seems to be the easiest and simplest way to do it, with minimal
> disturbance to the existing language.

OK.

> 
> > But its not a "copy" of object, then.
> 
> Sure it is. Just because shared data isn't duplicated doesn't mean it is
> a different object. For example, you can have many "copies" of a mesh
> which share the same mesh data, possibly saving megabytes of memory.
> Textures also can share data, and I think the same goes for height
> fields.

OK. I meaned "copy" as physical copy, not only shared data.
If you will use shared data, all is OK.

> 
> > How you mean "add in the first place"?
> 
> The object was placed in the scene before, there is no other way for it
> to get there. :-)
> Since you obviously have code to put it in the scene, just don't add
> extra code to not put in the scene for later frames.
> If persistant objects are used, you have to check to see if the object
> already exists, and if it does, than don't add it to the scene again, or
> you will just waste memory and render time. If only persistent variables
> are used, you don't have to do this. You don't have to have special
> handling for placing an object in the scene, or any special code for
> modifying it.

But when I need to scale height field in y direction during
animation, for example, I need to modify it for each frame.
But rebuilding whole HF for each frame is not neccessary
(OK, I don't know if POV does some precomputation for HF
which should need rebuild of HF structure when changing
its scale, but its only for example).

Best regards

Disnel

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