"Tim Cook" <z99### [at] bellsouthnet> wrote in message 
news:41d90fec$1@news.povray.org...
> Warp wrote:
>>   He said that POV-Ray is unable to render "blooms" and then gave an 
>> image
>> to demonstrate what a "bloom" is.
>
> Perhaps he meant that there isn't a easy or convenient way to render 
> blooms with POV...unless you know how the effect is accomplished, or at 
> least have a general idea, there isn't a good way to use trial-and-error 
> with POV and hope you stumble on the right thing, because test renders 
> take so long.  Commercial applications have preset effects where the user 
> can just click a button.  <snip>

I was hoping that's where this discussion would head.  POV-Ray can do a lot 
of amazing things, but it's difficult to understand how to do many of them, 
not only at first glance, but even after using the program for several 
years.  Jaime's Lightsys has many things built-in that are what I believe 
Paris meant by "physically based."  It's not part of POV-Ray, but it is 
still possible in POV-Ray.  Nevertheless, Lightsys is not something that I 
would ever be able to create myself.  And even though it already exists, I'm 
still trying to figure out how to use it effectively.

POV-Ray "can" do a lot of incredibly photo-realistic things, but they're not 
readily accessible to the new-user, and even people like me (using < 3 
years) have a difficult time grasping many of the concepts.  Building some 
external features into an interface would be a really nifty idea, imho. 
Kind of like how Gena built POV-Tree around TomTree.  Having a bunch of 
those lumped together into a single cohesive program (like MegaPov) would be 
even cooler.

Sometimes, these discussions remind me of Linux/Windows discussions.  I 
don't use Linux anymore, but I have played around with it quite a bit. 
Linux "can" (probably) do everything Windows XP can do, and then some. 
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to use and maintain.  There are a lot of 
things happening that I don't care to know about.  Windows XP takes care of 
those things so that I don't have to care about them (at least ideally).  I 
would never suggest that my mom start using Linux.  Anyway, my point was not 
to start a Windows/Linux discussion, but to provide an analogy.  POV-Ray 
does not fit many people coming from an artistic, but less technical 
background.  Perhaps it shouldn't.  But having the discussion should not 
hurt.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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