Hi all- OK, I shelled out for the registration- the possibilities in
Moray/POV seem like they are pretty good. Here are a couple of things that
seem to me so far to be not as good as they could be, though it could well
be I haven't found how to do this yet- I hope someone will jump up and let
me know if the functionality is there somewhere.

- It looks like I cannot add materials to an existing material library, is
that correct? This is a pretty major bottleneck in productivity over here-
it really only makes sense to be able to develop a new material and then be
able to drop it into the approptiate library for later use. Along similar
lines it also looks as though I cannot delete materials from existing
libraries. One of the default libraries that ships with Moray has a dozen or
so of what looks to me like the same magenta material under different names
and I cannot seem to get rid of them. Compounding the problem the material
libraries don't look very amenable to text editing.

- Image mapping does not seen to be very flexible... for example there does
not seem to be a way to repeat an image x number of times in one direction
(U or V) and not another, so if I have a pattern that repeats around a
cylindrical object 3 times but only once along it's axis. I have to make a
very long skinny image that repeats three times and use the whole thing on
the surface. This makes it quite time consuming to make adjustments.

Thanks for any enlightenment...

-Pascal

Post a reply to this message

first, a work around for the adding to an existing tex lib is to copy all
textures in the library to your current scene and then export them all over the
top of the original.  what i suggest is that you make a new library with a
generic name like lib01, lib02 etc, for each scene which contains textures you
want to save and then after you have a few, make an empty scene, copy the
textures you want from each and export to a new library with a meaningful name.
ex: if i recently worked on a few space scenes, and saved each scene's textures
as lib01... i would collect them all and save them as MySpaceTex or something.
sort of a pain, but if you actually do the lib01... stuff, then when you go to
export to a permanent file you may notice that some of your textures weren't as
good as you thought and therefore weed them out.  oh, well, i've gone on way too
long about this.

your second point, deleteing materials is obvious given the above.

third, image mapping.  you'll have to use MegaPov for u,v image mapping and code
it by hand.  it's not super hard once your models are built, but it would be
easier in an editor like moray.

an item i wish was in moray:  the ability to add lines to pov and inc output
that would not be erased each time you make a new save.  for example, if i want
to use megapov, i have to wait until the very end of scene construction and then
add the needed lines by hand.  not a big deal until i realize i need to change
something in moray.  okay, i just need to add the megapov stuff one more time.
oops, there's one more detail i need to fix in moray... you can see how this can
get tedious.  it would also allow for use of any features in any version of
pov.  it would be easy to implement as a comment line could be added before and
after to tell moray to leave it alone.

thanks for letting me ramble.

ryan

Pascal Golay wrote:

> Hi all- OK, I shelled out for the registration- the possibilities in
> Moray/POV seem like they are pretty good. Here are a couple of things that
> seem to me so far to be not as good as they could be, though it could well
> be I haven't found how to do this yet- I hope someone will jump up and let
> me know if the functionality is there somewhere.
>
> - It looks like I cannot add materials to an existing material library, is
> that correct? This is a pretty major bottleneck in productivity over here-
> it really only makes sense to be able to develop a new material and then be
> able to drop it into the approptiate library for later use. Along similar
> lines it also looks as though I cannot delete materials from existing
> libraries. One of the default libraries that ships with Moray has a dozen or
> so of what looks to me like the same magenta material under different names
> and I cannot seem to get rid of them. Compounding the problem the material
> libraries don't look very amenable to text editing.
>
> - Image mapping does not seen to be very flexible... for example there does
> not seem to be a way to repeat an image x number of times in one direction
> (U or V) and not another, so if I have a pattern that repeats around a
> cylindrical object 3 times but only once along it's axis. I have to make a
> very long skinny image that repeats three times and use the whole thing on
> the surface. This makes it quite time consuming to make adjustments.
>
> Thanks for any enlightenment...
>
> -Pascal

Post a reply to this message

ryan constantine wrote in message <38D2747B.325E9DDF@yahoo.com>...
>first, a work around for the adding to an existing tex lib is to copy all
>textures in the library to your current scene and then export them all over
the
>top of the original.

OK- thnks for the sugestions-I'll do something like that. Neverthe less, not
the most polished feature...

>third, image mapping.  you'll have to use MegaPov for u,v image mapping and
code
>it by hand.  it's not super hard once your models are built, but it would
be
>easier in an editor like moray.

Yes- I'm not very far into this MegaPOV business- can I repeat in the U orV
direction in Mega, and use a cylindrical projection at the same time?

>an item i wish was in moray:  the ability to add lines to pov and inc
output
>that would not be erased each time you make a new save.  for example, if i
want
>to use megapov, i have to wait until the very end of scene construction and
then
>add the needed lines by hand.  not a big deal until i realize i need to
change
>something in moray.  okay, i just need to add the megapov stuff one more
time.
>oops, there's one more detail i need to fix in moray... you can see how
this can
>get tedious.  it would also allow for use of any features in any version of
>pov.  it would be easy to implement as a comment line could be added before
and
>after to tell moray to leave it alone.

Yup, That's what I see as the stumbling block to using Moray/Mega, though I
gather regular old POV will get the Mega features before too too long and
the issue would become moot, though not for other versions of POV...

Thanks for your help.

-Pascal

Post a reply to this message

Hi ryan constantine, you recently wrote in moray.win:

> an item i wish was in moray:  the ability to add lines to pov and inc output
> that would not be erased each time you make a new save.

I'm posting a comment from an email to you here for the benefit of
those that also want this functionality.

If you're trying to add code that is independant of any Moray objects,
the best way to do it is to create an include file with the code you
want to add. Then add this file to the Includes dialog.

Otherwise you can get away with the following workaround:
Export the scene (say it's called XYZSCENE.MDL).
Edit the XYZSCENE.INC file.
Add the following line anywhere in the file:
  // $MRX$: ReservedCode
Then add the code you don't want Moray to overwrite

Moray will then keep the code after the line you added up to the next
texture definition (or the end of the file) on subsequent exports.

- Lutz
  email : lut### [at] stmuccom
  Web   : http://www.stmuc.com/moray

Post a reply to this message

Thanks for that!

-Pascal


Lutz Kretzschmar wrote in message <38d### [at] newsstmuccom>...
>Hi ryan constantine, you recently wrote in moray.win:
>
>> an item i wish was in moray:  the ability to add lines to pov and inc
output
>> that would not be erased each time you make a new save.
>
>I'm posting a comment from an email to you here for the benefit of
>those that also want this functionality.
>

Post a reply to this message