Hi all!
Ok, i just did something plain stupid and now i'm blaming POV-Ray's team for
not fool-proofing their software well enough  :)
Seriously: i'm reusing a radiosity data file for the final render of my IRTC
submission. I moved my SDL files to a new directory and forgot to move the
radiosity file accordingly. I launched the render for the night, and this
morning, i discovered a picture full of artifacts with a plain wrong
lighting.
When a radiosity file is used (and properly loaded), there's a message
stating "Reloaded xxxxx values from radiosity cache file". Would it be
possible, or is it already planned, to have an explicit message if the file
isn't found, such as "Radiosity cache file not found, no values reloaded",
instead of just no message at all?

Thanks!

JYR

PS: the ability to store and reuse radiosity data is indeed a great feature!

Post a reply to this message

JYR <jyr### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> PS: the ability to store and reuse radiosity data is indeed a great feature!

  I think that the documentation could benefit from a tutorial with
concrete and simple examples.
  Would anyone want to write some kind of prototype?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

JYR wrote:
> Hi all!
> Ok, i just did something plain stupid and now i'm blaming POV-Ray's team for
> not fool-proofing their software well enough  :)
> Seriously: i'm reusing a radiosity data file for the final render of my IRTC
> submission. I moved my SDL files to a new directory and forgot to move the
> radiosity file accordingly. I launched the render for the night, and this
> morning, i discovered a picture full of artifacts with a plain wrong
> lighting.

I think there should be an error - when the user specifies load_file and 
the file does not exist you can safely assume this is not OK and issue 
an error.

The only problem is that IMO this error should be issued while parsing 
but the easiest way to add it would be when reading the file (like 
already the case with photon files).

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   [about saving/reloading radiosity data]I think that the documentation
>   could benefit from a tutorial with concrete and simple examples.
>   Would anyone want to write some kind of prototype?

I second! The doc is far from verbose on this topic; the file format isn't
described, although it is a formatted text file and not a binary. I relied
on the "2 pass radiosity rendering" technique description found on the web,
and on my own trial and error. Yet, i'm really not experienced enough to
try and produce a tutorial. Anyway, I guess we'd better wait until 3.7
final is released... sounds like some major reworking is taking place in
the radiosity dept?

JYR

Post a reply to this message

JYR <jyr### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Anyway, I guess we'd better wait until 3.7
> final is released... sounds like some major reworking is taking place in
> the radiosity dept?

  Any such tutorial written for 3.6 will probably apply directly or with
just minor modifications to 3.7 (the redesign of the radiosity code
aims to make it possible to use it in multiple threads; its basic
functionality will most probably not change much).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

JYR wrote:
> 
> I second! The doc is far from verbose on this topic; the file format isn't
> described, although it is a formatted text file and not a binary.

You should not forget that the radiosity feature has always been marked 
as experimental and things are likely to change.  There are various 
things about the saving and loading of radiosity data that are not 
optimal at the moment.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

Post a reply to this message

Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote:
> You should not forget that the radiosity feature has always been marked 
> as experimental and things are likely to change.  There are various 
> things about the saving and loading of radiosity data that are not 
> optimal at the moment.

  That doesn't mean a tutorial wouldn't be useful...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> 
>>You should not forget that the radiosity feature has always been marked 
>>as experimental and things are likely to change.  There are various 
>>things about the saving and loading of radiosity data that are not 
>>optimal at the moment.
> 
> 
>   That doesn't mean a tutorial wouldn't be useful...

No, but note the various tutorials available on rendering radiosity 
scenes in two passes are likely no more valid when some more elementary 
changes have been made to radiosity.  The radiosity patches in MegaPOV 
1.2 for example can already quite significantly affect the handling of 
radiosity when used.

Note i no way want to discourage writing something about using radiosity 
- although some of the things written are not completely correct or even 
misleading most can be helpful and changes going to be made in the 
radiosity feature are most likely going to happen over a larger period 
of time so there is no point waiting for a specific change before 
starting to write a tutorial.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 03 May. 2005 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

Post a reply to this message