So... there are NO ways of converting an object consisting of several shapes
made in POV-Ray to .obj, .mdl, .3ds, .any-bigger-standard-type-of-mesh? The
links section is funny. The conversion tools that doesnt have broken links
hasnt developed since 1998...

Why, WHY was I decieved to actually trying to learn the basics of this
program. Its created contents are of no use to anyone outside the POV
realms... To think I could have spent this time learning 3dsm or maya
instead... Has anyone else ever had feelings such as these, or am I getting
like banned now...? :)

Man, Im just desillusionized or something. Was asked to do some structures
for a game, which sounded like fun. Then, ummm.... like "what was that
format again!?" Eh, just forget it...

Cant some genious just make a pov-scene-to-single-mesh converter program.
Please.

Doh! :/

Post a reply to this message

"RusHHouR" <gee### [at] mailnu> wrote in message 
news:web.46cc9bb5f2cc249447d3ae5e0@news.povray.org...
> So... there are NO ways of converting an object consisting of several 
> shapes
> made in POV-Ray to .obj, .mdl, .3ds, .any-bigger-standard-type-of-mesh? 
> The
> links section is funny. The conversion tools that doesnt have broken links
> hasnt developed since 1998...
>
> Why, WHY was I decieved to actually trying to learn the basics of this
> program. Its created contents are of no use to anyone outside the POV
> realms... To think I could have spent this time learning 3dsm or maya
> instead... Has anyone else ever had feelings such as these, or am I 
> getting
> like banned now...? :)
>
> Man, Im just desillusionized or something. Was asked to do some structures
> for a game, which sounded like fun. Then, ummm.... like "what was that
> format again!?" Eh, just forget it...
>
> Cant some genious just make a pov-scene-to-single-mesh converter program.
> Please.

      Why, when it's just as easy to produce a mesh in an external modeling 
program like Wings3D?

      I know how you feel though. When I first started, (I think it was 
2000), I don't think Wings was around, so I used sPatch as a starting point, 
and then HamaPatch before Wings. (3 great programs).

        ~Steve~



>
> Doh! :/
>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

RusHHouR wrote:
> So... there are NO ways of converting an object consisting of several shapes
> made in POV-Ray to .obj, .mdl, .3ds, .any-bigger-standard-type-of-mesh? The
> links section is funny. The conversion tools that doesnt have broken links
> hasnt developed since 1998...
> 
> Why, WHY was I decieved to actually trying to learn the basics of this
> program. Its created contents are of no use to anyone outside the POV
> realms... To think I could have spent this time learning 3dsm or maya
> instead... 
Then you either had to buy them or use an illegal or outdated copy, POV 
is still free. IMHO there are three basic differences between POV and 
mesh oriented object editors. 1) For most of the latter category 
rendering is added as an afterthought. 2) Many POV objects have infinite 
precision, a sphere is round, no approximations. You can not have that 
with meshes. 3) it is fully scriptable and the source is human readable. 
If you think as a programmer that is an incredible big bonus. If you are 
spoiled by WYSIWYG trash, you may want to just use a mouse to get things 
done and POV is not a good decision.
There is also another thing with POV and that is that many people using 
it increase their math skills because they need it constantly. That will 
help you when using graphical 3D modelers as well.

> Has anyone else ever had feelings such as these, 
Many, it is a recurring question. Check this newsgroup for earlier posts 
with the same question. and also
http://tag.povray.org/povQandT/filesQandT.html#converting
> or am I getting like banned now...? :)
No, but you are encouraged to solve your problem. ;)
> 
> Man, Im just desillusionized or something. Was asked to do some structures
> for a game, which sounded like fun. Then, ummm.... like "what was that
> format again!?" Eh, just forget it...
Compare it with someone fluent in LISP or Haskell being asked to solve a 
problem with some C-code "because you are a programmer, right?".
Two totally different paradigms to solve a problem.
Learn to use your tools well and learn to find out which paradigm is 
suited for what problem. And most important: if you fully understand one 
paradigm chances are that that knowledge improves your ability to use 
another.
What I mean is that your time with POV will not be lost, even if you 
only use 3d studio of maya from now on.
As a personal note I want to say that I liked very much what you made 
thus far, so your time was also not wasted because you increased the 
wellbeing at this side of the internet.
> 
> Cant some genious just make a pov-scene-to-single-mesh converter program.
No. Not as such (see also the link), but if you are carefully planning 
things you might be able to make a POV scene that is more or less 
convertible. All primitives also have an isosurface representation, and 
there is some convertor from isosurface to mesh. At least that is what I 
remember(, never used it myself). If so then if you restrict yourself to 
isosurfaces and meshes and use your #include wisely, you may be able to 
convert at least to a set of meshes. Textures, camera and such will be 
lost.
> Please.
> 
> Doh! :/

Don't be disappointed, keep up the good work.

Post a reply to this message

>> So... there are NO ways of converting an object consisting of several 
>> shapes
>> made in POV-Ray to .obj, .mdl, .3ds, .any-bigger-standard-type-of-mesh? 
>> The
>> links section is funny. The conversion tools that doesnt have broken 
>> links
>> hasnt developed since 1998...
>>
>> Why, WHY was I decieved to actually trying to learn the basics of this
>> program. Its created contents are of no use to anyone outside the POV
>> realms... To think I could have spent this time learning 3dsm or maya
>> instead...

If you really need to get a mesh out of POV from a finite object you can use
something like Ingo's mesh making macros.
http://members.home.nl/seedseven/
Then export the mesh with PoseRay, and save it as an OBJ format.

It IS much easier to model simple objects with a good GUI, that doesn't
take away from POVs usefulness. Autocad is about $4000 USD.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8446723
If you have more money than time that might be the way to go.

As for the web site, I'm sure Chris Cason has better things to do than to
check the links. The current state of computer graphics as a hobby includes
many tools and modelers that are not specific to POV, many are mid-range
priced, or free, but of questionable quality. Many of the free programs are
single programmer projects that one person created in thier spare time,
and once something works right, if no money is involved, they often move
on to greener pastures, exciting new projects, etc., instead of making
better versions. Fortunately, this isn't the case for POV, new improved
versions are in the works.

Once you get used to editing meshes in something like Wings3d,  or Silo
you might find yourself thinking it would be faster to hand code stuff in 
POV.

Post a reply to this message

RusHHouR <gee### [at] mailnu> wrote:
> To think I could have spent this time learning 3dsm or maya
> instead...

  Some people do not have that kind of spare money and they have moral
standards high enough to not to use them illegally.

> Cant some genious just make a pov-scene-to-single-mesh converter program.
> Please.

  It's just not possible without replicating at least half of the entire
POV-Ray rendering engine. This is because objects can be created
programmatically according to other objects, patterns and pigments.
A converter would have to actually replicate an almost complete raytracer
to do this.
  And of course there's the issue of tesselating objects. In some cases
it can be a pretty difficult task (for example it's possible in POV-Ray
to create infinite non-planar surfaces, which pose a big problem for
tesselation).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Thanks for your answers, very interesting and giving to read your thoughts
on this. And an apologee for my silly outburst. I love playing with POV-Ray
SDL.

It's just that I want to know it all, and now and then I realize how
incredibly, ridiculously far away that is...

Guess I'll just have to try and convert the knowledge in my head instead.

Post a reply to this message

RusHHouR wrote:
> So... there are NO ways of converting an object consisting of several shapes
> made in POV-Ray to .obj, .mdl, .3ds, .any-bigger-standard-type-of-mesh? The
> links section is funny. The conversion tools that doesnt have broken links
> hasnt developed since 1998...
> 
> Why, WHY was I decieved to actually trying to learn the basics of this
> program. Its created contents are of no use to anyone outside the POV
> realms... To think I could have spent this time learning 3dsm or maya
> instead... Has anyone else ever had feelings such as these, or am I getting
> like banned now...? :)
> 
> Man, Im just desillusionized or something. Was asked to do some structures
> for a game, which sounded like fun. Then, ummm.... like "what was that
> format again!?" Eh, just forget it...
> 
> Cant some genious just make a pov-scene-to-single-mesh converter program.
> Please.
> 
> Doh! :/
> 

Very strange.  When POV-Ray was first written, there were no .obj, .mdl 
or .3ds formats.  POV-Ray used its own format which developed into a 
sophisticated programming language for scene design.  Because of this 
design, we are able to do amazing things with POV-Ray which can't be 
done with traditional scanline algorithms working on polygon meshes. The 
results can be breath-taking and are IMHO unrivaled in the scanline world.

POV-Ray is what it is.  It models scenes accurately using mathematical 
shapes and procedural textures. In many cases, it isn't possible to 
translate this into polygons and if you try, you lose accuracy.  Combine 
this with the power of the scene development language and you find that 
POV-Ray lets you model things that are almost impossible to model with a 
conventional UI.

If you want to work with a commercial system, go ahead, but the 
commercial systems can't handle the features that POV-Ray supports so 
how can you expect to export from POV-Ray to the other formats?  We make 
no apologies for not being compatible with other programs. Translating 
to those formats is not a matter of translating the data but rather 
translating the mind-set. I can't expect any automated tool to be able 
to handle it.

If you've learned POV-Ray, then you've learned a tremendous amount about 
vectors, matrices, lighting, textures, shapes, transformations, cameras, 
perspective, radiosity, constructive solid geometry, height fields, 
isosurfaces and more.  If you understand POV-Ray, you've already taken a 
huge leap towards understanding other tools.  If you understand the 
other tools, you can still learn a lot from POV-Ray.

David Buck

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Well, what can I say. I'm starting to understand and I agree.

But I dont "expect" anything, I was just wondering how things worked. All
users are not skilled programmers or patch-makers that knows what makes the
clock tick. There are many advantages with POV-Ray, but what I miss is a way
of sharing the created models to other platforms or for use in applications.
The greatness of POV-Ray itself doesnt change that, me now knowing that it
is virtually impossible doesnt change it either.

But Im happy the rules for shaping 3d scenes are similar in the ground no
matter the platform, and that POV-Ray has given me a understaning of that
as well.



> Very strange.  When POV-Ray was first written, there were no .obj, .mdl
> or .3ds formats.  POV-Ray used its own format which developed into a
> sophisticated programming language for scene design.  Because of this
> design, we are able to do amazing things with POV-Ray which can't be
> done with traditional scanline algorithms working on polygon meshes. The
> results can be breath-taking and are IMHO unrivaled in the scanline world.
>
> POV-Ray is what it is.  It models scenes accurately using mathematical
> shapes and procedural textures. In many cases, it isn't possible to
> translate this into polygons and if you try, you lose accuracy.  Combine
> this with the power of the scene development language and you find that
> POV-Ray lets you model things that are almost impossible to model with a
> conventional UI.
>
> If you want to work with a commercial system, go ahead, but the
> commercial systems can't handle the features that POV-Ray supports so
> how can you expect to export from POV-Ray to the other formats?  We make
> no apologies for not being compatible with other programs. Translating
> to those formats is not a matter of translating the data but rather
> translating the mind-set. I can't expect any automated tool to be able
> to handle it.
>
> If you've learned POV-Ray, then you've learned a tremendous amount about
> vectors, matrices, lighting, textures, shapes, transformations, cameras,
> perspective, radiosity, constructive solid geometry, height fields,
> isosurfaces and more.  If you understand POV-Ray, you've already taken a
> huge leap towards understanding other tools.  If you understand the
> other tools, you can still learn a lot from POV-Ray.
>
> David Buck

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On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:47:09 -0700, Tim Attwood wrote:

> As for the web site, I'm sure Chris Cason has better things to do than
> to check the links.

Actually, a few of us took this on a few months ago - the links should 
all be good, even if to old programs no longer developed....?

Jim

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Interesting thread.....  I too, however, wish that I could take some of the
"things"  I have created in P.O.V. and place them into Bryce, or Poser,
etc....

I am no programmer, and have very limited math skills...most my modles are
started in sPatch.   (I know I could start there to export for these other
programs, but sPatch is so limited..it dosn't even export textures!)


I spend way too much time converting from sPatch to POV to DXF to *.obj
files to poser files to Bryce files, etc,etc,etc... then actually creating
"art"....

 Any thoughts?

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