The following is a piece of advice I would like to pass on to you,
the new user, of POV-Ray.
    Included with the program POV-Ray, that you have installed on
your system, is a wide variety of example scene files. Each of these
scene files were carefully chosen and designed by the POV-Ray
team to show off the abilities of the program. Every feature available
in POV-Ray has an example scene demonstrating it's usage.
    Your saying "ok" now get on with the advice. Ok here it is.
Take the time to render each one of the scenes supplied with POV-Ray.
This will probably save you the embarrassment of having to post a a
question that is already sitting on your computer at home answered in full.
It will also rapidly expand your knowledge of the features supported in
POV-Ray.
    Quite often my response to a persons request for information
on using a particular feature is to point them directly to a scene that is
included in the package. I don't do this to be rude, rather to direct you to
 a full scene already utilizing the function you are requesting help on.
    Obviously there are other implementations for each feature in POV-Ray
but the basics are there just waiting for you to learn on your own.
If you do get stumped by all means ask for help and it will usually be
forthcoming.
    One last tip I would like to pass on: Read the documentation that
comes with POV-Ray. While this seems obvious it is something that
is often overlooked or forgotten when asking a question here on the NG's.
If you do a dejanews subject check for the question you have, you will
probably find it has been asked, and answered more time than you can
imagine.

    In summary:
Render all the scenes provided as examples that come with the program
and learn from them. It may take a while but it is well worth the effort.
    Take the time to read the documentation. Every feature supported in
POV-Ray has been covered in the docs or one of the example scenes.
    By combining the two you will become a much better POV-Ray user and
and save yourself a lot of net time trying to find information that is already
sitting on your computer unused. Remember if you ask a question here it
may take a day or two to get an answer. You could probably find the info
your self in less than an hour at home.

Ken Tyler ---  POV-Ray user at large.

Post a reply to this message