On Thu, 10 Aug 2000 18:26:51 -0700, Adam <bel### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

>   Then, let me put it this way. Does anyone make good money using Povray.

I've never directly sold a POV picture (animated GIFs are, well,
anims) but I use POV in my web design work. I've rendered some home
appliances for the products section of a home appliances site. I've
used POV a lot to render buttons, animated logos, 3D toolbars and the
like. I know of at least two other people visiting these groups that
can relate.

I also often use it to set up the basic light interraction in a scene
and then paint over that in PhotoShop, keeping the lighting realistic.
An example is the gallery section of a site I am doing (my own,
actually :)) ) where I use MegaPOV's radiosity to render a room with
three picture frames and then use PhotoShop to put the pictures in
there, and the lighting remains intact.

>I'm talking computer art expos, product design teams, architects, city
>planning, anything of the sort. 

I placed fourth in ComputerSpace '97, an international computer arts
compo held in Sofia. The picture I submitted was featured some POV
output collaged and post-processed and painted over in PhotoShop.

As of architecture, POV is not the best tool to model a building but
it can certainly render it better than AutoCAD or ArchiCAD. I guess
only Radiance in this price range could do better.

>I haven't heard anyone say a thing about the usefullness of Povray. 

Had enough? :))

>People have been talking of it as if it were a sport, not a tool. 

Mostly, but not exclusively. It has its uses.

>You have fun, exercise your mind, get your feet wet, join an
>international phenomenon, etc. That's something you say about scooters or
>Pokemon, not a screwdriver or a calculator.

That's the best part with computers. You can use them as calculators,
or for Pokemon (whatever *that* is), or for driving scooters (with a
good 3D card and surround sound :) ) ... you can even use a
screwdriver on them <grin>

So the bottom line is, POV can do a lot, it's up to the user to
choose.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] usanet
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Adam <bel### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
:    So what does that leave us with?

  1) It's free. That can't be said of most "higher-level" programs.

  2) The quality is good. The lack of a modeller is only a little annoyance
     (you can't use a 3rd party modeller anyways).

  3) The scripting language is powerful. Only few other renderers have a
     similar one.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):_;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Adam wrote:
> 
>    So, it seems that we agree that Povray is a good free program. It's
> always good to see exactly what you're doing and to be able to
> experiment.  Such is the design. The question is, what are people\
> doing with it?

POV-Ray is an excellent tool for testing one's knowledge of trig and
analytical geometry.  Without a modeler, a firm grasp of AG is
essential in achieving the broadest variety of scenery.

Regards,
John

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I've noticed most of the commercial artists are using acrylics and
gouache.  So who uses oil paints? These so-called 'artists'?  Oil paints
take so much longer, and you need to learn how to clean the brushes.

I hope you see my point.

-Mark Gordon

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Adam wrote:

>    So what does that leave us with? Artists who want total control over
> the scene? Computer programmers who simply want to challenge themselves?
> In other words, it seems to me that Povray has few practical
> applications, but is more of a hobby, or even a teaching device for
> understanding higher-level programs.

POV-Ray isn't much different from other ray tracers in this regard, so
I'm going to give some examples of use of other ray tracers in my
answers.

Granted, I've not heard of POV-Ray being used in the film industry or in
serious engineering applications.  Ray tracers (BMRT in particular) have
been used from time to time in the film industry (by Pixar), but quite
seldom (only a couple of shots).  I have seen ray tracers (though not
POV-Ray, and the one I'm thinking of is actually a photon-mapping
implementation, so more like MegaPov than POV-Ray) being used in
architecture.  I think ray tracing might be used for car ads once in a
while, since the reflection off car paint is hard to fake, but I don't
think they were using POV-Ray for that (something with NURBS support,
probably).

POV-Ray is certainly used by artists and hobbyists.  It can also be used
by students, since it introduces many of the major concepts in 3D
graphics.  Unlike BMRT, there isn't a commercial application built on
the same scene description language, so it's not so directly useful to
students, who often migrate from BMRT to PRMan.

FWIW, I've found that ray tracers are often written by students as an
exercise.  I'm not sure how many students over the years have gotten
credit for code that they eventually contributed to POV-Ray.

Based on support requests I've gotten (from NASA, med schools, chemistry
departments, etc.) there are some applications to scientific
visualization.  Ray tracing does a lovely job of making pictures of
spheres, and it's popular among many chemists for rendering high-quality
molecular model images.  I've seen it used to generate an animation
showing an asteroid moving in an unusual orbit.  It's sometimes used in
the computer industry in research (mostly in parallel processing) and
sales (look how fast our cluster renders skyvase.pov).

-Mark Gordon

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Adam wrote:

> Then, let me put it this way. Does anyone make good money using
> Povray. 
>I'm talking computer art expos, product design teams, architects, city
>planning, anything of the sort. I haven't heard anyone say a thing
>about the usefullness of Povray.

Remco de Korte uses it for educational purposes,
http://www.xs4all.nl/~remcodek/pov.html


Ingo

-- 
Photography: http://members.home.nl/ingoogni/
Pov-Ray    : http://members.home.nl/seed7/

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In article <3993E47A.D758ADC2@erols.com>, John VanSickle 
<van### [at] erolscom> wrote:

> POV-Ray is an excellent tool for testing one's knowledge of trig and
> analytical geometry.  Without a modeler, a firm grasp of AG is
> essential in achieving the broadest variety of scenery.

Not essential...for example, I haven't taken either of them yet.(I will 
be taking Analytical Geometry and Trigonometry this year.)
However, I do expect to have an easier time with those subjects because 
of my experience with POV-Ray.

-- 
Christopher James Huff - Personal e-mail: chr### [at] maccom
TAG(Technical Assistance Group) e-mail: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg
Personal Web page: http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG Web page: http://tag.povray.org/

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It is truly a privelege to hear from Nathan Kopp, the creator of MegaPov. One
thing you may have misinterpreted is what I said about artists. When I added,
"at least that's what they call themselves," I wasn't implying that they're not
artsts but think they are. On the contrary, I see them as artists, and even they
consider themselves as artists. Oh, and to me, artists are those who make images
for non-commersial purposes (such as advertisement), for non-competitive
purposes, for non-utilitarian purposes, for non-educational purposes, but more
for the sake of creating. Pardon if I missed something.
  But I would like to see an already powerful program lie Povray be more
"user-friendly," so to speak. By the way, I never really used 3D Studio Max, so
I don't know whether it has a text editor. I find it hard to believe that it
does not offer one.

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I bet if a friend of mine was reading your response, he would have thought I
wrote it. I myself am a mechanical engineer turned electrical, but I'm fond of
computer science. I used to do some art also, ceramics of all things. I have a
long mathematical background, especially in multivariable Calculus and with
engineering, a lot of differential equations and linear algebra. Not too much
analytical geometry though.
   I'm also interested in everything, so it's hard for me to find a hobby. I have
these temporary obsessions. It used to be, I was really into assembly programming
for graphing calculators. Then, it was bicycling, and so on. I also strive to be
the best at what I do, and to do my best. The only difference is that I'm the
younger brother, and I'm the one who's following in someone's footsteps.

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"Peter Popov" <pet### [at] usanet> wrote in message
news:pge7pss8f9bg68jgk0p60ie0d359q13gl8@4ax.com...
> That's the best part with computers. You can use them as calculators,
> or for Pokemon (whatever *that* is), or for driving scooters (with a
> good 3D card and surround sound :) ) ... you can even use a
> screwdriver on them <grin>


gets his hands on it and you find that when you try it in your GameBoy, you
don't get any results, and believe me, I've had to do this before :-(

Finally, his parents just bought me a new one after they seen him "playing"
with it (and after I've taken it apart several times to wiggle things apart)

-Ian

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