>> camera{
>> hfov 90
>> }
>
> What's wrong with the "angle" keyword?

It isn't obvious from the keyword exactly what it sets, and there isn't a 
vertical equivalent.

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> I think the point of the request is to make easier to choose from the above 
> options without needing to resort to some carefully figured out statements.

  That might have been a minor, secondary point. The main point was that
the current default camera behavior should be changed. *That* is what I
disagreed with.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott wrote:
>> What's wrong with the "angle" keyword?
> 
> It isn't obvious from the keyword exactly what it sets, and there isn't 
> a vertical equivalent.

 From 3.3.1.1.3:
"The angle keyword followed by a float expression specifies the 
(horizontal) viewing angle in degrees of the camera used."

Am I wrong to assume that someone can look up the documentation?

Aside from that, if you want to change the aspect ratio of the image, I 
find POV's up and right vector usage quite easy to use.

But again, I'm one of those weirdos who actually knows how to read (the 
docs).

-- 
Chambers

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>  That might have been a minor, secondary point. The main point was that
> the current default camera behavior should be changed. *That* is what I
> disagreed with.

The current default behaviour means that if you want to render someone elses 
scene for your desktop wallpaper or to print out, you have to search through 
their code for the right camera block and make some changes, I can't even 
remember the number of times I have had to search through and put in some 
"image_width/image_height" statement.  Is this really the best thing for the 
default behaviour?  IMO the default behaviour should mean the least work for 
what is most common, ie if you actually *want* non-square pixels you should 
have to go and fiddle with the code.

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>>> What's wrong with the "angle" keyword?
>>
>> It isn't obvious from the keyword exactly what it sets, and there isn't a 
>> vertical equivalent.
>
> From 3.3.1.1.3:
> "The angle keyword followed by a float expression specifies the 
> (horizontal) viewing angle in degrees of the camera used."
>
> Am I wrong to assume that someone can look up the documentation?

Of course not, but using eg "hfov" instead of "angle" means you don't even 
need to open the documentation to realise what it is setting.  It also then 
means the corresponding vfov could be used, again, without having to lookup 
in the documentation.  Once a language syntax gets more complex it's 
actually really handy to work like this, where most things are "obvious" 
without having to look up in the documentation each time.

> But again, I'm one of those weirdos who actually knows how to read (the 
> docs).

...and I'm one of those weirdos who doesn't like needless inefficiencies, no 
matter how small :-)

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> The current default behaviour means that if you want to render someone elses 
> scene for your desktop wallpaper or to print out, you have to search through 
> their code for the right camera block and make some changes, I can't even 
> remember the number of times I have had to search through and put in some 
> "image_width/image_height" statement.

  If the author didn't put such a statement in their camera block, then
maybe the author didn't even intend for the image to be rendered in other
aspect ratios?

  And if you really want to censor part of the image so that it will fit
your screen, then how about rendering it with the intended aspect ratio
and the width of your screen, and then clip it with image editing software?
At least that way you have more control over what you are censoring.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> > Am I wrong to assume that someone can look up the documentation?

> Of course not, but using eg "hfov" instead of "angle" means you don't even 
> need to open the documentation to realise what it is setting.

  And exactly how would you even know about the "hfov" keyword without
reading the documentation?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott wrote:
> I can't even remember the number of times I have had to search 
> through and put in some "image_width/image_height" statement.

Then you're abusing other peoples' images.  Maybe you should accept the 
fact that particular images are not going to fit your monitor 
full-screen, but will instead have to be either cropped or letterboxed.

 From what you've been saying, it sounds like you'd prefer cropping.

Anyway, I firmly believe that input should be separate from output, and 
that any image should be renderable at any resolution.

-- 
Chambers

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>> Of course not, but using eg "hfov" instead of "angle" means you don't 
>> even
>> need to open the documentation to realise what it is setting.
>
>  And exactly how would you even know about the "hfov" keyword without
> reading the documentation?

Because it comes in the default camera block? (Insert -> Camera -> ...) or 
has been already written in a scene you are looking at?  The benefit then is 
that you can be pretty sure what it means straight away without needing to 
look it up in the documentation.  That's why we use meaningful keywords, so 
you don't have to look up everything.  Otherwise we could just use random 
sequences of letters!

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>  If the author didn't put such a statement in their camera block, then
> maybe the author didn't even intend for the image to be rendered in other
> aspect ratios?

Or maybe they just used the default, couldn't be bothered, or didn't even 
realise?  I still think if you want to enforce some fixed aspect ratio you 
should have to add it specifically, as it is not the usual behaviour needed 
when rendering.

>  And if you really want to censor part of the image so that it will fit
> your screen, then how about rendering it with the intended aspect ratio
> and the width of your screen, and then clip it with image editing 
> software?

So what, I have to search for the correct camera block, figure out what 
aspect ratio is used, compare it to my monitor aspect ratio, work out the 
dimensions so that it will fill my monitor (either width of height is the 
same, the other dimension is calculated), render the image, then load it 
into an image program and crop it to exactly the monitor dimensions?  Sure 
it's possible, but a sensible default behaviour would make it easier...

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