I am unsure this is the proper form for this message. It regards
creating a personal version of POV-Ray, from the supplied source code. I
feel the people here know the most about this subject. If I am posting in
the wrong news group please inform me of the proper one so that I can
approach the proper people. I do not wish to add useless bandwidth and
disrupt those who frequent this group.

    I am a person who has come to a point in my life where I wish to fulfill
personal goals. Do to illness, I find my self with more time on my hands. I
want to use the time remaining to reach my personal goals. Only recently, I
began to feel it was possible. This took me out of a state of feeling
worthlessness caused by the progressive medical problem that ended my
career. Two of three goals involve the use of 3D graphics. The other one is
to go to spend a week at Disney with my closest friends and family, which my
sister is arranging; I owe her a lot.

    However, this message is about the other two goals, both require 3D
graphic models. One is the wish to create 3D animation, for after finishing
college I so wanted to be an animator rather than a programmer. Spending
several years learning drawing, painting, airbrush I want so to be a Disney
animator; a profession that is harder to get into than Harvard. However, I
had to make a living, wanting to eat and have a roof over my head, I went
back to programming as a career. Then the second personal goal came to me,
creating a multi-user 3D RPG game only have the people at EverQuest beat me
to it. :)

    Thanks again to my sister I feel those are very reachable goals again.
Recently she took me to Disney while there; I attended the Disney institute,
taking a computer graphics course. I found that I could still do the things
I always wanted it raised my spirits greatly. Only to return home to find
that the software needed was very expensive.

    Then one day while searching the net, I found a freeware program to do
the same things I did at the class at Disney called Anim8or. Therefore, I
wished to find a way to use that application to create 3D animation and 3D
objects for a small RGP game. I have sight problems making it hard to use
that application. However, the author was kind enough to make changes to
meet some of my needs. However, I can not and will not, expect someone to
put their life on hold meeting my needs. I then remembered that POV-Ray was
an application that allowed one to use a text editor to create 3D scenes
from basic primitives using powerful manipulation tools. This filled me with
great hope.

    Alas, I could not find an object export/import to allow me to tie the
two applications together. Anim8or has then but the scripting language in
POV-Ray did not. It could my own stupidly, if so, any correction is wanted.
However, I found that the source to POV-Ray was open for download. This
meant that I could try to add these commands to it myself. This brings me to
my questions.

    Does POV-Ray convert primitives to triangles for any processing? Can
this data/functions be accessed for formatting and output into a 3D file
format (ASCII Vectors, 3DS, LWO, OBJ, etc.). Where/what are they. I have
been looking though the code and feel it is possible, but would like to know
as to not waste my time or mess up the code. The code is very well
organized/done and makes me feel very inadequate as to my own programming
skills.

    Is there a function that one can pass an object to from the database and
have it converted to a mesh, triangles, or vectors?

    I figure one can import objects in and just add them to the Object
linked list. Does this seem right?

   In the end, am I completely wrong wasting my time on such a project?

    Please do not give this anymore time than it really needs. I know the
people here are very busy with their own projects. I do not wish to be of a
nuisance so will understand if I get no answers. Any will be greatly
appreciated, but will only be used by myself. They are no use by the average
user and are very proprietary. I am also sorry this message is longer than
it needed to be.

Post a reply to this message

First, please excuse me for not quoting any of your original post, but
my writing style is somewhat disordered (esp. at 4:25 am :) ) and it
is easier for me this way rather than following a set structure.

There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news (with regard to
your current project) is that POV does not tesselate objects
internally (with the exception of the bicubic_patch object). With some
clever use of the trace() function in MegaPOV
(http://www.nathan.kopp.com/patched.html), the macro feature and the
file i/o capabilities of the POV script, a macro can be written which
would tesselate any shape defined in POV. The good news is, one such
macro (called TriScan) was posted on this server just a couple of days
ago in the povray.binaries.scene-files group. You may want to check it
out before you venture in the depths of coding a generalized
tesselated algorithm (which would have to use something else than
marching cubes because it is patented afaik).

Good luck in fulfilling your dreams!


Peter Popov
pet### [at] usanet
ICQ: 15002700

Post a reply to this message

The format is ok; the insightfulness of the answer outweighs any
possible formatting/structure issues. Your message's organization is well
done, no matter the time of day, especially at 4:25 am.

    I did check out your link, and will seek out the file mentioned in that
newsgroup. Thank you for helping me save wasted time. The vast knowledge,
experience, and helpfulness of the news group community have always
impressed me.

    On a minor side note, the link you provided
(http://www.nathan.kopp.com/patched.html) seems to be broken. I received a
'The page cannot be found' error in my browser. It was not a problem; I just
removed the file name (patched.html), hoping to reach the root page, and
found it from there. The webpage stated that the author had recently
reorganized the whole site. I was successful in finding MegaPOV and was glad
I did it this way. I found great quaintness of useful information. The
quality, creativeness, and possibilities that an application like Anim8or,
POV-Ray, and MegaPOV are and offers impressed me. They fall into Einstein's
ideal of modern tech being magic- the wand of the modern magician. Moreover,
The people involved have done more, for me at least, then they will ever
know..

"Peter Popov" <pet### [at] usanet> wrote in message
news:at3WOEdChzCkF8A3bkhdzcvi2Zio@4ax.com...
> First, please excuse me for not quoting any of your original post, but
> my writing style is somewhat disordered (esp. at 4:25 am :) ) and it
> is easier for me this way rather than following a set structure.
>
> There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news (with regard to
> your current project) is that POV does not tesselate objects
> internally (with the exception of the bicubic_patch object). With some
> clever use of the trace() function in MegaPOV
> (http://www.nathan.kopp.com/patched.html), the macro feature and the
> file i/o capabilities of the POV script, a macro can be written which
> would tesselate any shape defined in POV. The good news is, one such
> macro (called TriScan) was posted on this server just a couple of days
> ago in the povray.binaries.scene-files group. You may want to check it
> out before you venture in the depths of coding a generalized
> tesselated algorithm (which would have to use something else than
> marching cubes because it is patented afaik).
>
> Good luck in fulfilling your dreams!
>
>
> Peter Popov
> pet### [at] usanet
> ICQ: 15002700

Post a reply to this message

This is the URL for Nathan's site:
http://www.nathan.kopp.com/patched.htm

Note that there is no "l" on the end.

Post a reply to this message

Thank you... Yes, that link works fine. I will make note of it.

    The full site is also a good place to see the possibilities granted by
POV-Ray and MegaRay. His whole site is very informative.


"Mike Wilson" <maw### [at] iastateedu> wrote in message
news:38D781C3.F15A195D@iastate.edu...
>
> This is the URL for Nathan's site:
> http://www.nathan.kopp.com/patched.htm
>
> Note that there is no "l" on the end.

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 21 Mar 2000 08:05:55 -0600, Mike Wilson <maw### [at] iastateedu>
wrote:

>
>This is the URL for Nathan's site:
>http://www.nathan.kopp.com/patched.htm
>
>Note that there is no "l" on the end.

Argh! Some people never learn...

:)


Peter Popov
pet### [at] usanet
ICQ: 15002700

Post a reply to this message

JR McConnell wrote:

>      I am a person who has come to a point in my life where I wish to fulfill
> personal goals.
>  Spending
> several years learning drawing, painting, airbrush I want so to be a Disney
> animator; a profession that is harder to get into than Harvard.
>     Thanks again to my sister I feel those are very reachable goals again.
> Recently she took me to Disney while there; I attended the Disney institute,
> taking a computer graphics course. I found that I could still do the things
> I always wanted it raised my spirits greatly. Only to return home to find
> that the software needed was very expensive.

Godspeed your dreams.

I met a professional animator, a woman who was on the team who did the
"medicine-man monkey" from Lion King. She said that she did not know how to even
use a word processor, that computer generated stuff was too expensive and slow,
and that there were things you COULD NOT do with computers that are easy to do
with drawing. I think she was talking about  squash and stretch but also wrong!

My dream is to be a Nick Parks or that Veggie-Tale guy, to have a little cult
following, or maybe just boost some kind of charity group with a public service
ad.  I think I would be bored to death by the culture of either Disney or Lucas
Films. I want to be the small fish in the microscopic pond.  I'm too old to be a
little fish in a big pond again...

Post a reply to this message

Huh?

--
Regards,
Sander


Greg M. Johnson <gre### [at] my-dejanewscom> schreef in berichtnieuws
38DFE1E0.D1A2C585@my-dejanews.com...
> JR McConnell wrote:
>
> <snip>  I'm too old to be a
> little fish in a big pond again...
>

Post a reply to this message