sascha wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I think much of the functions you need are already implemented in POV's
>scene-description-language or in macros shipped with POV-Ray.
>
>E.g:
> > Things I -don't- know how to do include rotating about an arbitrary
> > line (though it seems like I should be able to derive -a- formula, if
> > not an-efficient- formula, from what math I have at this point.
>
>check out:
>Axis_Rotate_Trans(Axis, Angle) or
>Rotate_Around_Trans(Rotation, Point)
>
I'll have to look at these and through the function library then...


>Blobs or sphere sweeps would be an option too. Don't re-invent the
>wheel, check out
<clip>
Yes, I've heard of these, but there are merits to making your own
implementation. There's a reason that undergraduates are asked to re-write
quicksort even though there are implementations available on every
platform...
if my experiments now are repeating some work that's been done, that's fine.
Sooner or later I'm going to get to the point where I'm doing things that
haven't been done - I hope - but if I skip the 'hard parts' and rely on
other
people's include files for my effects, the only skills I'm going to be
building are layout skills.

(which isn't to say that I won't use Axis_Rotate_Trans, or even spray.inc,
just
that I feel a need to do it by hand at least once; there are definite merits
to
letting the computer grind through tedious repeat calculations for something
you can already do, of course.)

In a production environment, of course, these arguments break down, since an
employer's interest is primarily in producing, and improvement of the
employee
is only a secondary (or tertiary or ...) consideration, but I'm not -in- a
production environment, and it's definitely in my first best interest to
improve myself. Erm. That sounds a little... preachy or something... but
maybe
it gets some of the idea across. (also to consider, for me, is that if I
end up with 3D programming employment one day, I won't be able to just stick
'sprays.inc' into a system that isn't povray...)


>If you'd find it, it would render very slow and it would be hard to pose
>or animate it ;-)
>If you're looking for a modeller for POV which let's you model faces,
>human bodies, animals, aliens, etc. check out one of those free tools:
>
I've got blender installed, but I've accomplished nothing useful with it;
I don't use windows, but I will check out
>JPatch - http://jpatch.sourceforge.net
>(Windows, Linux, Mac)
even if it is a shameless advertisement. ;) Java implementations of free
software rock. ;) (*cough* *quickly hides 'advocate' hat under the chair*)


--Chris

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