Sent by Douglas Triggs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
LinArt List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > On Wed, 27 Aug 1997, [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> > > AFAIK, Rayshade was a kind of predecessor of Povray. I think POV was
> > > built on
> > > Rayshade. Anyways, POV is *excellent* but I'd also like to know if
> > > there is any
> > > modeling software for it around. The scripting language is a bit tough
> > >for me,
> > > esp. since I don't really have the time to sit and learn it.
> > Yeah, trying to figure it all out is the hard part. I'm thinking that maybe
> > a parallel to your modeling software for Povray is like xfig to PostScript.
> > PS can be programmed directly but xfig makes it so much easier.
Normally with commercial stuff like Lightwave, 3D Studio or whatnot,
the rendering engine is completely integrated with the modeller, so
there's really no distinction. This isn't true with Rayshade (or
POVray, I imagine), which need an accessible scripting language.
> But IMHO direct programming is almost always better... Ok, it's more
> work, but the results are better. It's like direct coding of HTML and
> HTML WYSIWYG-Editors - their results are normally really bad.
> IMHO the same counts for Povray.
I don't know; you can do some truly amazing things fairly trivially
with the commercial software I've used. That's not to say I don't
want a scripting language (or a good C/C++ interface for extending the
scripting language to include new operations and/or primitives). HTML
is an odd case in that (1) the language itself is so simple that
building a special editor for it is truly overkill (2) most of the
editors I seen seem to be unusually crappy, maybe because all the
people who would write a good one don't bother because of (1).
Incidentally, Lightwave (which I've used quite a bit) contained both a
really good modeller and scripting facilities (through AREXX on the
Amiga). I'd like to see a lot of what went into that appear in
something in Linux, because when you reach critical mass with free
software, amazing things can happen (look at GCC, GIMP, the web, or
Linux itself).
I'm of half a mind to write my own modeller if I can't find one that
makes me happy (presumably in TCL/TK and C++ which I have a lot of
experience with). It would be nice if there was a standard language
for renderers (akin to HTML, say -- does anything else support POVray
code?) It would be even nicer if there was some sort of "standard"
raytracer/renderer package out there like the GIMP supporting
generalized modules for various things that other people crate. I
don't know -- maybe that's POVray, I haven't seen it yet.
Anyway, that's my wish list... (^:
doubt
--
Douglas Triggs -- Sysadmin, Toolsmith, and Certified Crazy Person
Work address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Permanent address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.lensflare.com/~doubt
