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POV-Ray 3.6 Released
ehmdjii writes "After a long betatesting-phase the POV-Ray team just released version 3.6 of the popular opensource raytracer. It's been two years since the last version and many bugs have been fixed as well as some changes in the render core. This release concentrates on stability and providing a framework for future re-implementations."
Seems like povray is used for many cool things.
e.g. rendering mars. Also done here
I'm a big fan of POV-Ray. I've been using it for years to illustrate chemistry through on-line animations.
Omnis amans amens
Not only was POV distributed under it's own license, the maintainers had (have?) a policy of identifying people and organisations who violated their license terms in the next update of the license document. The v3.1 license states:
Up until I first noticed this passage in one of their licenses, I really never stopped to think about the difference between open source / freeware / PD / shareware - it was the first time I realised that giving away your software doesn't mean you're giving away your rights as well. The irony, of course, is that I first got into POV-Ray after finding v1.0 on a "PC Format" cover diskette. :)
-- Open Source: It's mad, but you don't have to work here to help.
Not nearly as nice as some of the pro stuff out there, but definitely usable for the rank amateurs among us.
:-)
POV-Ray's a bit different from usual 3D rendering and modelling software, in that a lot of the effort has gone into making a programming language which can then be used to generate objects. Typical renderers strive to render as many triangles as possible as quickly as possible, while POV-Ray gives you an entire programming environment. For instance, while a typical 3D modeller might laboriously hand-craft a tree out of triangles, shaders and alpha-blended foliage textures, a POV-Ray user would effectively write a program for generating trees.
A different approach giving different sorts of results, and while POV-Ray might not be suitable for, say, modelling, animating and rendering feature films, it can be used to create some quirky, glorious images. Who cares if it's not some carbon-copy of Maya or Renderman - an alternative approach is always appreciated.
People are always complaining about 'programmer art'. With POV-Ray, programming is visual art.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
For even more consise examples, check out the POVRay short code contest, where they have everything from landscapes to pottery exhibits to cities to blood-cells -- each in under 256 bytes of source code.
What's really cool is that every time I've emailed him about even the stupidest POV-related item, he's replied and been super cool about it. I interviewed him a couple of years back for a website that never got around to publishing the article. One of the renders he did took nearly six months to finish. Long live the P200, I guess. :D
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I have been using PovRay for many years now as well as other professional tools. I also work with coding of 3D engines.
I would say a few things in regard to PovRay.
1) It is a complete ray tracer.
2) Its interface is not as good as (some of) the pro-tools, but...
3) Its open source.
Item 1. PovRay support all you need to render images in 3D. Just look at their site, in the hall of fame. The rainy street image is amazing.
Item 2. This is probable the issue that will be discussed most. But I believe the interface developed over the years (originally I worked with PovRay way back when it didn't have a GUI) - is now at a level where it is useful for anyone who which to use it. Of cause you need to think mathematically about 3D, rather than visual. There is not any drag and drop functionality where you can add a box, a cone etc. to your scene. This scares a lot of people away, but most of the professionals I have worked with, and most of my own work, the drag-drop-icon-what-ever GUI is not really that useful. You always end up entering some popup box to insert the exact measurements of you box, cone, sphere...
Item 3. Yes! I once was in a project where we needed a 3D engine to display the results we made. (The project itself was not related to 3D at all, but we needed a good way to display the complex set of results and date.) We made it in such a way that it displayed the results as pov-ray data files, and integrated it into powray. It was awesome. I don't know of any other product that would allow you to do this. Most of the integration was related to Item 2 above, as pov-ray uses text based and script like files as input. This is ideal for programs to handle as their output. Try to do that in any other program.
In relation to all the items above, I believe you have to be slightly nerdish or mathematically minded in order to fully benefit from PovRay - but then again, welcome to Slashdot.
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
Apparently I picked an excellent time to look into POVRay, as it was just after 3.6 had been released. In fact the Windows distribution was still buggy and wouldn't install so I had to go with 3.5. It must have been just that day that it was released.
Anyway, I was at first put-off by the lack of a visual interface ("how the f**k are you supposed to do all that with just text?!?"), but after messing around with Moray (a visual front-end for POV), I determined that I had fewer problems just typing it all in. I think it's my experience programming versus my lack of experience with doing anything in 3D other than a few Quake maps.
Of course, I'm still limited to doing very basic things, but I'm beginning to understand the power of POV--especially the fact that it's a complete language. I find it amazing that people have written macros that will automatically generate everything from trees to whole cities.
No discussion of the excellent POV-Ray renderer would be complete without a mention of The Internet Ray-Tracing Competition, which is graciously sponsored by a member of the POV-Ray team. While POV-Ray would certainly exist without the IRTC, it is questionable whether the reverse is true.
On a personal note, I'd like to echo all of the positive comments about POV-Ray. Around 1988, I began writing my own ray-tracer, in Modula-2 of all things. But then I ran across POV-Ray on a BBS, and realized that I'd spend the rest of my life eating their dust and sniffing their butt fumes, so I dropped mine and have never regretted it. POV-Ray stands out among its kin--not perfect by any means, but excellent nevertheless.