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."

Comments

Re:Great, for a free package

[Ford Prefect]

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. :-)

Re:Gilles Tran!

[black mariah]

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