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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."
This release concentrates on stability and providing a framework for future re-implementations.
Translation:
We know this shit is kind of broken, but we've cleaned it up best we can; here, we've tried to make sense of it; could someone who knows what they're doing maybe come in and rewrite it for us?
Povray, like circleMUD, is one of those software packages whose releases seem to come few and far-between, but are often worth it...
;)
I, for one, welcome our new chrome-sphere-over-checkboard overlords.
You know, a friend of mine, after I installed povray on his machine, asked me, "So, where's the GUI...?"
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Take a look at this site:
/ histoire/francais/index.htm
http://www.oyonale.com/
http://www.oyonale.com
Gorgeous stuff! All rendered with POV-Ray!
Not nearly as nice as some of the pro stuff out there, but definitely usable for the rank amateurs among us.
I wonder if that might be more accurately stated in the reverse: Definitely better than some of the pro stuff out there, but not nearly as usable for the rank amateurs among us.
It's actually far harder to use than simple point-click-and-drag solutions like 3dsmax or Maya, but the results can be just as good. Two of my favorite POV-Ray images:
'The Wet Bird'
'Chado'
I can't even imagine putting those images together using POV-Ray. Using 3dsmax, sure. But POV-Ray? Wow.
Its not GPL, it was started years ago under a different license.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I suppose no article on POV-Ray is complete without a link to the work of Gilles Tran, creator of some utterly amazing works in his 'Book of Beginnings'. It's art, it's programming (check out stuff like his Pipes macro), and it's literature - all the pictures are accompanied by am intriguing, often tangential short story, which abruptly ends mid-sentence...
Highly recommended!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
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
Download page says "Note: this is the version 3.5 source code.
The version 3.6 source code will be made available within a few weeks."
And their ftp server tell us:
"With the POV-Ray 3.6 release on 9 June 2004, source is not
immediately available. It will be released shortly. If you
want source code, you could look in our old versions dirs."
So, be patient.
POV-Ray is not open source. The license forbids, among others, commercial distribution. In fact now that I read the 3.6 license, it seems to forbid distribution, PERIOD.
This seems to be an interesting contrast to this comment where someone (apparently a POV-Ray developer?) discusses plans to release POV-Ray under an open source license and explains why this is not currently possible:
"we can't reach many of the people who contributed the original code under the old license, so we don't have the right to just switch the license. We'll have to rewrite some pretty big chunks of code before we can think about a more open license. That (the rewrite) is slated to happen for the next major release."
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?
Gilles Tran, the artist who made 'The Wet Bird' piece has a wonderful 9-page series of web pages on The Making of the Web Bird He's one of the best 3D artists our there in any media. You can see more of his gallery here
Cool! They've changed the speed of light!
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.
If you want to support this guy, he sells his work through zazzle
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
"Sure the pro ones can claim all kinds of features that are barely more than excuses to use patents,"
Huh? What features are you talking about? I ask because if you go back and forth between MAX, Maya, and Lightwave, there's very little you don't get. Usually the big difference is in implementation, can't say I know anything about the 'excuses to use patents' bit.
As for 'claiming all kinds of features'... what exactly is your motivating thought behind that comment? The last 3 releases of Maya, 3D Studio MAX, and Lightwave (probably true for XSI as well, but I have not followed it) have all had impressive features that made the creation of quality 3D art easier to do. You claim that povray's renderer is 'second to none'. Well I honestly can't tell you where it stands as I haven't used it. I can tell you, though, that these days the big bottleneck is the artist, not the engine moving the pixels around. 'Features' are a big part of making sure an artist can express themselves. If the interface is getting in your way, then the renderer isn't doing you a lick of good.
I have NFI why anybody'd dismiss 'software for the pros' so easily.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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Moray's an excellent modeller for POV-Ray. The author does a great job of keeping up with the latest capabilities of POV, even when major features are added. You can use photons, radiosity, etc., all without hand-editing the resulting POV-code. But for those who do enjoy writing POV-code by hand, Moray's convenient for those situations where you wonder what command you need to do X, and where exactly it goes in the code...
it's interesting to see comments that pit povray against these other applications which are really intended to put a great amount of creative control at the hands of the user...
there are some fundamental differences between povray vs maya/max/etc which aren't so apparent but important to distinguish the applications.
pov models and renders objects based on the mathematical description of the surface. maya/max on the other hand models objects based on triangulating the surface. while it seems esoteric, it is a fundamental difference which really puts these applications into two different classes. try modeling a quaternion fractalor other mathematical shape/function in maya... additionally the complex and random model generation that pov has(onyale's pipe macro, chris colfax macros) is not something easily created with these other apps.
maya and max on the other hand have a strong UI to help put a layer between the user and the code itself. there's no way you could do the type of modeling in pov that you could in maya. pov is very methodical; plan out the image, heavy previsualization, utilization of macros and includes to manage the items you previously created. maya provides immediate feedback as items are created, providing a more fine art approach of creation, kinda like working with clay as opposed to architecting a building.
comparing these applications (pov/max/maya) is like comparing a car to a plane... they are both used for transportation, but the mechanisms to implement the main function is vastly different(it's not the best analogy, take it with a grain of salt)...
perhaps a more productive discussion would be to have some kind of shootout between maya, max, and blender.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Whoah!
Can you imagine pissing off the authors of an open source project so much that they specifically name you in their modified license?!?
This would be akin to a modified GPL version 4,
"Provided by the management for your protection."