Note: This page won't be updated anymore ABOUT POVRAY I always wanted to make those cool-looking 3-dimensional images, you know those computer-images. But I wasn't able to find a program to make any. Then on one of my surfing trips I came upon a page which led me to PovRay; Persistence of Vision ray tracing The program is freeware, and downloadable from www.povray.org (Note: Windows 95 optimized, but will work on 3.11) The really great thing about this program is the fact it's free! Normal other ray-tracing programs cost hundred and hundreds of dollars, so you really should first check this one out if you're interested. BUT! Beware! It isn't just a normal paint-tool. It does not involve drawing shapes on a screen using a mouse. Nope. The image itself is made by the computer. You just put in the coordinates, distances, light sources, shapes, colors and so on. It requires some knowledge about vectors and stuff like that. It's more like AutoCAD in a way. You could compare it with MIDI music. You just tell the computer what to play, and the computer will play it. In ray-tracing, you tell the computer what to draw, and the the computer will draw it. You can see the "source" of the image above by clicking here. The problem is, you can't really see what you're doing until the image is rendered. And with complicated images that could take a while, even on a P166. Still, it's fun to make simple images or animations that look quite good, and which would be impossible to make on a normal paint-program, and the freedom you have is limitless. You want a glass object? No problem. Spotlight? Ok. Fog? Sure! Do you want to see what's possible? Go to www.povray.org. Look at the images the contest winners made, or go and see the Gallery. You will see some stunning results there. MY FIRST STEPS... This is one of my first creations:

It's dull, I know, and there's un sufficient light, but it is one of my first tries. It consists of a plane (the background), a cylinder, a sphere and a disc. And I Added a spotlight to make it all visible. The colors aren't so pretty either, I think.

No, it isn't my second creation, it is one of the sample-files included with Povray. I just thought it demonstrates the capabilities of the software real good. Though I haven't got an idea how to make something like this (yet!)

So, that was some time ago. Now I have, as you can see, graphically enhanced my home page with self-made images made with Povray. I'm really getting into the program and the great thing is that I can actually use it for my study, to make great 3D pictures of things that I design. (Yes, we use AutoCad at school, but only 2D yet!) I especially like the way you can play with light, and different types of light etc. Though the images with lots of "area light" tend to render forever! The image above ("ray-tracing"), originally 640x480, took 1h30 on my P166. THE @-ANIMATION You probably have seen the golden rotating @ at the bottom of my index page, if not check it out first. These kind of animations are easily made with Povray. Once you have the object you want, you can easily do anything with it you want. You can for example, scale it (change the size), move it, rotate it, stretch it etc. etc. You can also give it any color you want or some kind of texture (included with Povray). The golden color I got was coincidence. The actual color is "Coral" but while playing with the various finishattributes (they are used to make a surface shiny, reflecting, dull, that kind of things) I got this great Golden look, so I decided to keep it. The "@" itself is a TrueType Font named "timer.ttf" and is included with Povray. So I gave the @ some depth and placed it central on the Y-axis. The only thing which had to be done next, was rotating the object around the Y-axis. In my first try I rotated the @ 20 degreed each time, resulting in an animation with 18 frames. When I made the animation using the Gif Construction Set, I got an animation which wasn't fluid. I increased the frames by rotating with 10 degrees. The result as can be seen contains 35 frames. (36-1) You can also see the source for the image above.