Re: Past and future

[Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Angel Jimenez wrote:

> Hi all.
        [...]
>  Some time ago, I started thinking about my future, so I decided to work on
> some nice ideas, and keep the code for myself. I worked on physics, doing
> cloth, rope, hair, and fluid simulation. I also worked on some global

Interesting.  Definately not easy stuff! :-)

> lighting stuff, researching photon maps and other Monte Carlo techniques,
> and then, one day, I discovered real time graphics...
>

>  On one hand, I think most of the techniques used in real time graphics
> could be used to reduce rendering time on a photorealistic renderer. On the
> other hand, I don?t think anybody is using a raytracer in production at

Our 3-D imaging research group are.

> all... Most of the people are using Maya, 3D Studio, Softimage, etc, so, for
> them, the world is a bunch of triangles and little more...
>
>  Well, I will give you my idea in two words: kill panorama. It?s mostly dead
> now anyway, and, although some people is interested in working on it, I am
> sure most of you will agree that the world has changed a bit, and the main
> idea behind Panorama is not that good anymore...

Here is what I liked about it:
    Built relatively easily.
    Scene files relatively simple to construct (even if I did get caught out
    by cones coming to a point and no default lighting).
>
>  What I propose is: why don?t we start from scratch, give a more realistic
> goal to the project, and use as much code as we can from the old one?
>
>  My proposed goal is simple to describe. A system that takes Maya (or any
> other 3D soft) input, and make an image/movie out of it. But, instead of

Is such input proprietry -- I mean is is an open standard or is
permission needed to use it?  I don't know Maya...

> forcing this program to use our format, we will use its own one. Instead of

The old grammer could still be supported, couldn't it?

> having every possible geometric object, we will have the fastest possible
> triangle raytracer. Instead of creating a whole new material system, we

Having only triangles will mean that people have to do their own
meshing.  I think this wold make it less useable

> could use the existing ones...
>
>  I am talking about Maya because it is probably the most common 3D soft, and

Have you a URL for the main source of info on it? How does its
popularity compare with POVRay?

> it is both in Linux and Windows. As you can imagine, I would be working on
> windows now. But the project could be multiplatform from scratch (it is not
        [...]
>
>  I won?t give many technical details now. It would be a simpler design,
> taking a lot of code out from the project (my apologies to the authors, but
> most of them is mine anyway...). It could be split in two parts: front-end,
> with a scene input plugin (modular desing, of course) that creates a

Different grammars could be supported then...

> database of the scene/film. And a back end, with a renderer that uses some
> image/video output plugins.
>
        [....]
>
>
>
>  Regards,
>  Angel
>
        Hugh