Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!unido!uniol!Frank.Neumann
From: Frank.Neumann@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (Frank Neumann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Ray Tracing Software
Message-ID: <3749@uniol.UUCP>
Date: 30 Oct 90 21:35:59 GMT
References: <1990Oct29.183256.19968@warwick.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Oldenburg, Germany
Lines: 38

Hi there,
cstaqdc@warwick.ac.uk writes:

>I am about to purchase an A5000 accelerator board (68020 + FPU) for my humble
>A500, and I was wondering which is the best (or best-value-for-money) ray
>tracing program available. Animation is not really necessary, I am only really
>interested in stills. I have already tried DBW Render (PD ray tracer) but I it
>always GURUs out on me (#5 - divide by zero).
Well, as I think this is a quite common error to a lot of DBW_Render users,
here is what I have experienced:
When creating attributes that are in some way TRANSPARENT
(say transparency 0.2 0 0.1 ; this concerns DBW_Render V2.0, btw),
the INDEX value _MUST_ be non-zero! Otherwise the program does a division
by zero somewhere else, and Guru's with a #00000005 .. I've seen this a
lot before I found out 8-) ...hope this helps (at least partially)

>So I was wondering if anyone could give me any info on PD/commercial software
>- the cheaper the better (as I am only just starting), but I am willing to be
>persuaded to splash out a bit !!
The Raytracing package that I can _REALLY_ recommend is DKBTrace - it's
PD (or at least Freeware - correct me if I'm wrong, Mr Papa ;-))
It's got quite a bunch of new ideas for Raytracers - like clouds, 'bozo'
type textures, 'damaged' surfaces, and lots more... although this goodie
requires some RAM...
You can ftp DKBTrace from alfred.ccs.carleton.ca  (134.117.1.1) as
/pub/dkbtrace/DKBAmiga.tar.Z and /pub/dkbtrace/DKBIFFPics.tar

[...]
>Remember - Amiga owners do it on the Workbench !!
Well.. not particularly all - I don't know when I ran loadwb last time -
so I'd rather say 'Amiga owners (sometimes) do it without mouse' !?! ;^)

So long,
Frank
-- 
+ Frank Neumann, Hauptstr. 107, 2900 Oldenburg, FRG   The Amiga is it.  +
+ Frank.Neumann@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de InHouse: amigo@faramir +
+ Zerberus: neumann@uniol.zer BitNet:295391@DOLUNI1.BITNET IRC: Franky  +