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"Mid Night Modeler" version 2.0 (C)1994-95 - David Taylor All rights reserved! SHAREWARE version written by Chris Fulton/David Taylor README doc for MNM2BETA.ZIP **************** PLEASE READ!!! This document was written in a fast manner in order to allow everybody to mess with MNM version 2.0, before it's actually released. The real release of MNM will have FULL documentation of all of it's commands and interfaces. We are working on the help doc now as we speak. I suspect it to be finish by Jan 01, 1995. When the time comes, a file called "MNM.ZIP" will be uploaded to the major bulletin boards, which will contain MNM v2.0 and its documentation. **************** LEGAL stuff First! In no way, shape or form may any of the files from "Mid Night Modeller" be altered, without the Author's permission, besides the "MNM.INI" config file, and the MNM.MNM startup file. All other MNM (Mid Night Modeller for short) files contained in mnm2beta.zip must stay unaltered before and after unzipping. The authors of Mid Night Modeller are NOT responsible for any damages that this program "Mid Night Modeller" may cause. You use this program at YOUR OWN RISK. The possibility of your system being harmed, is quiet small. NO ONE may SELL mnm for a profit without a consent form. BBS's may charge for downloading fee's...such as connect time charges, but can't profit by charging for MNM specifically. This program is SHAREWARE and must remain shareware. Shareware is NOT FREEWARE, but allows people to test a product before buying it. A REGISTERED version of this program it NOT free and may NOT be copied to another computer. Again, this program is SHAREWARE and not a REGISTERED copy of MNM. So, give this program to your friends. Treat MNM like a book. Any person(s), violating the copyright laws will be treated as a criminal and subjected to criminal penalties. **************** INSTALLING Make sure you unzipped the MNM.ZIP file with the -d option, in its own directory (preferably named "MNM2"). This is very necessary in order to save you time installing MNM. After which YOU MUST EDIT "MNM.INI" TO MATCH YOUR SYSTEM. After unzipping with -d, open the "MNM.INI" file (located in the main directory of mnm), and change the default dir's to what they really are. Normally, an install program would do this for you, but there's no install program at this time, sorry. MNM needs to have it's own directory along with 2 sub-directories within it's main dir, in order to operate properly. These two dir's should be named WORK and SUPPORT. Example: C:\ ---- MNM2\ | |_____ WORK\ | |_____ SUPPORT\ The MNM2 directory should contain these file types: *.INI, *.EXE's, *.OVL's, *.DLL's, *.FNT's and *.DOC's The WORK sub-directory should contain *.MNM files. And the SUPPORT sub-directory should contain these file types: *.DAT, *.DLG, *.SHP, *.MNU, *.WRK MNM needs to know where on your disk these directories are located. It reads the "MNM.INI" file for this info. You MUST edit this file and replace the default dir's to match your system before MNM will run correctly. If you unzipped MNM.ZIP with the -d option, the WORK and SUPPORT directories were created for you. But the "MNM.INI" will STILL contain default directories, and in most cases, the information is not correct for your system. The directories must contain a drive letter and full path without a trailing "\". Example: SUPPORT_DIR("C:\MNM2\SUPPORT"); That's it! Once you modify "mnm.ini", MNM will run correctly, assuming your computer matches the system requirements below. **************** SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Requirements: - 386DX IBM or 100% compatible. - Math co-processor. - DOS 4.1 or greater. - 4 megabytes of RAM. - HardDisk with at least 2 megabytes FREE. - VGA card. - MicroSoft compatible mouse. Recommended: - 486DX/25mhz or greater. - DOS 6.0 or greater. - 16 megabytes of RAM. - 16 megabytes of free diskspace. - a SVGA card and monitor capable of displaying 16.7 million colors. - And of course, POV-Ray 2.0 or greater, and related POV-Ray utilities. **************** WHERE TO GET HELP You can find help for MNM where you can find POV-Ray. Post a message on your local BBS where you found MNM. There are plenty of people using MNM and should be able to help you out with any problems related to MNM and POV-Ray. Support for MNM is also at these National Network services below. You can write E-Mail to the author's and/or visit the graphics forums that these services provide. It is recommended that you use these services instead of your local BBS, because the authors can be found easily at these places. Name: David Taylor (Main Author): CIS ID#: 74364,1437 (CompuServe) AOL ID#: DavidT4177 (America On-Line) Internet ID#: DavidT4177@aol.com Home address: David Taylor 3875 Elkwood street. Newbury Park, California 91320 Name: Chris Fulton (contributing author): AOL ID#: Tridan (America On-Line) Internet ID#: Tridan@aol.com Home Address: Chris Fulton 1902 Crestview Drive Danville, Illinois 61832 On CompuServe, go visit the GRAPHDEV forum and post a message in lib(8) which is the POV-Ray message-base. This by the way, is where the POV-Ray Team hangs out. You can find the latest version MNM and POV-Ray there along with many utilities. On America On-Line, select "Keyword" from the Main Menu and enter POV. You will be in the Rendering Resource center. Then, select the "POV Ray-Trace" item in the scroll box to enter the POV section. Here, you can find many utilities for POV-Ray also and can post messages as well. NOTE: There is no guarantee that the authors will write back. They aren't obligated unless the program is registered. However, they will try to help everybody out and they love feed-back (good or bad), so don't feel intimidated to write to them. Remember, feed-back is what makes a program better and better. Also, if you want to send a file to the authors, Please ask for their permission first before uploading - it's just good business, plus it costs money to download/upload. **************** REGISTERING MNM is SHAREWARE and NOT CRIPPLE-WARE! We want to continue to provide POV-Ray user's a good solid fully functional professional modeling package. We hope you will find the product useful and that you will register it after an evaluation period. This evaluation period may be as long as you like, but registering it tells us we are doing a good job, and your support means every thing to us. When you decide to REGISTER, you will receive the latest REGISTERED version of MNM, which includes the following: - A Spiral Bound Printed Manual. - A disk containing the latest registered version of MNM. - First priority Tech support. - Discounts on future versions. - Several scene files. - MORE FEATURES! as they are added. The Price for this: Printed Manual $8.00 MNM v2.0 $49.00 ------------------------------- Shipping and handling $3.00 ------------------------------- TOTAL $60.00 It's for a good cause! MNM deserves it! If you have any questions or comments, Please read the last section above "WHERE TO GET HELP". Send a CHECK or money order to: David Taylor 3875 Elkwood street. Newbury Park, CA 91320 NOTE: All orders will be shipped ASAP! **************** FEATURES MNM is one of the most powerful modelers for POV to date, if not the most powerful! MNM features very complex surface creation commands, and Point TOOLS only found in high end CAD programs costing $1,000+. MNM has lots to offer for the novice and professional POV ray-tracer. To be more specific, here's a list of some main features of MNM: - Autocad interface, Easy to learn. - Users customizable menu files. - PolyMeshs, Polylines, Extrude SWEEPs, Revolution SWEEPs, Cone SWEEPs, Edged Surfaces, Ruled Surfaces, Continuous Bezier Patches, Faces, Triangles, Smooth Triangles, Spheres, Toruses, Disks, Dishs, Wedges, Pyramids, Planes, HeightFields, Cubes, Cones, Cylinders, Screw threads, Stair cases, Springs/Spirals, Circles, Arcs, Splines, Pipes, Spotlights, PointLights, AreaLights and a Camera. - Multiple Viewports - Export and import RAW/DXF files. - Interactive camera placement: Paning, Zooming, Moving, Camera adjust and Target adjust, distance adjust. All of this happens from in real time from the viewpoint of the camera! - Object Shading previews. - Layers allows you to hide, applying CSG, textures, Colors (for visual reference) to objects and more... - SNAP, GRID, AXISs, BLIPS, ORTHO and other drawing aids such as Point filters, ENDpoint and MIDpoints for setting exact points. - ARRAY, JOIN, MOVE, COPY, ERASE, GRAVITY, ASSIGN, PARRAY (polyline arraying), TRANSFORM, THICKEN (for polylines), ROTATE, SCALE, EXPLODE and other editing commands for manipulating objects. - A FULL Texture Editor which supports every Pigment, Normal, and Finish statement options (except Filters for image_maps), and also supports Layered and Tiled textures. - Supports every POV command-line option with Palette, Display modes, Background and FOG options as well. - RENDERING: MNM runs POV for you with all the correct command line options, when renedering is complete, MNM is reloaded with your current file. - DOS Shell - ZoomIN-OUT-CENTER-ALL-PREVIOUS, Pan, RedrawAll, Front, Side, Top World and 3D views. - Plenty of Variables for customizing MNM for your own needs. - Easy to read dialogs and more of them. An intuitive interface. - and more. . . **************** INTRODUCTION Mid Night Modeller is a Graphical User Interface tool to help you design photo-realistic images on your computer with the help of POV-Ray. POV-Ray is a program that does "Ray-Tracing" which uses mathematical formals to create photo-realistic images. The POV-Ray program is all command-line - there's no interface. The information about a scene (or drawing) must be written in a text file for parsing - usually with the extension ".POV". POV-Ray then begins to ray-trace the scene (assuming there's no syntax errors in the pov file), and outputs a 24bit image file. Even though it's not a GUI program, your given the option of seeing the image as it's being ray-traced. Unfortunately, while you write a scene (a pov file), you have to visualize it in your head what it's going to look like when you finally ray-trace it. This is where POV Modelers come in. MNM (Mid Night Modeller) creates the pov files for you, so you don't have to worry about the pov language. And it does this graphically! MNM uses a style similar to AutoCAD(tm) from AutoDesk. You create objects in your scene by selecting, pointing and clicking. The objects are then redrawn as wireframe models. Unlike AutoCAD, MNM exports your drawing to POV when your ready to see a realistic view of what you've just drawn, and calls POV with the command-line parameters you've chosen. POV takes control, and renders your scene. After POV is done, MNM is reloaded with the current file so you can make adjustments quickly. **************** THE VERY BASICS - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW MNM is a great modeller, but one of it's drawbacks is that it takes time to learn it. Each command in mnm has it's own needs, and the KEY to mastering mnm, is knowing exactly what a command will ask you, at any given time. HINT: Always look at the command area (comment area), to understand what to do next, if anything at all. Considering that MNM has over 100 commands, this is a lot to ask for someone who's just starting out. Especially, if there's no Help document at this time. It takes time to understand mnm, but mnm will reward you with new things you thought you couldn't do. The more fluent you become with, the better your work will be. Start with simple scenes (2 - 3 objects and 1 light source), then work up to more complex scenes using meshes, and complex 3D commands. **************** COMMUNICATING with commands Commands will ask for such things as Numbers, Points, Strings, Keywords and other stuff. Definitions: KEYWORDS: These are usually the Capital letter of a string, and are inside these keys "< >". Example: "Perspective <Camera/Move/Target/Distance/Zoom>:" ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Just type in a letter for inputting a keyword and press [enter]. NUMBERS: Numbers can be of any value. Sometimes a command won't let you enter a ZERO value for example, and will let you know about. Example: "Set number of Segments:" Here, you would type in something like 32 or whatever, and press [enter]. STRINGS: Strings are words or groups of words. Example: "Enter a filename:" Just type in a word or name, and the [enter] key. POINTS: Points are the hardest to remember, because you have a choice of entering 3 types of coordinates. They are ACTUAL, RELATIVE (from a BASE point) and POLAR (also from a BASE point). Example: "Set center point:" It's asking for a point value. ******** ACTUAL ACTUAL coordinates are basic. To set a point at 3,5,6, you would simply enter "3,5,6". The last element is always the elevation and you don't have to include this value if you don't want to. The First and Second elements are required! Definition: "Horizontal,Vertical,Elevation(optional)" ******** RELATIVE RELATIVE coordinates requires a "@" at the beginning of the input. Definition: "@RHoriz,RVert,RElev(optional)" example: "@3,5,6" Relative are always from a BASE point. A BASE point is defined when you are dragging an object. So this input is only valid when this BASE point exists. ******** POLAR POLAR coordinates also require a "@" key at the beginning and one other change, "<". Definition: "@Magnitude<Degrees,RElev(optional)" example: "@5<45,3" Polar coords will define a point in the direction of "Degree" at the magnitude of "@Magnitude" relative form a BASE point (defined when dragging an object), with the elevation being relative also. Polar coords can only be inputted when a BASE point is defined. NULL: This simply means to enter NOTHING! Some commands will let you enter NULL if is has a default value of some kind. Example: "Overwrite existing POV file <Y/N> <Y>:" Here you can see that Y and N are Keywords. Because there is another keyword "<Y>" at the end of the text, it is the default value. Simply hitting enter will tell the command to use "Y" as the Keyword. **************** SELECTING OBJECTS Most if not all editing commands requires Selected Objects, so that the commands know what objects to edit. If there are no selected objects and a edit command is called, it will run the "Select" command, otherwise it will begin the editing. This command changes the mouse cursor to a small box. You select objects by moving this box on a line segment of an object. Line segments are the 3D wireframe lines outlining the objects in your scene. When an object is selected, it will change to a Yellow color (#14). You can select as many objects as you wish in most cases. Some commands require only one object, and when you select that one object, the select command will continue. When your done selecting objects, simply click the Right Mouse button to accept your object choices. **************** LAYERS Layers are used to control GROUPs of objects. You can have as many layers as you please, the only limit is how much free ram you have. Each Layer has it's own Name, Visibility, Color, Texture and CSG type. Objects on a layer poses all of it's layers traits. For example, objects are drawn in it's layers Color, and if a layer is OFF, then objects belonging to this layer won't be redrawn. If a layer has a "UNION" CSG type, then all objects in that layer will get grouped as a union CSG type when exported to POV and the union will contain that layers texture. When an object is first created, it will get assigned to the Current Layer. The current layer is displayed at the upper/left part of the screen. A little box will show you what color the current layer contains. Modifying a layer can be done with the SETLAYER command. To move objects from one layer to another, use the CHANGE command. **************** VARIABLES Variables contain values to let mnm know how to do certain operations. For example, when the variable SNAP is ON, mnm will roundoff of coorinates display making it easier to set exact points. Use the VARIABLE command to bring up the Variables dialog. Here's a description of some of MNM's variables. Note: Most of these values are stored in your *.MNM files for configuring. Pan H/V/E: Sets the pan values of the current graphics window. A value of 0,0,0 will center the origin in the window. Pan Elev is the elevation of the current window. Or could use the ELEVATION command instead. Grid X/Y/Z: Sets the GRID spacing between points. Snap X/Y/Z: Sets the SNAP spacing. Status: Turns ON/OFF the world view. Pitch: Changes the world views Pitch angle. Heading: Changes the Heading angle of the world view. Grid: Turns GRIDing ON/OFF Snap: Turns ON/OFF SNAP mode. ORTHO: Turns ON/OFF drag alignment, for dragging objects. Auto_Erase: The ERASE command will no longer ask you if you want to erase the selected objects. It will just do it automatically when your done selecting. Auto_Redraw: MNM will Redraw the screen when necessary. Drag_Mode: The Dragging of objects will no longer be visible. Auto_Deselect: Objects that are Selected will be Deselect when a command finishes. Auto_Segments: Defines a default value for segmented objects. Normally, a command will ask for a segment value. Axis: Turns ON/OFF the visible axis aid. BLIPS: Leaves behind X marks when points where entered. Center: Marks the origin 0,0,0 of the drawing plane. No_Shadow: Newly created objects will be assigned the No_Shadow POV-Ray option. Smooth_Triangle: Defaults NEW objects as being Smooth_Triangles. Smooth triangle data is for SWEEPs, Meshs, Faces and Triangles only. Any other object will ignore it's Smooth_Triangle variable. Some of these vars (variables for short), can be set with the F## keys: F1 = Switch Viewports F2 = ACTUAL coordinates display F3 = POLAR coordinates display F4 = RELATIVE coordinates display NOTE: The coordinates display (top of screen), does NOT effect how you would type in coordinates. F5 = GRID F6 = CENTER F7 = AXIS F8 = ORTHO F9 = SNAP F10 = Free RAM available Other variables are located in the Directories dialog. Besides the obvious directory variables, there are: MNM filename: Uneditable POV filename: *.POV Name to export. Output filename: *.* Name of the final rendered image. Overwrite Existing POV files?: Overwrites existing POV files under the name POV filename. Output to POV with the RENDER command?: Automatically creates the POV file when the RENDER command is called. Use BAT file when Rendering?: Will create a RENDER.BAT file and exit mnm. You then type "render" at the DOS prompt to render the scene. When done, the bat file will change the dir to mnm's dir. Then you must re-load mnm. This option is useful when your low on memory, and are getting DOS extender errors because of it, when you try to spawn to POV directly from within mnm. **************** FILE MENU NEW: Reloads the startup file MNM.MNM. OPEN: Opens a MNM file. SAVE: Saves the current MNM. SAVEAS: Saves your scene under a different name. MERGE: Adds objects from another file in with your current scene. CLEAR: Erases All Objects allowing you to start fresh. DOSSHELL: Shells to DOS. To return to MNM, type "exit" at the prompt. IMPORTDXF: Loads Meshs, Polylines and Faces from a DXF file. IMPORTRAW: Loads triangles into a scene from a RAW file. EXPORTDXF: Exports Layers and 3DFACE data to a DXF file. EXPORTRAW: Explodes Objects into Triangles for exporting as a RAW file. There are NO visible effects to the objects. EXIT: Leaves MNM. **************** MODIFY MENU ERASE: Erases objects from your scene. MOVE: Moves objects from a BASE point to an offset point. COPY: Copies an object from a BASE and offset point. ROTATE: Rotates objects around the current viewing axis. SCALE: Scales objects. Use the filters on the side menu to exclude scaling of object elements (ie. X, Y or Z). ARRAY: Copies selected objects multiple times either in a Polar (circular), Rectangular (a straight line), or by Scaling. PARRAY: Copies objects along a Polyline path. EXPLODE: Breaks objects into meshes, meshes into faces, faces into triangles. CHANGE: Moves objects to the current layer. ASSIGN: Assigns either Textures, No_Shadow or Smooth_Triangle data to the selected objects. GRAVITY: Pulls objects towards the mouse like gravity. JOIN: Joins two polylines into one single polyline. Object editing a polyline, you have the option of BREAKing a polyline into two separate poly's. Both the Join and Break options don't erase the previous polylines. THICKEN: Turns a polyline into a Pipes. The polylines Z values all must be the same. OBJECTEDIT: Edit's objects variables that are specific to that object. TRANSFORM: For primitives only. Modifies their transformation. GENERAL: A General version of ObjectEdit. **************** CREATE MENU POLYLINE: Defines multiple line segments TRIANGLE: Creates a triangle surface. FACE: Creates a surface with four corners. ARC: Defines a polyline in the shape of an arc. CIRCLE: Creates a polyline circle. SPRING: Makes a mesh in the form of a tube, which spins around and around. You can make some neat objects with this. SPHERE: Primitive Sphere. TORUS: Primitive Donut like shape. CONE: Primitive Cone or Cylinder. DISC: Primitive Circle like shape. CUBE: Primitive Box or Cube. PLANE: Primitive Flat surface which has no edges. HEIGHTFIELD: Primitive Cube which possesses Heights defined from an image file. See your POV-Ray doc's for more info. OBJECTS: Creates other objects using Meshs, Faces and Triangles. COMPLEX: Needs more information than this, but will create some cool stuff. All SWEEP objects are modified Polylines. You can convert Sweep objects back to their polylines using the objectedit command. ********** EDGE Surface An edge surface is a mesh that is created from four polylines. The end of the first polyline must be the first point of the second polyline, the end of the second polyline must be the first point of the third polyline, the second point of the third polyline must be the first point of the first polyline. line 1 +------------+ l | | l i | | i n | | n e | line 3 | e 4 +------------+ 2 In the above drawing, you would select line 1, then line 2, then line 3, then line 4. The Edge surf command would create a mesh from those four lines - in this case a square, but of course the polylines can be any shape you draw them. Think of them like as an Extrude, but you can define three more polylines. ********** RULED Surface A ruled surface is similar to a edge surface, but the ruled surface only used 2 polylines. Also, you must pay attention to when end of the polyline was drawn first when doing a ruled surf. 1--------------2 2--------------1 If the above was 2 polylines (1 = first point of line, 2 = last point of the line) and you did a ruled surf, you would get something like this: --------- ----- - ----- --------- BUT! If line 2 was drawn just the opposite, you would end up with a mesh of a square. ********** Extruded SWEEP Like all other Complex 3D objects in MNM, the basis for the extrude is the polyline. After selecting extrude surface, you must select polyline(s) to be extruded. Then draw a line showing the path for the extrude to take place. See the example: \ \\\\\\\\ \ extruded horizontally = \\\\\\\\ \ \\\\\\\\ ********** Revolution SWEEP This is a popular tool used to create objects such as lamp shades, drinking glasses, vases, etc. To use this, first draw a polyline that represents the outline of the object you wish to convert to a revolution sweep. Then choose revolution sweep from the Complex 3D menu. Choose the outline polyline first, then draw a polyline that represents the center of rotation for the outline. The rev sweep is created. See the example | Outline of | | <---- a 3d mesh of __/ wineglass \___/ a wine glass! | turned | | into a | \ revsweep / \ ********** Cone SWEEP This simply draws Triangle segments from a 3D Point to a polyline. This if usefull for capping extrude sweeps. **************** DISPLAY MENU REDRAW: Redraws the current Window. REDRAWALL: Redraws All Windows. ZOOMIN: Zooms into a window. Do this by setting the Upper/Left point and Lower/Right points of the zoom rectangle. ZOOMCENTER: Set the Center point, and drag the mouse to set an area. ZOOMPREV: Zooms back the way it used to be. ZOOMALL: Makes All objects visible in the current window. XY/XZ/YX/YZ/ZX/ZY Changes the drawing plane. XY would mean X goes from Left to Right, Y is from the Bottom, to the Top, and Z+ is coming at your. Horizontal is always the first element. Vertical the second and the unused is Elevation. WORLD: Turns ON/OFF the World view. Don't confuse it with a true 3D perspective view. World, simply rotates the drawing plane allowing you to see all object points in the window. V3D: This is the TRUE 3D view. No editing can be done in this window. PAN: Slides the drawing plane up/down/left/right. AREA: Sets a working area for a given plane. Can be used to zoom in and out. ELEV: Moves the drawing plane towards and away from you. Though Not visible (accept in world view), it lets you work on the Second floor of a house for example, as if it were the first floor. VIEWPORT: Makes more or fewer graphics windows available, in many different configurations. **************** OPTIONS MENU SETLAYER: Lets you modify layers. VARIABLES: You modify variables here. CAMERADLG: Allows you to change camera values by hand. CAMERA: You can set the camera's Point and Lookat points by selecting points. PERSPECTIVE: You can modify the camera's positions more interactively SPOTLIGHT: Defines a Spot light. POINTLIGHT: Defines a single Point light. AREALIGHT: Defines multiple point lights within an area. **************** ASSIST MENU ENDP: Lets you pick the end point of a line. MIDP: For picking the Mid point of a line. PREVP: For picking the previous point. You must click the graphics window before it gets picked. X./Y./Z./XY./XZ./YZ.: For filtering elements of a point. After which, you will be asked to define the remaining elements. *************** RAY-TRACE MENU RENDER: Saves your scene, creates a POV file and a CML (Command-Line Data) and spawns to POV, for ray-tracing. SHADE: Does a simple hide face, triangle render. TEXTURE: Can select and create textures here. POVOPTIONS: Lets you modify command-line options for POV-Ray FOG: Can add FOG and a Background color to your scenes. Also contains other command-line options. PATHS: Lets you modify Paths, Filenames and other variables. EXPORTPOV: Creates a POV file for rendering a scene. EXPORTCML: Exports a *.CML define file for your scene. **************** QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q> How do I use the PARRAY command? PARRAY stands for "Polyline Array" and lets you make multiple copies of selected objects along a polyline path. First, select a polyline to use as the polyline path. Next, select the objects you wish to Array. Lastly, enter the number of copies you want. The bigger the number of copies the more finer things will look. NOTE: "Array" in MNM, means to make multiple copies of selected objects. Q> Sometimes when importing DXF files - I don't see anything? Usually, you should ZoomAll every time you import something. Also, keep in mind that MNM doesn't read polyface data or LINE data. MNM reads only polylines, polymeshs and 3Dface data. Q> Every time I use the SHADE command, my free RAM drops by 1.5 MegaBytes or so...whats happening? The SHADE command uses a Zbuffer method of determining what faces/triangles are visible. The problem is the Zbuffer must be as large as the total graphics area in pixels * 6 bytes. So, for a 640x480 res mode, that comes to 1,843,200 bytes for the ZBuffer. After the SHADE command is complete, the ram gets free'd - even though MNM says it hasn't been free'd - Trust me, it works fine. Q> Is there a way I can have MNM export a default ambient value so my scenes are more lit up - without actually creating lights? Yes, open the INCLUDE.DAT file, and add the "default {}" statements in there just as if you were adding them to a POV file your self. What ever is inside this file gets written into each POV file (at the top) you create. Q> Can I use the FTPOV (Fast POV) program instead of POVRAY.EXE? Yes, open your MNM.INI file and look for the POVEXE("") statement. In quotation marks, replace "POVRAY.EXE" with "FTPOV.EXE". There are some problems running FTPOV from within MNM. Inorder for FTPOV to run correctly from MNM...you have to set the "Use BAT file when rendering?" option ON from the Directories Dialog. This option creates a bat file named "RENDER.BAT" in MNM's main directory and exits MNM whenever you use the RENDER command. Then you simply type RENDER and hit enter. Once the rendering is completed, MNM will be reloaded with the drawing you were working on. Q> Why is it when I enter "X,Y,Z" points values, they get put in the wrong places? You don't enter points by X,Y,Z, but by Horizontal,Vertical,Elevation. Look at the menu bar while moving the mouse. You'll notice that the first element changes when you move your mouse horizontally, moving vertically the second element changes. The last element is always the Elevation. Changing from the Top/Front/Side views only change the drawing plane. END OF DOCUMENT