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- POVLAB modeler for POV-Ray 3.0
- Copyright 1994,1995 Denis Olivier & ChromaGraphics.
- All rights reserved.
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- MANAGING TEXTURES AROUND POVLAB 3D MODELLER
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Postal adress E-mail
-
- DENIS OLIVIER Internet : dolivier@cyberstation.fr
- 5, Bld Franck Lamy Home pages :
- 17200 Royan http://www.cyberstation.fr/~dolivier/povlab.html
- France http://www.cyberstation.fr/~dolivier/author.html
-
-
- This file describes how to manage textures with the new utilities. For more
- information, please read the documentation POVLAB.DOC.
-
- The textures are described by 2 files, POVLAB.TEX and POVLAB.INC.
- The first contains library assignments for both the texture's name and
- the thumbnail's name. POVLAB.INC is a POV-Ray file like TEXTURES.INC.
-
- I've written 2 utilities to help manage the textures library.
- MAKETHEM.EXE is the program that actually manages the library.
- TGAVGIF.EXE is a program to convert TGA files to 8 bits GIF files, with
- good color reduction and dithering. You can use it for other images besides
- texture thumbnails.
- It needs DOS4GW.EXE in the path to run.
-
- Here is how to render each thumbnails for unallocated textures names.
- Go to the POVLAB\TEXTURE path, run MAKETHEM.EXE.
-
- You will see :
-
- MAKE THEM ALL release 1.0, (C) Copyright ChromaGraphics, 1994-1996.
- Texture library maker and manager for POVLAB.
- All rights reserved, (R) Denis Olivier - Feb 29 1996.
-
- Syntax : makethem [option(s)]
-
- -Ppath : specify path for POV-Ray (default current)
- -Ipath : specify file library.TEX (default POVLAB.TEX)
- -D : display while rendering (+d0)
- -F : enable Faster Than POV-Ray speedup options (2.2 only)
- -An.n : use antialiasing rendering option (-A0.3 for example)
- -T : render all the textures int library.TEX (overwrite)
- -? : syntax and help screen"
-
- Example : makethem -pc:\povray -ic:\povlab\povlab.tex
-
- -P : to tell the program where POV-Ray is (just the path)
- -I : choose one texture library for POVLAB.
- -D : display the rendering image while computing
- -F : only for POV-Ray 2.2 users
- -A : use antialiasing for better display
-
- Command line
- ------------
- If POV-Ray is in the path and you want to add new thumbnails to your
- POVLAB.TEX, just enter "makethem" on the dos prompt.
-
- When POV-Ray isn't in the path
- ------------------------------
- type "makethem -pc:\povray".
- Here POV-Ray dir is C:\POVRAY
-
- How it works
- ------------
- First, MAKETHEM will read the POVLAB.TEX file (or the one you've specified) and
- check for unallocated texture names.
- Then it prepares a .POV file, sends it to POV-Ray, and converts it into
- .GIF format with TGAVGIF.EXE.
- If you stop the rendering before TGA file is compledted, no .GIF
- will be created.
-
- Name the texture thumbnails
- ---------------------------
- MAKETHEM will automatically assign new names to textures thumbnails.
- The prefix is TEX followed by 4 digits (e.g. 0000), and then .TGA or .GIF.
- You can have up to 9999 files (POVLAB only supports 1000 per .TEX file).
- MAKTHEM will check when it finds an unallocated texture name whether
- TEX0000.TGA exists and if it does will continue to check for,
- TEX0001.TGA, TEX0002.TGA etc... and stops until it finds an unallocated name.
-
- Assign names and thumbnails together
- ------------------------------------
- When MAKETHEM has finished, it generates the file MAKETHEM.LOG, which has a
- similar structure to POVLAB.TEX, with names and thumbnails associated.
- You can edit the file POVLAB.TEX, add match the new thumbnails file to their
- respective names, and then, remove the .TGA files.
-
- Options used in MAKETHEM for POV-Ray and TGAVGIF
- ------------------------------------------------
- POV-Ray : -iTEXTURE.POV -oTEX????.TGA +ft +w100 +h100 +v +mb2 +a +x
- TGAVGIF : TEX???? /f /i
-
- Using MAKETHEM and POV-Ray for Windows
- --------------------------------------
- Althought you can use it with WINPOV (it will find
- alone the PVENGINE.EXE exe file), you cannot use it in a good way cos
- WINPOV don't wait the render to be finished to continue the process
- with MEKETHEM. So TGAVGIF will load the thumbnail and WINPOV will not
- finished to render this thumbnail and there will be a lot of errors (cos
- MAKETHEM will reload many times WINPOV too).
- The better way is to find just a POVRAY.EXE dos version just for rendering
- thumbnails for texture previews.
-
-