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Personal Computer World 1995 January
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pcw-0195.iso
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polyray
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read.me
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1994-12-31
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A Polyray person, version 3, designed by Will Wagner (CIS 70530,250)
for Polyray version 1.5.
Thanks to Ken Boyce, Alexander Enzmann, and David Mason for their help
and David Mason for his running file contribution.
The files included in this archive are:
read.me (This file)
man.pi/woman.pi (Sample viewpoint files)
man.inc/woman.inc (The definitions of the body parts and bodies)
rots.inc (The file used to articulate the figures)
run.inc (David Mason's include file to make the figure run)
The way to use this thing:
The man.inc/woman.inc files are the heart of the person. They contain all
the CSG data to generate the different parts of the body. Each
part had to be generated at the origin (0,0,0) and translated
into final position so the joints could be moved easily. All
that needs to be done with these files is to "include" one in your
main .pi file, and add "man" (or "woman") and whatever translations necessary
to use it:
include "man.inc"
man { translations }
or
include "woman.inc"
woman { translations }
The rots.inc file contains a bunch of transforms for rotation
of the joints. The names of the transforms are fairly self-explanatory.
Just add each new rotation inside the brackets of the transform command.
Note that each rotation will be performed in the order they appear,
about the original axes *after* the previous rotation is performed.
The comments at the ends of the lines in rots.inc are some loose
guesses as to the range of motion of each joint. Also, the surface
definition for the person is found in this file. The old standby is
currently used, "shiny_red". The wooden texture from texture.inc also
looks pretty cool with a scale of about <0.25,0.25,3>.
The man.pi/woman.pi files are just test files with viewpoint and light
declarations that work pretty good, so you can see this person in all
its glory with no work from you. If you use version 1.4, you'll get no
feet, so don't get worried if you do.
The person can only be used once in the same scene, unless you
want a bunch of figures in the exact same pose. To get more
than one pose you'll have to copy the .inc files to different
names, and change the names of *every one* of the variables and
body sections in the newly copied files. Just add a "2" to the
end or whatever, something easy like that. Don't forget to change
the name of the rotation include file in the new person include file.
That is, of course, unless you can come up with something else really
slick.
New stuff for this version:
The coordinate system is changed - positive x is right (as before),
but now positive y is up, and positive z is pointing out from the
front of the figure. Fixed the abdomen so it doesn't go dark when
using scan conversion. Struggled for a long time with the female
figure - here it is (special thanks to David Mason). The feet are
now really good, with round fronts (finally, thanks to version 1.5).
Changed the structure of the file, from an idea of Alexander's from
the sample files for version 1.5 - now everything is nested instead
of being defined and added in another definition the way it used to
be. It's *slightly* faster this way (any improvement is welcome).
Stuff for future versions:
If you're really a glutton for punishment, I'll work on hands
that have movable fingers and everything, but for now this is the
definitive version of the people. If I find a good way to smooth the
entire figure (using Bezier patches or something similar), I'll try
that out. I also might try writing some sort of program that will
generate an include file for you, instead of having to go through
a bunch of headache figuring out the proper rotations yourself. Such
a program might include rudimentary movement routines for animation.
Only time will tell.