Questions about documentation for kpovmodeler

[Haakon Meland Eriksen]

Fredag 09 mars 2007 18:10, skrev Bob Hinchman:

> Could you please suggest where I might find additional documentation for
> kpovmodeler?

Hi Bob,

I use Kpovmodeler regularly, take a look at http://far.no/ for a couple of 
illustrations.

Since Kpovmodeler is just an easy way to use the POV-Ray Scene Description 
Language (SDL), you will learn a lot quicker reading and doing the tutorials 
that come with POV-Ray.

You will quickly notice that the SDL supports creating definitions of larger 
objects, textures and so on, and Kpovmodeler lets you do the same, but this 
is not covered in the documentation. Definitions makes it easy to reuse these 
complex objects in your scene by just linking to them whenever you need them. 
When you open or import scenes that contains definitions, you will find icons 
in the object tree that you don't see on the toolbars. The definition icon in 
the tree changes to reflect the type of definition you have defined.

Now, definitions are not visible objects. Let's say you have modelled a table 
using five cubes - just copy the green cube from the start scene five times 
for now and shape and move them apropriately. Place all of them in a union 
object, so you can move all five as one object. Create a definition, move the 
union into the definiton. You will notice that your table is not visible on 
camera anymore. This is as it should be - your table is now a definition of 
an object. 

Create two object link objects below your definition. Object links must be 
below their definitions, or you will get an error when trying to render you 
scene. Select one object link, and among it's parameters you get to  link to 
your table definiton. Your table is on camera again. Do the same with the 
second object link. Try to use the translate (move) icon of each table 
object, and place them side by side, then render.

Cheers,
Haakon