some very basic questions

[Samo]

Hi, Blender is not going to dissapoint you!

First, to import you POV scene into Blender I would take a look in those POVRay modelling app... perhaps there you will find something.

About left hand coordinates, I think all the 3D/CAD programs use the same left hand coordinates, the Cartesian coordinates invented by Descartes, yes the very same person that said ""I think, therefore I am"

[theeth]

Actually, Cartesian coordinates does not specify if it's a left or right hand system.
OpenGL uses a right-hand system and so does Blender. Right-hand is pretty much a de facto standard for 3D maths.
DirectX uses a left-hand though...

Martin

[mdwsr]

Thanks for the replies.

Just to clarify, by left hand I mean that if you hold up your left hand and extend your thumb and forefinger:

Your thumb points to positive X
Your forefinger points up to positive Y
Positive Z is away from you

Blender is oposite this? That will make my old habits hard to break but I was afraid of that, I read somewhere that POVRay was different from most other 3d apps.

[Nitefyre]

Yes, Blender is Left handed (the thumb points to the positive.) What I guess most people have a problem with is that the x and y coords are on the horizontal plane and z is used as your heigth (altitude.)

Edit: Positive Z points towards you, not away in Blender. So kinda left handed?!

[mdwsr]

Okay, this can get confusing heheh.

POVRay is like this:

Positive X is this way -->
Positive Y is ^ (up)
Positive Z is away into the distance

So, the difference in POV and Blender is the Z directions are opposite. (?)

If this is true then it's not such a hard thought process to change, thanks...

[Nitefyre]

You got it! :thumbsup:

[efbie]

I don't know how works povray but in blender you don't have to worry about the axis orientation. You don't model with coordinates. You could model everything upside down it wouldn't change anything.(i sometime do it by mistake :D) There isn't real 'units' either, of course there is blender units but they exist just as an indication. You don't use them every day.

[Apollux]

POVRay is like this:

Positive X is this way -->
Positive Y is ^ (up)
Positive Z is away into the distance

So, the difference in POV and Blender is the Z directions are opposite. (?)


Not quite. Imagine that you are standing in the center of an empty room.

(Your Left Side) -X <-- YOU- -> +X (Your Right Side)
(Your Front) +Y <-- YOU --> -Y (Your Back)
(Above You) +Z <-- YOU --> -Z (Below You)

That is the Blender Coordinate System.

But as Efbie said, flipping and mirrowing in Blender is as easy as 123, so usually you don't pay much atention to that (untill you start doing animation.. then it is important that you respect the Z axis orientation ).

[mdwsr]

So does that mean if I start using Blender instead of POVRay I will no longer stop suddenly when out in public, then hold up my left hand and start muttering figures and look confused?

hehe

I'm about finished with this current project using pov but I look forward to starting blender as soon as I'm finished. Thanks for the dialouge.

[Apollux]

So does that mean if I start using Blender instead of POVRay I will no longer stop suddenly when out in public, then hold up my left hand and start muttering figures and look confused?

ROTFL .. oh my ! :D

By the way, how has been your experience with the 20D, I am stacking some money to buy myself one of those, and as many people, I cann't make my mind over the 20D vs. the D70 .

[mdwsr]

By the way, how has been your experience with the 20D, I am stacking some money to buy myself one of those, and as many people, I cann't make my mind over the 20D vs. the D70 .

The 20D is good, but probably more than most people need (maybe even myself). If I had mine to do over I would look around and buy a new 10D, since the price on it dropped so much after the release of the 20D. The 20D has better high ISO noise quality, and the auto focus is much improved over the 10D. To be honest though most of the landscape images I have seen from the 10 are as good or better than the 20D.

I use mine mainly for landscapes and the kid's sporting events, plus for textures and clone sources for hy CG stuff. Also, if I were using a digital camera for the normal family shots and for clone sources for CG I wouldn't buy a DSLR at all. Lots of the new point & shoot camera's are great quality, much less gear to fuss with, and you are more likely to have it with you when a good photo opp happens since they are so small. But if image quality is your main concern either the 20D or 10D are great cameras.

[kattkieru]

I don't think anybody talked about scene conversion.

I've yet to see a POV2Blend converter python plugin, but I don't think it would be terribly difficult. The main issue would be with parsing the POV text into understandable chunks. But the povray geometries are pretty easy to step through, being that they were meant to be human editable in the first place.

I seem to recall years back that there were a few converters from POV23DS and back; you might want to take a look on the web.

However, if you're making a simple scene like the one you described it might be easier to just start again in Blender. I think you'll find that a bench will take you all of five minutes to model. ^-^ Drapes could be done fairly easily, but I don't know what you mean by "painting" drapes in Povray?

[mdwsr]

I meant paint draperies in Painter or Photoshop, not in POV, I only wanted to do part of the scene 3D to get a few particular features right. Besides, it gives me a chance to learn more.

I think I'll give the bench a go in Blender, I did one in POV but I'm not really liking the way it came out. It's just not quite "right".

I'll also try the draperies in Blender since my time is becoming somewhat limited. I have way too many things to do for the free time I have...

[kattkieru]

Well, drapes aren't so hard in Blender once you get the basics of modeling and subsurfaces down. I did the attached image in five minutes. It's passable, and with texturing and more vertices here and there it could end up looking quite good.

[mdwsr]

Okay, I got through the first tut and made and saved my sphere. This is a very unique program, much different than I'm used to but that can be a good thing. Looks like it might be much easier to use than POVRay, but probably just as hard to learn. My experience with POV will be valuable though so none of that effort was wasted.

A couple more basic questions, I've tried to figure these out with no success yet:

-How can I save a window arrangement that I like?

-How do I set the "Save Image" size and format?

[kattkieru]

You'll want to check the blender manual on Screens. You can save a bunch of screen layouts -- in the top menu next to help there's a drop-down that changes between the defaults.

Alternatively, you can just arrange the windows you like and hit Control+U. This saves the default program state. I never change much between the other default screens (I find them either hackish or completely useless), so this is really just overwriting the "
model" screen.

Image format is under render buttons (F10), bottom right, in the format box.

[mdwsr]

Thanks, that did it. I'll probably spring for the printed manual, maybe do my little part to help support the community.

This is indeed an impressive program, I'm already doing things with it after a few hours that took me days to learn in POVRay. It's a lot like POV except you have sliders and can see immediate results without writing script, rendering, then de-bugging script for every little change. I'm glad I don't have to work tomorrow.

[mdwsr]

Okay, I finished the first tut by James Chronister (very good, but my RMB and a few other things are different than he explains).

I have a question that will help me tremendously that I haven't been able to find an answer for.

Is there a way to turn on some kind of coordinate designator on? Like maybe have the red green and blue lines labeled X, Y, Z? It would be enough if I could figure out which color was which coord but have not been able to find out just yet. I keep getting lost and if I could see where I am it would be a big help.

I'm working now with three views, one always on camera view. Still trying to get a handle on the wacky rotate object thing but always end up with me head spinnin' (never turns like I tell it to) :hmm: I'll try and conquer that one on my own though.

Thanks.

[Apollux]

1.- Select your object
2.- Press F7
3.- Click on that big "Axis" button near the center of the window :)


Now remember: when you are rotating, scaling, translating or the like, pressing the letter of one axis will constrain the movement to that GLOBAL axis, if you press the same letter again now you are constrained to the object's LOCAL axis.

[Apollux]

Is there a way to turn on some kind of coordinate designator on? Like maybe have the red green and blue lines labeled X, Y, Z? It would be enough if I could figure out which color was which coord but have not been able to find out just yet.

RED = X
GREEN = Y
BLUE = Z (this one is turned off by default).

[mdwsr]

Thanks. The R and X,Y,Z tip save me a few spare neurotransmitters that I would have otherwise completely smoked :)

Something I just noticed. I am on my laptop now, and while using the touchpad the RMB works exactly as described in the tutorials. Upstairs on my desktop I use a 4 button trackball and the buttons do not work as described in the tut's. One thing I know for sure is the RMB on the 4 button moves the 3D cursor, on my laptop the LMB moves the cursor as described in the tut's. There are other differences as well, if it makes any difference to anyone I can document these as I go otherwise I think I'll put a 3 button mouse on my other machine to keep from getting (more) confused.

[Talion]

Blender recognizes 3 mouse buttons .. LMB for moving the cursor and applying actions, RMB for selecting and cancelling, and MMB for viewport changing, constraining to axis. If you drag down the menu bar, and find the "view and control's" tab there are a couple buttons that let you reverse the LMB and RMB.

[mdwsr]

doh! I had changed that setting on me desktop machine without realizing it. Maybe this is NOT one of those programs that you learn by clicking around on everything you see (my usual learning method of choice). Then again, maybe it is.

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