Appendix A.11
Disclaimer

This software is provided as is without any guarantees or warranty. Although the authors have attempted to find and correct any bugs in the package, they are not responsible for any damage or losses of any kind caused by the use or misuse of the package. The authors are under no obligation to provide service, corrections, or upgrades to this package.

Appendix A.12
Technical Support

We sincerely hope you have fun with our program. If you have any problems with the program, the team would like to hear about them. Also, if you have any comments, questions or enhancements, please contact the POV-Ray Team on the CompuServe Information Service in the GO GRAPHICS forums, GRAPHDEV forum. Also check us out on the internet at http://www.povray.org or ftp.povray.org . The USENET group comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing is a great source of information on POV-Ray and related topics.

License enquiries should be made via email and limited technical support is available via email to:

   Chris Young
   POV-Ray Team Coordinator
   CIS: 76702,1655
   Internet 76702.1655@compuserve.com

The following postal address is only for official license business and only if email is impossible.

We do not provide technical support via regular mail, only email. We don't care if you don't have a modem or online access. We will not mail you disks with updated versions. Do not send money.

   Chris Young
   3119 Cossell Drive
   Indianapolis, IN 46224 U.S.A.

The other authors' contact information may be found in section "Authors" (see also "Postcards for POV-Ray Team Members" ).

Appendix B
Authors

Following is a list in alphabetic order of all people who have ever worked on the POV-Ray Team or who have made a note-worthy contribution. If you want to contact or thank the authors read the sections "Contacting the Authors" and "Postcards for POV-Ray Team Members" .


Steve Anger
(POV-Ray 2.0/3.0 developer)
CIS: 70714,3113
Internet: sanger@hookup.net
 
Randy Antler
(IBM-PC display code enhancements)
 
John Baily
(RLE targa code)
 
Eric Barish
(Ground fog code)
 
Dieter Bayer
(POV-Ray 3.0 developer and docs coordinator)
CIS: 100255,3074
 
Kendall Bennett
(PMODE library support)
 
Steve Bennett
(GIF support)
 
Jeff Bowermaster
(Beta test)
 
David Buck
(Original author of DKBTrace)
(POV-Ray 1.0 developer)
 
Chris Cason
(POV-Ray 2.0/3.0 developer, POV-Help, Windows port)
Internet (preferred): Chris.Cason@oaks.com.au or Chris.Cason@povray.org
CIS: 100032,1644
 
Aaron Collins
(Co-author of DKBTrace 2.12)
(POV-Ray 1.0 developer)
 
Chris Dailey
(POV-Ray 3.0 developer)
CIS: 
 
Steve Demlow
(POV-Ray 3.0 developer)
CIS: 
 
Andreas Dilger
(POV-Ray 3.0 developer)
Internet: adilger@enel.ucalgary.ca
Http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/
 
Joris van Drunen Littel
(Mac beta tester)
 
Alexander Enzmann
(POV-Ray 1.0/2.0/3.0 developer)
CIS: 70323,2461
Internet: xander@mitre.com
 
Dan Farmer
(POV-Ray 1.0/2.0/3.0 developer)
CIS: 74431,1075
 
David Harr
(Mac balloon help and palette code)
 
Jimmy Hoeks
(Help file for Windows user interface)
 
Terry Kanakis
(Camera fix)
 
Kari Juharvi Kivisalo
(Ground fog code)
 
Adam Knight
(Mac beta tester, Mac Apple Guide developer)
CIS: 
 
Lutz Kretzschmar
(IBM-PC display code [SS24 truecolor], part of the anti-aliasing code)
CIS: 100023,2006
 
Charles Marslett
(IBM-PC display code)
 
Pascal Massimino
(Fractal objects)
 
Jim McElhiney
(POV-Ray 3.0 developer)
CIS: 
 
Robert A. Mickelsen
(POV-Ray 3.0 docs)
CIS: 
 
Mike Miller
(Artist, scene files, stones.inc)
CIS: 70353,100
 
Douglas Muir
(Bump maps, height fields)
 
Joel NewKirk
(Amiga Version)
CIS: 102627,1152
 
Jim Nitchals
(Mac version, scene files)
 
Paul Novak
(Texture contributions)
 
Dave Park
(Amiga support, AGA video code)
 
David Payne
(RLE targa code)
 
Bill Pulver
(Time code, IBM-PC compile)
 
Anton Raves
(Beta tester, helping out on several Mac thingies)
CIS: 100022,2603
 
Dan Richardson
(Docs)
CIS: 
 
Tim Rowley
(PPM and Windows-specific BMP image format support)
Internet: trowley@geom.umn.edu
 
Robert Schadewald
(Beta tester)
CIS: 
 
Eduard Schwan
(Mac version, mosaic preview, docs)
CIS: 71513,2161
 
Robert Skinner
(Noise functions)
 
Erkki Sondergaard
(Scene files)
CIS: 
 
Zsolt Szalavari
(Halo code)
Internet: zsolt@cg.tuwien.ac.at
 
Scott Taylor
(Leopard and onion textures)
 
Timothy Wegner
(Fractal objects, PNG support)
CIS: 71320,675
Internet: twegner@phoenix.net
 
Drew Wells
(POV-Ray 1.0 developer, POV-Ray 1.0 team coordinator)
 
Chris Young
(POV-Ray 1.0/2.0/3.0 developer, POV-Ray 2.0/3.0 team coordinator)
CIS: 76702,1655

Appendix C
Contacting the Authors

The POV-Team is a collection of volunteer programmers, designers, animators and artists meeting via electronic mail on Compuserve's GRAPHDEV forum (GO GRAPHDEV). The POV-Team's goal is to create freely distributable, high quality rendering and animation software written in C that can be easily ported to many different computers. If you have any questions about POV-Ray, please contact

  Chris Young
  POV-Team Coordinator
  CIS: 76702,1655
  Internet: 76702.1655@compuserve.com

We love to hear about how you're using and enjoying the program. We also will do our best try to solve any problems you have with POV-Ray and incorporate good suggestions into the program. If you have a question regarding commercial use of, distribution of, or anything particularly sticky, please contact Chris Young, the development team coordinator. Otherwise, spread the mail around. We all love to hear from you! The best method of contact is e-mail through CompuServe for most of us. America On-Line and Internet can now send mail to CompuServe, also, just use the Internet address and the mail will be sent through to CompuServe where we read our mail daily. Please do not send large files to us through the e-mail without asking first. We pay for each minute on CompuServe and large files can get expensive. Send a query before you send the file, thanks!

Appendix D
Postcards for POV-Ray Team Members

If you want to personally thank some of the POV-Ray Team members you can send them a postcard from wherever you are. To avoid invalid addresses from floating around (in case some of us move) the addresses listed below (in alphabetical order) are only valid until the given date.

  Dieter Bayer
  Taeublingstr. 26
  91058 Erlangen
  Germany                                    (until 31. July 1997)
 
  Chris Cason                                (Windows version)
  PO Box 407
  Williamstown
  Victoria 3016
  Australia                                  (until 31. December 1998)
 
  Joel NewKirk
  255-9 Echelon Rd 
  Voorhees, NJ, USA, 08043                   (until -)
 
  Eduard Schwan                              (Macintosh version)
  1112 Oceanic Drive
  Encinitas, California, USA, 92024-4007     (until 30. June 1998)

You should also be aware that we do not answer any questions asked by regular mail or phone, we only reply to e-mails. Send any questions you have to the e-mail address mentioned in section "Contacting the Authors" .

Appendix F
Tips and Hints

Appendix F.1
Scene Design Tips

There are a number of excellent shareware CAD style modelers available on the DOS platform now that will create POV-Ray scene files. The online systems mentioned elsewhere in this document are the best places to find these. Hundreds of special-purpose utilities have been written for POV-Ray: data conversion programs, object generators, shell-style launchers and more. It would not be possible to list them all here, but again, the online systems listed will carry most of them. Most, following the POV-Ray spirit, are freeware or inexpensive shareware. Some extremely elaborate scenes have been designed by drafting on graph paper. Raytracer Mike Miller recommends graph paper with a grid divided in tenths, allowing natural decimal conversions. Start out with a boilerplate scene file, such as a copy of basicvue.pov , and edit that. In general, place your objects near and around the origin with the camera in the negative z-direction, looking at the origin. Naturally, you will break from this rule many times, but when starting out, keep things simple. For basic, boring, but dependable lighting, place a light source at or near the position of the camera. Objects will look flat, but at least you will see them. From there, you can move it slowly into a better position.

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