I hate change
Warning: this is really just a whiny, grizzly rant about how I fear change and want everything to stay the same.
I'm not a highly skilled 3d modeller. I've used PovRay quite a lot, and back in the day I got pretty adept at hand-coding POV files. Then I found the MoRay front-end modeller for PovRay, and haven't hand-written a POV in many years. I really like MoRay a lot. I'm not that interested in rendering highly realistic scenes; I used it mostly to create greyscale "stage sets" so that I could set up lighting and what-not for drawing from.
Alas, when my last machine crapped out due to extreme old age, it was replaced by one which came with Vista pre-installed and no easy way to get Vista off and XP on. (It also came without any Vista recovery/install disks, and it won't make a set, claiming to have alrteady done so - I suspect because it was just factory-imaged from an install set that had already done one). I forget exactly what was missing from the XP installer I tried (SATA drivers, I think); I was promised a copy of an XP installer with them included by somebody, but nothing ever came of it. Eventually my soul was crushed by Vista and I came to accept the status quo.
Alas, PovRay and MoRay didn't work or play well with Vista. Not at all well.
The most recent release candidate for PovRay 3.7 does work with Vista, but MoRay still doesn't, and I've pretty much lost hope that it ever will, it doesn't appear to have been updated at all for several years. I've tried a couple of other modellers for PovRay, most recently Bishop3d, but none of them have been much good really; Bishop3d's texture creation system is obscure, to say the least, and its help files really aren't very helpful.
I've tried to teach myself how to use Blender, which appears to be very capable indeed (and is free), but I'm just stumped by its bizarre and idiosyncratic UI; it's massive overkill for my needs, and I just don't have the time or inclination to put in the many, many hours I'd need to learn how to manipulate it.
I've played around a bit with DAZ, but it seems to fill much the same niche as Poser, and isn't much use for what I need. I've played a bit with Google Sketchup, and it's vaguely useful for blocking in my "stage sets", but its shading and texturing is very primitive.
Annette's machine still has XP installed, and I can still use MoRay on that. But it won't last forever, and when that machine craps out, that will be the end.
Bugger.
I hate change.
I'm not a highly skilled 3d modeller. I've used PovRay quite a lot, and back in the day I got pretty adept at hand-coding POV files. Then I found the MoRay front-end modeller for PovRay, and haven't hand-written a POV in many years. I really like MoRay a lot. I'm not that interested in rendering highly realistic scenes; I used it mostly to create greyscale "stage sets" so that I could set up lighting and what-not for drawing from.
Alas, when my last machine crapped out due to extreme old age, it was replaced by one which came with Vista pre-installed and no easy way to get Vista off and XP on. (It also came without any Vista recovery/install disks, and it won't make a set, claiming to have alrteady done so - I suspect because it was just factory-imaged from an install set that had already done one). I forget exactly what was missing from the XP installer I tried (SATA drivers, I think); I was promised a copy of an XP installer with them included by somebody, but nothing ever came of it. Eventually my soul was crushed by Vista and I came to accept the status quo.
Alas, PovRay and MoRay didn't work or play well with Vista. Not at all well.
The most recent release candidate for PovRay 3.7 does work with Vista, but MoRay still doesn't, and I've pretty much lost hope that it ever will, it doesn't appear to have been updated at all for several years. I've tried a couple of other modellers for PovRay, most recently Bishop3d, but none of them have been much good really; Bishop3d's texture creation system is obscure, to say the least, and its help files really aren't very helpful.
I've tried to teach myself how to use Blender, which appears to be very capable indeed (and is free), but I'm just stumped by its bizarre and idiosyncratic UI; it's massive overkill for my needs, and I just don't have the time or inclination to put in the many, many hours I'd need to learn how to manipulate it.
I've played around a bit with DAZ, but it seems to fill much the same niche as Poser, and isn't much use for what I need. I've played a bit with Google Sketchup, and it's vaguely useful for blocking in my "stage sets", but its shading and texturing is very primitive.
Annette's machine still has XP installed, and I can still use MoRay on that. But it won't last forever, and when that machine craps out, that will be the end.
Bugger.
I hate change.