[Petrarch of the VBB]

Having downloaded and used MLCAD, I now want to render my creations with povray. So I downloaded it at school (broadband you see) and installed it. However, I was highly confused by what I saw, a load of files and not one recognisable exe! (bear in mind that I was rushing this as if you are seen doing anything vaguely useful you are put on jankers for a year) So how do I use POVRAY with MLCAD?

[Nico]

POV... talk about a big step back in time lol. you almost need a programming license to use that. but maybe some ancient elder around remembers how the thing works... maybe

[Petrarch of the VBB]

Oh, that bad is it? Then what else can I use to render MLCAD stuff?

[an0n]

All I could ever figure out was how to make a really crappy sphere. Does it even have a proper UI? Far as I can remember it only lets you do stuff through changing tables of parameters and a command line.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

I read in PCFormat (in 1995, ahem) that it can take data from things like truespace and other design progs.

[an0n]

Originally posted by Petrarch of th VBB
I read in PCFormat (in 1995, ahem) that it can take data from things like truespace and other design progs.

Think of it as you would 3D Exploration. It can open just about anything from that era but changing stuff is pretty much impossible.

[Nico]

oh, no, you can  do a lot of stuff. but there's NO UI ( you wanted one, you had to get MORAY ). It'll all scripting.
Btw, it's at least 10 years old, and probably older in fact.

[mikhael]

You want a UI on a pure raytracer? You'll want to grab MORAY, as Venom said, else you'll be building all your stuff from raw mathematical functions.

POVray's been around since before I started college, so you're looking at... oh... at least 10 years old. A short Google Groups search reveals that v1.0 came out in 1992, so figure that there were at least two, maybe four years of >1.0 releases.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

Well, what else can I use for rendering MLCAD stuff?

[wEvil]

Well....i'd take a look at BMRT if you have the option to export to a RIB (which most programs do, as RIB is the most prevalent 3D format...ever)

www.exluna.com

BMRT is fairly advanced and does radiosity and displacement mapping, albeit pretty bloody slowly.

Its nowhere near as good as Entropy or PRman, but since both those cost a few thousand each processor you won't be looking at them

[Petrarch of the VBB]

What is everyone else using? If you look on brickshelf, there are loads of rendered MLCAD models, someone who did them or knows about them please reply!

[Corhellion]

www.ldraw.org

Go to downloads and then download L3lab, and L3p and L3pao

You need all those to make rendered ships, trust me, I have them all.

*watches Rose Red, GOOOOOOOD scary movie *

Well, hope that helped Petrarch!

Cya

[Petrarch of the VBB]

I hope it helps, too.

BTW, I have got quite skilled at it now, I will post some shots on my site.

Link to my dodgy site