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- This file contains the documentation specific to the Amiga version of
- POV-Ray.
-
- Differences From Original Distribution:
- The original distribution of POV-Ray is in ZIP format. For the
- Amiga, this has been converted to LZH format. In addition, the Amiga
- distribution of POV-Ray has CR-LF pairs converted to only LF's for
- text files. Otherwise, the Amiga distribution is identical to the
- ZIP distribution.
-
- Note: PLEASE SEE POVLEGAL.DOC. The Amiga version in LZH format is an
- officially supported format and can be distributed as is. You MAY
- NOT re-package the archive file or distribute any changes to it. If
- you do post it on a BBS or network, you must provide at least the
- scene files and documentation files with the executables. See
- POVLEGAL.DOC for complete details.
-
- Executables:
- Two executables are provided:
- povray881 - The version for systems with 68881 math coprocessors.
- povrayieee - The version for systems without a coprocessor.
-
- Running POV-Ray:
- When running POV-Ray, be sure that you have a large stack set. If
- the stack is too small, POV-Ray could crash without warning. Mine is
- set to 50,000 bytes.
-
- Memory Requirements:
- POV-Ray can run on simple files with 1 Meg of memory. I would highly
- recommend having more memory to render more complicated scenes.
- There's a known bug in this version which prevents POV-Ray from
- cleaning up gracefully if it runs out of memory in some instances.
- If this occurs, the cancel requestor will not be closed. If you
- click on it, the system will probably hang or reboot. This should be
- fixed in the next release.
-
- Display Formats:
- The Amiga version of the raytracer supports three types of display
- formats:
- +d0 - HAM (default)
- +dE - HAME
- +dF - Firecracker
-
- By default (or the +d0 switch), a display will be generated in HAM6
- according to the image size. If the image is not wider than 368
- pixels, the display's horizontal mode is lo-res. If the image is
- wider than 368 pixels, the display's horizontal mode is hi-res. If
- the image is not taller than 241 pixels, the display's vertical mode
- is non-interlaced. If the image is taller than 241 pixels, the
- display's vertical mode is interlaced. Images that are smaller than
- the nominal screen size are centered in the screen. Images that are
- larger than the nominal screen size are displayed in overscan. Note
- that not all machines can display a hi-res HAM6 screen. If your
- machine cannot display a particular screen, the screen-open call will
- fail and an error will be displayed.
-
- The HAME mode is always 320 x 200 pixels.
-
- The firecracker mode adjusts the resolution according to the -w
- (width) parameter of the raytracer.
- 320 <= w < 0 use 320 x 482
- 640 <= w < 320 use 640 x 482
- 768 <= w < 640 use 768 x 482
- 1024 <= w < 768 use 1024 x 482
-
- File Formats:
- The default file format for the Amiga is "dump" format (+fd). Targa
- or raw may be specified on the command line or in the povray.def
- file.
-
- Building The Source:
- POV-Ray was compiled using Lattice (now SAS) version 5.10b. I'm sure
- that later versions will work. If you're compiling with another
- compiler, you'll have to edit the makefile to set the proper compiler
- options. As far as that goes, you're on your own.
-
- To compile POV-Ray from the original source, follow these
- instructions:
- 1) copy the files in the "source" directory into a "build"
- directory.
- 2) copy the files in the "machine/amiga" directory to the "build"
- directory.
- 3) rename file "amigacon.h" to "config.h".
- 4) rename file "amiga.mak" to "makefile".
- 5) if you're building an IEEE executable, you must edit the
- makefile, comment out the line for "CFLAGS = ..." for the '881
- and uncomment the line "CFLAGS = ..." for the IEEE emulator.
- Type "lmk povrayieee".
- 6) To compile a 68881 version of POV-Ray, leave the original
- makefile unaltered and type "lmk".
-
- Post-Processing Images:
- A utility called dump2iff has been included in the executable archive
- to convert the POV-Ray format output to IFF HAM format. To run this
- utility, you must provide the names of the input and output files.
- eg.
- dump2iff picture.dis picture.ham
-
- The dump2iff program can also write out a file containing the palette
- it used to make the image. It can then be told to use this palette
- for when converting other images. This is useful for making
- animations for animation players that can't change color palettes
- between frames.
-
- To output a palette, use the -p option of dump2iff:
- dump2iff -ppicture.pal picture.dis picture.ham
-
- To use this palette for other images, simply add it to the command
- line:
- dump2iff pic2.dis pic2.ham picture.pal
-
- By default, dump2iff will perform dithering to help smooth out the
- color changes. To disable dithering, use -d on the command line.
-
- "The Art Department Professional" by ASDG does a fine job of post-
- processing images. ADPro can accept QRT format images (which is the
- format output by POV-Ray with the +fd command-line parameter). Al-
- ternatively, you can output Targa (+ft) or raw (+fr). To read the raw
- format into ADPro, use the Scuplt reader. You'll have to type in the
- resolution you used to generate the image.
-
- Comments and suggestions about the Amiga version can be directed to me:
- Dave Park
- Internet: 70004.1764@CompuServe.com
- CompuServe: [70004,1764]
-