On animation, physics and modeling...

Hi!

After seeing that you are actively discussing animation support, I want to 
contribute my ideas as well. Be warned, though, that this is a bit lengthy to 
make my point clear.
The modeler I have been using up to now is SCED or one of its successors 
(currently SCEDA II: http://members.rogers.com/mbeast1/).

What I like about it is the constraint-based editing: Instead of placing the 
object in space using three views, you have to define how the object is 
constrained by some other object. You can easily express things like "The 
base of that sphere lies on the floor plane" (free movement in 2 dimensions) 
or "The center axis of the sword handle lies on the center axis of the blade" 
(free movement in one dimension) or even "the end of the cylinder must be at 
the same location as the sphere (representing a joint)" (no movement at all).

This is so extremely convenient that I would like to see that in kpovmodeler, 
especially when animation is coming - complex machinery can be animated using 
only few instructions, since the rest is defined by the constraints. Editing 
is also a whole lot easier. Placing objects can be done by the intention 
("put the ant on the floor") not by coordinates ("put the ant somewhere at 
(x,y,0)"). Moving objects afterwards can be done in a single view, since the 
third coordinate is already given by the constraint. Rearranging your scene 
becomes so easy. Add two or more constraints to the object and see it expand 
or move to satisfy all of them. I really suggest you try it, just to see the 
effect. Real design can become a bit tedious with it, see below.
What I don't like with SCED is that you were forced to use constraints - there 
was no moving around unless the object had at least one constraint. (Placing 
was always possible by entering coordinates.) So this should definitely 
remain an optional feature.

Now about physics: constraints are already one part of physics simulation. 
Throw in some acceleration (which also covers gravity) and elasticity of 
object parameters (be they constraints-based or not), and a whole new world 
is possible, especially if you add partial constraints ("value A must be >= 
value B").

Finally, animations: Apart from what was said above, I like the idea of 
scriptability that was suggested in another thread. But many (if not most) 
problems can be solved using simple equations, especially now that povray has 
the clock_delta variable for incremental calculations and splines in 
calculations. Please make it possible to build an animation in a single 
povray file, this makes using external tools much easier. (Should be simple: 
allow Povray expressions anywhere a vector/number is allowed, and emit just 
one source file if no scripts are used). Using tools like 
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/3378/dgtl.html would still 
enable the use of split up time lines. Hmm... after thinking about it, if you 
use the Povray language itself for scripting, even more complicated scripts 
would not need more than one source file. IMHO the language is "okay enough" 
for this, even more so since 3.5. After all, this is kPOVmodeler, not 
k3dstudio.

Thanks for listening to my 2 Eurocents...

P.S. on an entirely unrelated matter: Is there a plugin architecture so you 
can add suport for some of the well-known addon programs for generating nice 
objects?

-- 
CU
	Joerg

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