Current bugs/limitations
- The supported image formats are: Png, Jpg, Bmp, Tga, PPM, Tiff.
- Bump maps don't always have the same apparant depth as what you get from
POV-Ray,
if it isn't enough (the usual problem), then make the bump size larger/smaller.
Part of this problem appears to be an error in POV-Ray. If you have
a transform before the texture is applied, then the value passed to the texture
by POV-Ray doesn't have this transform applied, where Polyray will.
- Only one rendering windows that uses POV-Ray can be open at a time.
This is due to limitations of GUI Extensions (plus the way I chose to send
the information between the GUI extension and the plugin). Before rendering
another still image or animation you must close the previous window.
[This limitation is not true of images/animations rendered with the built-in
renderer.]
- When rendering RIB files, you must have the RIB Exporter plugin loaded
as well as a RenderMan compliant renderer that can function from a command
line (e.g., rendrib xxx.rib). The expectation is that the RIB renderer
will produce an image file in TIFF format. The only RenderMan compliant
renderers tested are rendrib.exe (BMRT) and renderdc.exe (the demo version
of the RenderDotC renderer). The default RIB renderer is rendrib.exe
(from the BMRT distribution). To change it, you must edit the registry
key,
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Softronics/Moray For Windows/Plugin/Polyray/RIBRenderer
Enter the name of your RIB renderer executable. (This executable must
be located in a directory on the PATH environment variable.)
- No support for generating RenderMan compliant shaders from Moray textures.
The name of the texture is exported, and it is your responsibility to write
and compile the shader before rendering a RIB file.
- Many prims are not supported by the Renderman Exporter/Renderer plugin.
(See readme for the RIB Exporter plugin).
- No support for the following prims: Plugin, User defined (UDO). Moray
will need additional interfaces before UDO prims will be supported.
Support for other Plugins may be possible in specific cases, but some will
be too tightly tied to POV-Ray to ever get them to work.
- Limitations of supported prims:
- Beveling of sweeps (this includes TTF) doesn't work.
- Heightfields don't support waterlevel.
- Sweeps don't properly handle quadratic and cubic outlines
- Infinite planes are simulated with large discs - there can be problems
with CSG involving planes (slowdowns in rendering and odd results).
Workaround is to place the planes with boxes or other prim.
- Doesn't propagate "no shadow" from the root of a CSG object down to it's
pieces.
- Using shadows/reflection/transmission in conjunction with either ZBuffer
or Scanline rendering may shade incorrectly. [There appears to be a
need to add a minimum distance at which shadows should be calculated - still
in work.]
- CSG Intersection or Difference in any rendering mode but raytracing will
leave cracks. This is a limitation of how CSG is currently performed
on polygonal solids.
- Only some object specific information will be keyframed. The standard
transformation information (translation/rotation/scale) will be saved
for all objects. For specific object types, the following information
will be keyed:
- Cone - upper and lower radii
- Superquadric - dE, dR values
- Torus - minor and major radii
- Disc - inner radius
- Camera - view angle, roll angle, look at and position references.
[Roll angle not working.]
- Lights - color (spotlight also keys falloff/radius/tightness)
- Sweeps - values of control points
- Bezier - values of control points
- Blob - threshold value
- TrueType - extrusion, offset in x and y.
- Animation of textures is partially complete. The following texture
information will be keyed:
- Solid colors used in pigments and media (the <r,g,b,f,t> value)
- Transforms
- Finish
- Noise modifiers
Note that only textures (or individual components of textures) that are named
will be keyed.