Hiya, POVRay bloke from the UK in full 3D.

[Crayons]

Just a quick hello here.
I've been playing FRPs for a couple of decades now, on and off. I'm particularly keen on the graphics aspects. Although I have experimented with FM8 and the like my real interest is in 3D Modelling and I was interested to see that there appears to be a small community here! Excellent.
Sadly they all seem to be Sketched Up or Bryced or something else - are there any plain old POVRay apes like me out there???

cheers!
C

[Iapetus]

Welcome to the guild! Also, yay for another PSP user!

[tilt]

Welcome to the guild

[RobA]

I use POVRay a fair bit. Most any heightfields I render into maps are done with POVRay, including some 3d hexmaps I made.

-Rob A>

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[Crayons]

Excellent!! Most of my prior POVRay experience has been (amateur) designing space ships and 3D models for graphics for Wargames or RPGs. My knowledge of height fields use is therefore rather limited. However, when I get a moment I'll post some of my stuff. Here's a pub scene I did a while back - the candle flame is courtesy of Trevor Quayle who posted his code on povray.org.
To be honest I think I find it easier to generate a map via 3D than straight into 2D. Hrmmm.

[Redrobes]

Hiya Crayons and welcome. Can I first of all say that it was good of you to post about the RPGLife thing and that its good to know that its been or being sorted out. That's pretty big of you so well done there. Second up I don't know Mongoose publishing personally but a member here "The Greek" called Nick (quite good that one) was recruiting maps for mongoose so maybe he is or would know. Look him up and PM him cos he hasn't posted for a while. Thirdly, I use PSP as well but an old version I am comfortable with and see no need to upgrade any more. And 4thly I do 3D stuff too tho not in PovRay. We have a lot of sketchers and Brycers but also Nendo, Blender, 3DSMax, Maya, light wave and recently Truespace as well. I did a pub in 3D as a challenge entry one month and a cart in another - links below. Fifthly !?! Im in the UK too and wrote a little script which does the members map here so look in my sig and see that and add a pin in the map if you feel like it and then I can see if your my neighbour.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...kwood-Canifers

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...rosens-Caravan

Edit -- heh just been reading my Sorossens caravan thread and it says that I was starting the hobbit then. I am still reading that darned book this afternoon and its a whole year later. My god I don't have enough time. Its not even a big book.

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!

[torstan]

Hey Crayons - welcome! Good to see another maptool user here too. That POVRay stuff looks great. Definitely interested in seeing maps made that way.

[Crayons]

Hey Crayons - welcome! Good to see another maptool user here too. That POVRay stuff looks great. Definitely interested in seeing maps made that way.

Sure thing! Actually you're in luck (I think!?). This was a project where I originally generated the pub using Map Tool and then tried modelling part of it in POVRay - I've just dug out the other files and re-rendered some views -I've put them in an album called "2D vs 3D?" here. I hope you can find them.
Firstly - I hope I'm not representing myself as any kind of expert in any of these tools I've quoted! The Maptool pub was my first (and only, really) attempt with that tool so far - and - as is common with my work, I failed to really dot all the i's and cross all the t's. eg. some things have drop shadows, some don't and so on.
The POVRay version is even less completed - I really only did as much as was necessary for the interior view and other bits I was just plain enjoying doing. Don't judge POVRay harshly from this "map", it can be improved on immensely from this render - the lighting is very plain here - it's what I use in "workshop" mode as I call it.
I've not really used either Maptool or FM8 to any extent that might lead me to a preference. It strikes me that Maptool is easier for buildings and FM8 for "geography", I guess?
However, neither really gives me as much pleasure and satisfaction as modelling in POVRay does.

nice pub crayons ... did you model all yourself, or are the elements pulled from a library of sorts?

Jolly good question! All of the objects are my own design apart from the candle flame itself and some bottles in the far distance. I can't find the name of the guy who did the bottle meshes - he didn't put anything in his code, that's common enough. I do take care with attribution when I can but usually I prefer to generate my own, it's what makes it so satisfying. The flame is just too clever for me though.