1.1.5.1 The Original Creation Message

11906 S16/Raytraced Images
   07-Mar-91 18:56:37
Sb: DKB Development
Fm: David Buck 70521,1371
To: All

Greetings all.  This is my first posting to this group, so you'll
have to excuse me if I make any mistakes in this post.

Finally, after several weeks of waiting, I've received my CompuServe
account.  It's nice to see that people are enjoying my raytracer
(DKB, of course). I have noticed, however, that you are less than
satisfied at the support I've been able to provide <grin>.
True, I'm the first to admit that the support is poor.  I have 
little time these days to work on graphics - it takes long enough
to answer all the questions I get asked on a daily basis from all
across the world.

My motivation for releasing the raytracer as Freely Distributable
software in the first place was to allow people to have some fun
with a program I'd developed for just that purpose.  I don't 
consider it to be a professional package - I know it's nowhere near
that good.  I didn't make it shareware, however, because I knew I
wouldn't have much time for support.  I didn't want the hassles of
maintaining user lists, sending updates and notices, etc.

There has recently been a proposal in this forum that you write
your own raytracer to use instead of DKB.  Perhaps I can make that
prospect a little bit easier.  Suppose we take DKB and use it as a
base for a completely new system (the name "Renderdog" has
been tossed around, but I'm not fond of that one <g>). I would
like to propose the name "Software Taskforce on Animation and
Rendering" or STAR.  I would imagine that there would be
several packages developed such as:

 STAR Light  - the raytracer
 STAR Guider - an animation system
 STAR Maker - a user interface for StarLight

If you decide to do this, I would like to place a few rules on the
packages (or at least those developed from DKB):

  - they will remain freely distributable
  - support and maintenance of this new product will be undertaken
    by the STAR team (including but not limited to myself)
  - the programs will remain as portable as possible

What do you think of this proposal?

David Buck