POVray is now Open Source
POVray was one of my original inspirations for 3D work. A friend showed it to me at college, and I was interested immediately. I could make 3D things, like in the movies! Or not, in my case. I wasn't so interested in making models of people, but making models of worlds was fantastic fun. With a friend, I wrote some code to generate L-systems and output POVray scene files. The resulting renders took hours, and eventually I would leave them running all night, with something nice to wake up to in the morning.
Before I started crtrm, I had planned on using POVray for a graphics engine. It was old and stable code, and optimised. I figured I could tune it up to be realtime engine, getting the benefits of POVray's features and large model libraries, and contributing back to a project I had used and enjoyed for a long time.
But it turned out that POVray's old license would probably prevent me from making a derivative work. The license had an approved (and revoked) distributor's list, and some other restrictions. I dimly recall that the webpage had what amounted to a recommendation that people don't use the code. So I wrote my own.
But now, POVray is available under a new, Free Software compatible license!
I downloaded it, dusted off my old sphere and cone primitives, and was able to get up and rendering within minutes. It's more nostaligia than useful at this point, as other open-source projects have surpassed it, but at one point in time it had a huge community, with weekly competitions and lots of contributors.
Get it here.