SoftTronics Moray 3.5 for Windows review

Ray-tracing as a technique for generating photo-realistic images from 3D computer models has been around for a long time.

It requires a great deal of computing power, and only the latest Pentium 4 processors can generate pictures in a reasonable amount of time. Fortunately, the Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer, or POV-Ray, can produce stunning images that are worth the wait.

POV-Ray's Scene Description Language (SDL) is the key to its power. With this, you can specify a scene in as much detail as you need. As it is an extensive language, though, the supplied tutorial is an essential starting point. Also included is an excellent reference guide with extensive examples.

Once you are acquainted, you can quickly produce surreal scenes using sculpted combinations of standard object types; the examples included provide absorbing source material. For a flavour of what is possible with SDL, though, visit the bimonthly International Ray-Tracing Competition (www.irtc.org), in which POV-Ray features strongly.

Helpful for beginners and advanced users alike is the ability to insert prewritten code templates into scene descriptions. These not only speed the development process, but also contain immensely useful descriptive comments. When rendering, POV-Ray provides plenty of diagnostic output and performance statistics to gauge its performance.

As good as POV-Ray's documentation is, not everyone has the time to learn SDL. Fortunately, the compatible object modeller Moray prevents you having to program POV-Ray scenes by hand.

At first glance Moray looks like any other 3D graphics package. However, unlike other programs, it generates SDL and controls the rendering engine directly. The user interface is clean and configurable, with basic actions across the top of the screen and overlaid object selector and editor tabs on the right.

The jewel in Moray's crown is undoubtedly its material editor. Here you can create and test realistic and extremely complex 3D textures. When perfecting a surface, there's an extensive materials library from which to select a starting point.

There are established alternatives such as 3D Studio Max, LightWave, trueSpace and Blender but, for the price, features and ease of use, a combination of Moray and POV-Ray is hard to beat.