4th July, 1998, FAQ (frequently asked questions)
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1a)
Q: What are the supported plaforms ?
A: - DOS (32 bit extended)
   - Windows NT 
   - Windows 95
   - Linux
   - OS/2 (32 bit)
   - PowerPC

1b) 
A: I want a version for my XXXX platform, could you send me one ?
B: You send me the hardware and I'll happily compile it for you.
   (but seriously, If you want a different version and have the compiler
    installed on a server and can assign me an account I'll compile a
    version for that specific platform) 

1c) 
Q: Does it support intel's MMX scheme ?
A: The MetroWerks win32 version does.

1d) 
Q: What kind of CPU should I have to run RayChase ?
A: except for the PPC version (for obvious reasons) you're gonna need
   a pentium, pentium2, or pentium-pro although all version will also
   run on a standard 386 (except for the metrowerks version)

2)
Q: What's the purpose of RayChase ?
A: Create pretty & wacky pictures.

3)
Q: How come [on windows 95] when I minimize/change focuse ; RayChase hardly does
   anything. It takes ages to finish a trace.
A: Windows multi tasking (read: multi lagging) sucks; get a real OS - get linux.

4)
Q: Does the above problem [see question 2] relate to Windows NT too ?
A: No, NT handles tasks (and threads) in a better way.

5) 
Q: Why does raychase create a number *.logfile files ?
A: Raychase is very verbose (especially the debug version) about a number 
   of things, it starts out assuming there's no console to write to so you 
   will have a number of *.logfile's after a RayChase session. You can change 
   the output in the .ini file in the section application.message.handling to
   either

   con     (output to console)
   con+key (output to console & wait for keypress)
   log     (write to logfile)
   nil     (don't do anything with messages)
   aux     (auxillary, platform dependant)  

   Wich will then output all messages to the appropriate output.

   Note; the aux option will use a specific platform specific output,
   e.g. for example on win95/NT it will prompt you with a message box
   with a yes/no option.

6) 
Q: [on linux] It starts out saying 'Hit [ESC] to stop tracing' but
   I've been hitting the escape key for one day now and it still
   won't stop ! 

A: Move you mouse over to the RayChase *terminal* window (not the
   image window) and get focus on that, *then* press the escape key.

7)
Q: What's this lrchache.lst file it keeps asking about overwriting ?
A: It's the streamio chache list, RayChase will try to cache various
   files for speedier access. (hence you do not need to load any additional
   disk caching programs).

8) 
Q: RayChase just wiped out my harddisk, got my plastic rodent really confused
   and had my moniter explode. Can I sue your butt of ?
A: Nope, read the legal docs, I can't be held responsible for anything ... ha!

9) 
Q: I've noticed that the procedural textures are using the same pigment
   all the time, can I change this. 
A: Yes, either change the $default.pigment$ setting (in .ini file) to
   another pigment file or change it to a file wich doesn't exist. In
   the latter case RayChase will fallback on the (random) pigment of
   the called procedural texture.

   Example ;

   $default.pigment$ = null                        (no pigment)
   $default.pigment$ = $path.pigments$/cedar.pgm   (cedar wood pigment)

10) 
Q: I want to have RayChase run overnight and save the pictures to disk
   so I can look at them the next day, how should I do that ?
A: Type something like ;

   raychase -x640 -y480 -d -sf:/my_pictures/temp%04d.tga

or (wich is the same, just using longer argument names)

   raychase -xres 1024 -yres 768 -no_display -save /tmp/raychase.%d.tga
  
11) 
Q: When I'm running RayChase overnight it asks weather to overwrite
   certain files, how can I switch this of so that I don't have to 
   tell it to 'yes, overwrite it' and have run non-interactivly ?
A: There are 2 ways, the first is the safest ; change all the 
   application.message.handling settings (in the .ini) file to
   'log' this will write out logfiles and will do the answering
   of any questions automatically. You can also change the 
   'question.timeout' setting to, say, 10 seconds instead of -1
   wich will mean RayChase will wait for 10 seconds for a reply and
   will assume default behaviour if no reply was givin within the
   time limit.

12) 
Q: I want to render in 32bpp instead of 24bpp, how do I do that ?
A: Use the -A or (-alpha) argument on the commandline.

13)
Q: There seem to a number of versions [platforms] for RayChase, wich is
   the fastest ?
A: The linux version is pretty decent, the djgpp [dos] is fast and
   the metrowerks [win32 p6-2 mmx] is also pretty decent, but on average
   all versions are pretty decent speed wise and there aren't too big
   differences in execution speed (maybe a 4% max difference)

14)
Q: I *really* enjoy RayChase, It made me like a happy person type thing.
   I like to donate a fair amount of $ 'fill in big bucks' cash to you 
   is that okay ?
A: Nope, I don't want any money, send it to your favourite charity organisation
   in stead (and if you don't know any, Amnesty Internation is a good one)

15)
Q: Sometimes RayChase just produces a black screen - whats up ?
A: RayChase is a random raytracer, so it might decide to put one large
   sphere or plane just in front of the camera wich would hide all other stuff,
   it might also give all lights a fairly low luminance factor wich would mean
   somebody turned of the light in the scene. 

flux@iea.nl
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7845/
