Language specification (draft 0.2)

0. INTRODUCTION

[to be done...]

1. BASICS

 Panorama scene language is based in objects. Objects are instances of a class, the same way a variable is an instance of its type. Each object has some attributes that differentiates it from every other object. This attribute will always have the form of a keyword followed by an instance of the right type:   Objects can be created in any of these three ways:
  1. From scratch:

    2. light light_name
    {
      translate  <0, 1, 0>
      color      CRed
    }

    This way, object will be an instance of the default class for the family (e.g. PointLight in the light family). Some families of classes has no default, so they cannot be instantiated this way.
     

  2. As an instance of a given class:

    3. light light_name : class WarnLight
    {
      translate  <0, 1, 0>
      point_at   <0, 0, 0>
      color      CWhite
    }

    Referred class should be a built-in class, or a registered plugin.
     

  3. Copying from another object:

    4. light light_name : extends another_light_name
    {
      intensity  100
    }

    New object will be a copy of referred object, with aditional changes given. Obviously, it will be an object of the same class as referred object, that must have been defined previously.
     

This three methods can be used to create (instantiate) a new object. You can assign a name to the new object (as in previous examples), or left it unnamed. If you don't want to instantiate a new object, but just use it as a template to make copies of it, you can make a definition. To do this, you can use any of the previous methods, preceded by the word 'define': In a definition, an object cannot be unnamed (a definition that cannot be referred would be useless).

2. SCENE FILE STRUCTURE

[to be done...]