I was just wondering about how folk like to use POV-Ray. I can see from the
various works posted that there are several camps, the realism camp, the
humaniform camp, the abstract and the fractal camps, but I wonder if these
are more a response to what is seen as acceptable than a native tendency in
the people who inhabit those camps.

Well, that was obtuse. Let me try again. Personally, I am really more
interested in what a formula can do (I just wish I had the math) than in
what composition techniques are used to make a scene. But when I post a
scene, I tend to make sure that it follows some of the more widely known
compositional elements so that people will like it.

A good example was my evenly spaced flowers. I was very happy with them as a
floating ball. I think that the scene improved when I made them into more
realistic flowers in a vase of sorts and put them in a scene, but I was
happy with them as a ball of flowers. Was the fact that I saw that as an
improvement cultural or native?

Other people would be happy with less detailed flowers as long as they were
placed in a really good scene. I imagine that they spend as much time
arranging the scene as I spend trying to make a nice formula.  But they
don't hand out blocky or shapeless flowers in a good scene, they trend
towards the middle just like I do. Again, is the urge to add technical
details peer pressure? or just good taste?

Others seem to spend most of their time doing things which add to the
realism, lighting, textures and atmosphere. Some can do amazing things with
matrixes and isosurfaces, but often they feel the need to add storytelling
items to the scene. Not that that's a bad thing in and of itself, I just
wonder if this restrains the art.

I know that sometimes (often) people break out of these molds quite
successfully, but I see the molds as being there anyway. The last animation
round was notable in that I saw a tendency for animations with Human forms
in them to excel while a beautiful fish mpg was largely ignored. Now there
may be reasons behind that other than the one I am about to guess at, but I
wonder if it might be because most of the entries were by people (voters)
who have worked on human forms and so saw more value in entries which suited
that style? Does a good POV-Ray image now require a Poser mesh? Again, not
that that is inherently a bad thing, as long as we notice that it may be
evolving of itself.

In other words, and in closing, is the Art of POV-Ray being molded by
technology, competitions, the artists or something else?

Looking for a conversation, not a style war...

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