4188f5dc$1@news.povray.org...

> OK sorry I misunderstood.  I was thinking that because I am no expert at 
> 3rd
> party modellers, I would have more of a chance of winning by getting some
> "credit" for doing models in raw POV.  If you are saying that an identical
> model created in both raw POV and a 3rd party modeller gets the same 
> credit,
> then I will have to practise more with what looks like easier tools to use
> for complicated models.

I will expand on this later (with examples) when I write the "POVCOMP hints" 
about modelling but here's a couple of answers:

Most judges won't be familiar with POV-Ray but the judges who know it will 
able to add some balance to the discussions so that POV-Ray specific 
features can be properly judged. However, the goal is still to make great 
pictures, which means that quality remains central. As a judge, I would not 
give extra points to a bad model because it's done in SDL. I would only 
reward good models, whatever the tool used.

See for instance this model of typewriter by Jaime Vives Piqueres:
http://www.oyonale.com/iss/english/museum_05.htm
It's certainly one of the most impressive examples of SDL model I've seen. 
It's small, clean code that doesn't use much memory, and, because it's SDL, 
it still looks great on close-up. The same typewriter created with a 
traditional modeller would be a huge, RAM-eating mesh with visible polygons 
that would make testing difficult due to long parsing times. In this case, 
SDL wins. As a judge, I wouldn't reward using SDL per se, but the smart use 
of SDL (and POV-Ray) to create a superior model.

So it comes down to this: use the right tool for the right job. If you can't 
do something as good as you want it to be in SDL, don't. If you can't model 
a good-looking human face in Wings, don't. But if you can do one of these 
things, please do it! If something is going to be rewarded, it's the ability 
to make the best of the tools and time budget available to the artist. Lots 
of impressive stuff can be done in SDL, and often more easily than with a 
mesh modeller, so this can be shown. Also, SDL-based objects can have their 
own specific artistic values and some styles of imagery can also benefit 
from this.

> But what happens if the quality of work isn't much different by the end of
> January?

It will. I'm confident that the good stuff already there will become 
*really* good stuff by the end January. In any case, 3 extra months wouldn't 
make a difference at this point.

> I'll see, the more I think about it the more I'm tempted to carry on :-)

You're welcome!

Gilles

-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters