Slime wrote:
>>>Just had a very quick look. This was well worth the wait. Lots of superb
>>>images and many of them are *** really *** impressive.
> 
> 
> Yay!
> 
> 
>> Good job I didn't enter in the end then. I embarrass myself enough
> 
> already.
> 
> 
> It seems like a lot of people had this attitude about the competition. I
> think it's sad. If you put months of hard work into something and get it
> into a state that you feel is completed, then you should never be ashamed of
> it, regardless of how it looks next to anything else. And more importantly,
> everyone who is skilled at something was once unskilled at it. (Even Gilles
> Tran's early work looks like everyone else's.) Holding back gets you
> nowhere. Povcomp was an excellent opportunity for everyone to develop their
> skills and I wish more people had taken advantage of it.
> 
> Being critical of one's own work is important, but only for the sake of
> self-improvement.
> 
> What I'm saying here doesn't apply just to povcomp, or even just to POV-Ray.
> Never decide that you aren't capable of being as good as (or better than)
> the best! Believing in your own potential is necessary to achieve it.
> 
>  - Slime
>  [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]
> 
> 
Good words.  But I think they are a bit ironic here since Steve was one 
of the most vocal proponents of that very viewpoint throughout the 
contest, and he was kind of an inspiration to me.  I'm not taking his 
post in a totally straighforward way.  I think he is still trying to 
come to grips with the "loss" of not fielding an entry, after he worked 
so hard and long, rising from the ashes twice if I've understood 
correctly.  He had to make a tough decision to self-edit based on what 
he felt, in the end, were serious technical flaws with his entry.  That 
takes a certain kind of toughness too.

-Jim