Glenn McCarter gives us a witty allusion to the everyday mysteries
that accompany modern life.  Here mystery is a
curiosity about the inner workings of things.  A curiosity he
trys to satisfy with a stripped-away view of modern plumbing.
But what he finds is an intricate tangle.

-Jim

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Jim Charter <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:3f2f0ac2@news.povray.org...
> Glenn McCarter gives us a witty allusion to the everyday mysteries
> that accompany modern life.  Here mystery is a
> curiosity about the inner workings of things.  A curiosity he
> trys to satisfy with a stripped-away view of modern plumbing.
> But what he finds is an intricate tangle.
>
> -Jim


Heh heh, several mysteries in there...  the mystery of plumbing itself, the
mystery of how the plumber will reach the leak, the mystery of why the
bathroom is waaaay up there in the first place, and the mystery of  why his
concept score wasn't higher, 'cause this was a damn good idea!  Great job!

RG

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> Heh heh, several mysteries in there...  the mystery of plumbing itself,
the
> mystery of how the plumber will reach the leak, the mystery of why the
> bathroom is waaaay up there in the first place, and the mystery of  why
his
> concept score wasn't higher, 'cause this was a damn good idea!  Great job!

I quote: "...and the mystery of  why his concept score wasn't higher, 'cause
this was a damn good idea".

That pretty much makes this picture the most on-topic of all. :-)

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This was my favorite from this round - it should have won in my opinion.  I
love the concept and the contrast between the complexity of the pipes with
the 'openness' of the ground in the top part of the image.

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:3f2f0ac2@news.povray.org...
| <snip>
| -Jim
|

Jim, if I ever write a book, you've *got* to write the description on
the back cover!

Regarding the image. Excellent detail in the plumbing. This picture is
*almost* *exactly* how it should be done! The pipes, the bathroom, and
even the figure himself were designed by the artist, so all of the
elements have a consistent feel and each contributes to the style and
effect of the scene, rather than being present only to fill a roll or
space in the scene. The weakest element? Obviously the ground, which I
gather from the text file was the one element *not* designed by the
artist, but rather found (on the internet?) and mapped on.

 -Shay

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Shay wrote:
> "Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
> news:3f2f0ac2@news.povray.org...
> | <snip>
> | -Jim
> |
> 
> Jim, if I ever write a book, you've *got* to write the description on
> the back cover!

Hee hee!  Nice to be appreciated, look forward to reading the book.
> 
  space in the scene. The weakest element? Obviously the ground, which I
> gather from the text file was the one element *not* designed by the
> artist, but rather found (on the internet?) and mapped on.
> 

Yes, he has an interesting problem here, which comes up time and again 
in raytracings.  The ground seems to be an attempt to create the
raytracing equivalent of 'neutral'.  Yet a truly neutral ground breaks
with the convention that a raytracing be a 'scene'.  So he seemed forced
to provide a ground that was tactile and not overwhelmed by the 
figure/subject.  Meanwhile, the point of view of the observer is 
privileged, a kind of hovering x-ray vision.  Privileged view point is 
one of the hallmarks of raytracing, yet a truly
neutral ground is scorned. I hesitate to second guess peoples' work but
here I can't help but wonder how the picture would have worked if the
ground had been chosen to acknowledge the privileged view of the camera 
more. For instance how would the picture change if the ground simulated 
a piece of graph paper?

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Thanks for the intriguing comments, everyone!

"The Enigma of Plumbing" is my image, so I can provide a little background
on the grounding problem.  As Jim suspected, the ground is indeed an attempt
to create a 'neutral' element.  I prefer complex scenes with both tension
and harmony.  I exploit geometry, lighting, textures, whatever is necessary
to accomplish this balance.  "Plumbing" is one of the most mechanically
complex scenes I've ever created, so balancing this with neutral areas was
essential to me.

The scene started out with a far-away ground-level perspective, which
allowed a plain sky to serve as background.  But this arrangement didn't
emphasize certain elements sufficiently and felt too cliched to me.  So I
switched to the more omniscient viewpoint of the final scene.  This brought
the 'ground problem' into play.

However, lost in this viewpoint transition was a secondary theme of the
image: that all plumbing networks ultimately come from (and return to) the
ground.  To hint at this, I chose an "earthy" ground texture.  Yes, the two
source images for the ground were found on the internet.  I didn't bother to
attribute them because they are essentially unrecognizable: I modified them,
made them seamless, blended them together, and added turbulence.

Nevertheless, I was never fully satisfied with the result.  The 'graph
paper' ground idea is very interesting to me.  It gives me other ideas along
these lines that I may have to experiment with...

--
Glenn

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Thanks for the intriguing comments, everyone!

"The Enigma of Plumbing" is my image, so I can provide a little background
on the grounding problem.  As Jim suspected, the ground is indeed an attempt
to create a 'neutral' element.  I prefer complex scenes with both tension
and harmony.  I exploit geometry, lighting, textures, whatever is necessary
to accomplish this balance.  "Plumbing" is one of the most mechanically
complex scenes I've ever created, so balancing this with neutral areas was
essential to me.

The scene started out with a far-away ground-level perspective, which
allowed a plain sky to serve as background.  But this arrangement didn't
emphasize certain elements sufficiently and felt too cliched to me.  So I
switched to the more omniscient viewpoint of the final scene.  This brought
the 'ground problem' into play.

However, lost in this viewpoint transition was a secondary theme of the
image: that all plumbing networks ultimately come from (and return to) the
ground.  To hint at this, I chose an "earthy" ground texture.  Yes, the two
source images for the ground were found on the internet.  I didn't bother to
attribute them because they are essentially unrecognizable: I modified them,
made them seamless, blended them together, and added turbulence.

Nevertheless, I was never fully satisfied with the result.  The 'graph
paper' ground idea is very interesting to me.  It gives me other ideas along
these lines that I may have to experiment with...

--
Glenn

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Hi Glenn,

Thanks for chiming in.  It always interesting to get a little glimpse at 
the creative process.

Jim

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"Glenn McCarter" <gmc### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:3f442238@news.povray.org...
|
| As Jim suspected, the ground is indeed an attempt
| to create a 'neutral' element.  I prefer complex
| scenes with both tension and harmony.  I exploit
| geometry, lighting, textures, whatever is necessary
| to accomplish this balance.  "Plumbing" is one of the
| most mechanically complex scenes I've ever created,
| so balancing this with neutral areas was
| essential to me.

I think that the map you used for the ground failed you. It looks out of
place next to the other textures and IMO is far from neutral because of
it. Outstanding picture, however.

Another idea besides something literally neutral like graph paper is to
use some element which is so overly familiar that it has become
invisible to people. Something like Gilles Tran's grass macro which
seems to be an element in every third IRTC entry. Just a randomish
thought...

 -Shay

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