"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message
news:403039ad$1@news.povray.org...
> St. wrote:
>
> >
> >     Ah, I missed that, (got my PC in 2000), but I've just had a
look
>
> What is your actual programming (as separate from computer)
experience?

   My programming experience as seperate from my computer?

   Sorry Jim, none whatsoever. Sad but true. Nearly twenty years ago,
I used to look at the school kids playing 'Pacman', (or whatever) in
the shops as I walked by, and thought they were wasting their time on
computers.

   "Where were they going? Nowhere!"  How wrong I was...  ;)

   BUT, at that time, I also wanted to do/try CG, (influenced by
Starwars, etc.) and understood that CG was a possibility, but it was
always out of my reach. That's how far I ventured into the realms of
computers until 2000. No programming skills, just a PC layman that
loves all things art.

>
> > at the Horror round, and I don't see anything that's majorly
different
> > to any other round, but perhaps in this round, more people
actually
> > *did* submit something rather than not? I guess we'll never know.
>
> I think it's a bit regretable that every decision need have a
measurable
> outcome.  I still think it was an interesting experiment.  Just to
> create a little variety.  For the record, I think this is an
appropriate
> place to sound out interest on the idea.  I am not sure that the
people
> who would make that decision actually frequent this group.

 If it was me in the hot seat? I would implement it for one more try,
or maybe even vote on it. It's the thinking time that counts for a
decent image imo - just like a serious oil painting - don't just slap
it on, think about it first.

 If someone has worked hard on an image, and it doesn't get submitted,
how can they improve/advance their skills when there is no forthcoming
critique? (Yes, there is p.b.i, but who then posts their *complete*,
unfinished, un-submitted irtc image and then tells the world that they
couldn't quite make it happen...? You'll only usually see the main
model or idea involved).


    ~Steve~

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St. wrote:

>     none whatsoever. 

Wow! For someone learning how to program, as well as computers, OS's, 
peripherals and so on, as well as the idiosyncracies of POV SDL, as well 
as the sophisticated concepts surrounding CG, you are doing extremely 
well with this.  Just the distinction between numeric and 'string' data 
is a stumbling block for most programming beginners. I came to this as a 
trained programmer somewhere around '98 and am only now gaining some 
confidence.  It took nearly a year before I caught on to why so much 
happens as values between 0 and 1!  It was an epiphanal moment ;)

Though we have some similarities.  I actually first connected to the 
internet six years ago for the express purpose of investigating 
raytracing.  And I hadn't owned a computer for much time prior to that. 
  I was a mainframe programmer, and a painter.  My very, very first 
programming job was working on games on an early personal machine called 
a Commodore 64.  I hated it.  There was no harddrive, no virtual memory, 
data were stored on external 5 1/4 floppy drives.  These drives were 
notoriously unreliable.  It was common to loose a whole day's work 
because of drive malfunction.  I used to have a whole stack of drives on 
my desk and each morning I would go down the stack to see which one felt 
like working that day.  We would steal each other's drives.  I just 
hated it.  Loved mainframes when I finally got there! They are extremely 
reliable and other people are paid to worry about the hardware. I could 
concentrate on programming. Heaven! I loath dealing with hardware and in 
particuar consumer electronics.  I distrusted PC's in the extreme.  So I 
came to the whole home computer thing rather late considering my 
programmer identity.

Funny, I didn't come to raytracing becuase of cg or movies or pop 
culture at all.  As I painter I fancied that the behavior of light was 
my balliwick and when I learned that computers were being used to model 
that behavior I just had to find out about it.

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message
news:403253ed$1@news.povray.org...
|
| actually first connected to the
| internet six years ago

About the same here, but I found PoV-Ray by accident while exploring a
freeware site. At the time, I knew nothing about programming and next to
nothing about math, but PoV-Ray has since taught me a tremendous amount
about both. My motivation for getting into Pov was much less interesting
than your's or Steves. I just wanted to have cool custom graphics for
whatever else I was working on. My first post on these newsgroups IIRC
was a website graphic for a college Emergency Care program run by my
step-father. Eventually of course, the means became the end.

| As I painter I fancied that the behavior of light
| was my balliwick and when I learned that computers were being used
| to model that behavior I just had to find out about it.

Have you experimented with Radiance?
http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/HOME.html

I watched a program about Vermeer last night. He had some jaw dropping
light effects. I wasn't familiar with him before, but I'm definitely a
fan now. I felt hugely happy with myself when I saw that he was fond of
a coloring technique with which I have been personally experimenting. I
want to order a print of 'Girl in a Red Hat', but I'm not sure I can
find one which represents the actual size (looked about 9" tall on the
program).

 -Shay

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Shay wrote:

> Have you experimented with Radiance?
> http://radsite.lbl.gov/radiance/HOME.html
> 
Haven't tried it, interesting app though.  I am slowly making my way to 
doing a Linux install.  Time and money are the factors mostly.
> I watched a program about Vermeer last night. He had some jaw dropping
> light effects. I wasn't familiar with him before, but I'm definitely a
> fan now. 
He's pretty easy to like.  And the fact that only this small ouvre of 
paintings remains with almost no information about his life.  The 
romantic fantasy of many a painter/artist I suspect.  The beauty of my 
paintings becomes my identity, not the squalor of my actual life.


I felt hugely happy with myself when I saw that he was fond of
> a coloring technique with which I have been personally experimenting. 

He favours thinly applied paint and the primaries, yellow:blue:red. 
Like Mondrian.

I
> want to order a print of 'Girl in a Red Hat', but I'm not sure I can
> find one which represents the actual size (looked about 9" tall on the
> program).

Yes, maybe an overlarge postcard?  Personally I have completely given in 
to the seduction of seeing small, intimate paintings blown up to poster 
size.  There is too much of it around.  It takes too much energy to 
resist.  But it is a bit vulgar. Voyeuristic.

On the other hand it is also de rigor in university art history courses 
where materials are presented through projected slides.  And such 
courses can marry a very sensuous with an intellectually enrichening 
experience.  And, the same with posters, there is the feeling of getting 
inside the artwork in a way.  Maybe the modern appreciation of art is to 
violate it?

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message
news:4034f127$1@news.povray.org...

| the fact that only this small ouvre of paintings remains with
| almost no information about [Vermeer's] life.  The romantic
| fantasy of many a painter/artist I suspect.  The beauty of my
| paintings becomes my identity, not the squalor of my actual
| life.

Interesting. I missed any biographical part of the program, so I did not
know this about him.

| Shay:
|  I felt hugely happy with myself when I saw that he was fond
|  of a coloring technique with which I have been personally
|  experimenting.
| Jim Charter:
|  He favours thinly applied paint and the primaries,
|  yellow:blue:red. Like Mondrian.

The specific technique to which I was referring was his use of bending
hues while shading. I have been experimenting with separate splines to
control the saturation and brightness of shaded objects.

|
| Yes, maybe an overlarge postcard?  Personally I have completely given
| in to the seduction of seeing small, intimate paintings blown up to
| poster size.  There is too much of it around.  It takes too much
| energy to resist.  But it is a bit vulgar. Voyeuristic.

I remember seeing Dali's 'Persistence of Memory' and thinking "WTF? This
little thing is the source of all the giant posters."

I like small portraits like this one, however. They are very humble,
probably lower-priced at the time, and now a voyeuristic if indeed the
subject was a real girl. When the painting is semi-famous like this one,
then additionally there is a subversive quality, like an old family
portrait with a brother or sister who died during childhood and whom
noone has ever mentioned out loud.

| Maybe the modern appreciation of art is to
| violate it?

This special did more than blow the pictures up. Many were displayed as
3D wire-frames and the elements were moved to previous positions or
removed entirely to diplay composition effects. Very cool.

 -Shay

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I've always favored more time.  Three months sounds better to me than two.
I would also suggest increasing the max image size if at all possible, but I
understand there are constraints on that.

--
Doug Eichenberg
www.getinfo.net/douge
dou### [at] nlsnet

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On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 19:31:31 -0800, Doug Eichenberg wrote:

> I've always favored more time.  Three months sounds better to me than two.
> I would also suggest increasing the max image size if at all possible, but I
> understand there are constraints on that.

How about this...

Announce the new theme one month before the end of the previous contest.

The way I see it, IRTCers basically fall into 2 main categorys:

A: People who are either VERY good, or have lots of free time. For these
people two months is not a problem, as they are getting an entry in pretty
much every round.

B: The other side of the coin, those of us (self included) who don't have
the time to spend more than maybe 5-10 hours a week on an entry, and for
whom a 3 month time period would be more appealing. By foregoing a few
contests per year, "we" would gain an extra month for those times we do
choose to enter.

Even (A) can benefit from this idea, as they can start planning and basic
modeling, say on an older, secondary PC, while the spend the last week or
two of the prior contest rendering their final image on their main system.

Just a thought...

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St. <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote in message news:40299795@news.povray.org...
> Seeing as everything is getting more advanced with computers and
> PoV-Ray now, is it possible that the IRTC stills competition can be
> every three months instead of two months?
>
>     I don't mind two months, but it sure gets tricky towards the
> end...  ;)


I don't mind the two months as long as the topic is posted right away, but
when the topic isn't posted until a week into the round, by the time I
figure out what I'm going to do I'm down to 5-6 weeks or less.

I think that a longer period would simply raise the bar even further.  The
entries are getting better and better all the time, so two months must work
for at least somebody.

My own entries seem to indicate that less time is better... my best score
was an image that only took a couple of weeks, while my decay & architecture
entries both took every bit of spare time for the whole two months and only
finished 28th.

RG -  its just a matter of finding the right inspiration...

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gonzo wrote:

> St. <dot### [at] dotcom> wrote in message news:40299795@news.povray.org...
> 
>>Seeing as everything is getting more advanced with computers and
>>PoV-Ray now, is it possible that the IRTC stills competition can be
>>every three months instead of two months?
>>
>>    I don't mind two months, but it sure gets tricky towards the
>>end...  ;)
> 
> 
> 
> I don't mind the two months as long as the topic is posted right away, but
> when the topic isn't posted until a week into the round, by the time I
> figure out what I'm going to do I'm down to 5-6 weeks or less.
> 
> I think that a longer period would simply raise the bar even further.  The
> entries are getting better and better all the time, so two months must work
> for at least somebody.
> 
> My own entries seem to indicate that less time is better... my best score
> was an image that only took a couple of weeks, while my decay & architecture
> entries both took every bit of spare time for the whole two months and only
> finished 28th.
> 
> RG -  its just a matter of finding the right inspiration...
> 
> 
> 
> 
Remembering hta last time this came up, it seems the general agreement 
was that 2 months is a very serviceable tradeoff between necessary 
momentum and the fact of having a life.  Most other contests are 
shorter.  But the occasional maverick contest might liven things up.  A 
longer running theme in addition to the regulars, or have one or two 
themes a year traditionally released early.

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Jim Charter wrote:

> Remembering hta last time this came up,

Which seems to be around once every two to three months.

> it seems the general agreement
> was that 2 months is a very serviceable tradeoff between necessary
> momentum and the fact of having a life.

Bingo. Even though some people have trouble getting their entries completed
in time many thrive on the fact that there is a deadline and it makes them
work that much harder towards the end to actually complete their work. I have
always has the problem that if there is no time limit my project never gets
finished. This applies to real life as well as to raytracing.

-- 
Ken Tyler

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