A good model, well lit. It's a fun model too, interesting to look at and fun
to build? Some of the textures look a little flat, but I see one of the
original photos also shows a dull finish. The rotary dial looks a little
flat; I wonder how it was dialed.

It looks like HDR lighting has given POV-Ray renders yet another look. I can
often spot a Maya, Cinema 4D, or Blender image from it's look, but POV-Ray
images are often a surprise. This image looks like it could be a glossy
magazine ad, sharp and professional, and I would've guessed is was a Maya
render.

If I would change anything, maybe the checkered blue and white tabletop to
something a little more realistic, but it would certainly change the
overall look, so I'm not sure.

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"Renderdog" <slo### [at] hiwaaynet> wrote in message
news:web.3e9d7420e8aa3bba7ba9929f0@news.povray.org...

Mael was brutally creased without the grease. His technical merit score
is roughly even with 'Modern Times', 'The Sewing Machine', and 'Molino',
scenes with many more objects, but less detail and per object and a lot
of sharp corners.

I will accept that Mael's entry was equivalent modeling wise with those
three entries, but where are Mael's technical merit points for making
his image clear and distinct, something the other three failed to do?
Mael had at the bare minimum equal modeling technique to the others and
in addition had superior textures and lighting.

There are many criteria by which to judge an image, and I am not
comparing Mael's image with the other three in regards to overall
quality, just expressing disappointment over his comparatively low
technical score. Had he received the minimum technical score which I
feel he deserved (14.405, equal to Radio Graves) then he would have
moved up two places to eleven.

As far as the image overall, it really didn't make an impression on me,
but it was attractive.

 -Shay

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> A good model, well lit. It's a fun model too, interesting to look at and
fun
> to build?

no it was boring :) This is clearly not an artistic, or an original image,
just an attempt to model something more complex than the simple test scenes
with spheres I usually do.. Lot of trials and errors, trying to get
something not too disproportionned. The phone is almost completely
parameterized (ie change the length of the handle and the whole should
follow) which results in tons of #declare, and summing of lengths and so
on... When the modelling of the phone was over I still had many time before
deadline but no more motivation to start building an environnment so I  just
drop this eiffel tower (to avoid a unique centered object) and do some lazy
lightning with the kitchen probe hdr image (I should have tune this as some
colors look wrong and the radiosity too flashy, but well...)

Sorry for not commenting for the others images but as you can see my english
skills are rather poors, and it would just be frustrating for me to not find
the words to explain how I feel about an image..

M

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Shay wrote:
>I will accept that Mael's entry was equivalent modeling wise with those
>three entries, but where are Mael's technical merit points for making
>his image clear and distinct, something the other three failed to do?
>Mael had at the bare minimum equal modeling technique to the others and
>in addition had superior textures and lighting.

I'm not sure the use of HDR lighting merits a high technical score. Not to
take anything away from this image, which is very good, but it's basically
a single model with a few textures. It looks great, no doubt, but lighting
a single model is easier than lighting a full environment; I'm sure most
judges rate images according to their degree of difficulty.

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Mael wrote:
  I  just
> drop this eiffel tower (to avoid a unique centered object) 

That wouldn't have bothered me.  I wonder where it comes from, this 
prejudice to create a complete scene.  If the point of the work is to 
model an object, and to give the viewer a priveleged view of it, why not 
show it centered against an ambiguous space.  I am reminded of bird 
painters who picture a species closeup and surrounded by their habitat. 
  Pleasing to a point but I am left wondering how I got my face so close 
to a bird hiding in some bulrushes.  Meanwhile I painter placing his 
bird against an abstract screen can paint tromp l'oeil feathers and 
still have the work be consistent.  Leaving out the "environment" is not 
automatically a bad thing.  Thoughts?

-Jim

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
news:3e9edaec@news.povray.org...

|  Thoughts?

I'll wager you could guess my opinion on that subject.<g>

I think that this tendency is especially strong in the IRTC. By chance,
this is the type of picture which most participating in the IRTC want to
complete, and so this has over time become the standard. Gilles Tran,
the archetypal IRTC champion, has only submitted "complete scenes" to
the IRTC, whereas many of his works on his website do not fit that
description.

I'll say again, that this type of picture, although not my choice to
create, makes for a very good competition. Visual realism is by
definition very easy to objectively measure by looking at a picture. I'd
hate to think how subjective the contest would become if everyone
entered red squares.

 -Shay

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Renderdog wrote:
> 
> Shay wrote:
> >I will accept that Mael's entry was equivalent modeling wise with those
> >three entries, but where are Mael's technical merit points for making
> >his image clear and distinct, something the other three failed to do?
> >Mael had at the bare minimum equal modeling technique to the others and
> >in addition had superior textures and lighting.
> 
> I'm not sure the use of HDR lighting merits a high technical score. Not to
> take anything away from this image, which is very good, but it's basically
> a single model with a few textures. It looks great, no doubt, but lighting
> a single model is easier than lighting a full environment; I'm sure most
> judges rate images according to their degree of difficulty.

Everyone should be allowed to rate according to personal preferences.  One
can only hope that in the average a fairly adequate rating comes out.  But
in case of the technical rating you can at least try to find some
objective measures.  For me this is mostly the technical ability of the
artist shown in the image.  This can be in various fields, ranging from
some interesting algorithm to generate mathematically defined shapes to
well drawn image maps.  But you should not make the mistake to ignore
things that don't explicitly show up in the image but none the less were
important for generating it.  In this case you might know (or not, he did
not mention it in the text file) that it was Mael who added HDR image
based lighting support to POV-Ray.  IMO this is an equally good argument
for a high technical score as any technically interesting modelling
technique etc.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 28 Feb. 2003 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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Christoph Hormann wrote:
>Everyone should be allowed to rate according to personal preferences.  One
>can only hope that in the average a fairly adequate rating comes out.  But
>in case of the technical rating you can at least try to find some
>objective measures.  For me this is mostly the technical ability of the
>artist shown in the image.  This can be in various fields, ranging from
>some interesting algorithm to generate mathematically defined shapes to
>well drawn image maps.  But you should not make the mistake to ignore
>things that don't explicitly show up in the image but none the less were
>important for generating it.  In this case you might know (or not, he did
>not mention it in the text file) that it was Mael who added HDR image
>based lighting support to POV-Ray.  IMO this is an equally good argument
>for a high technical score as any technically interesting modelling
>technique etc.

I agree, the fact that Mael created the HDRI patch certainly warrants some
technical consideration.  How much is harder to determine, since the IRTC
isn't a programming competition. But more likely, the voters who were aware
of that fact probably gave due points there, and the problem was that not
all voters were aware of it.

But that aside, still, the model is excellent, with a very high level of
detail.

Judging by some of the comments on my own image (async_rg) I have to assume
that Mael's score suffered from the apparent voter preference towards
"scene" -vs- "object".  And this may not have as much to do specifically
with his image as the fact that in this round there were quite a few
"objects" submitted, so probably some voters just got into a "oh, another
object picture" mode and marked down for it.

Personally, I *probably* prefer to see a "scene" simply because I think an
image should say or do something to involve the viewer. A single object
that doesn't stimulate any kind of viewer interest, no matter how well
modelled, isn't going to bring me back for a second look.

But that doesn't mean that an "object" can't make a statement. I have to say
*probably* because I've often seen images posted in p.b.images that are one
object, but can still make me come back for more.

RG

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