This is... er, wait... was GOING to be my entry for the IRTC. I've never 
entered before - and which the quality of this image, you can clearly 
see why.

Featuring:
* Possibly the least believable wood texture *ever*. o__O
* A pretty pathetic marble texture.
* Ice crystals that look NOTHING LIKE ice.
* Snow that looks like rock.
* A pittiful non-attempt at a flame.

Not content with all that, it took just under FOUR HOURS to render.


When my sister walked past and saw this, she said to me "hey, why did 
you draw a giant lump of poo on a stick?" (!!)


  * * *


The idea for this image (not that you'd know it!) was something I saw in 
a shop. They were selling candles that look for all the world like 
they're made of snow. In fact, if they still have some, I think I'll 
photo it, because it was just so amazing. When you get close, you 
realise that the candle isn't snow at all; it's lumpy wax that's been 
strayed with glitter. (The green and purple refracting stuff.) Extremely 
effective unless viewed from very near to.

The idea was to put a snow candle in a box encrusted with ice, with a 
tiny flame on the wick lighting the whole box.


But I drew this instead.


I think I'll have to make the flame blue. Then at least the thing might 
look icy. The balance of the image was basicually supposed to be that 
the ice was almost "winning", with a tiny little flame just hanging on. 
But the yellow colour of the flame, echoed by the orange wood, makes the 
whole thing look far too warm...


The extreme render time is due to the multiple isosurfaces, area lights, 
the craze "snow" texture, and the use of radiosity. (Very low settings, 
obviously.)

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Attachments:
Download 'candle09-final.jpg' (97 KB)

Preview of image 'candle09-final.jpg'

Orchid XP v2 wrote:
> This is... er, wait... was GOING to be my entry for the IRTC. I've never
> entered before - and which the quality of this image, you can clearly
> see why.

Ok. At first look, I wasn't sure what should be ice. I did immediality
see what should be fire. Candlelight is darned hard thing to raytrace
realisticly - my first public try goes here:
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-02-28/calcu.jpg

IIRC, it took me twothree weeks to create that candlelight and I
rendered it for 44 hours (something like half an hour with simple
light_source in the place of the flame...) with ~1,7GHz AMD Athlon
(XP2100+).

> Featuring:
> * Possibly the least believable wood texture *ever*. o__O

Ok, that's one merit :p. But where's that texture, what part should be
wood? :o

> * A pretty pathetic marble texture.

Ok.. where?

> * Ice crystals that look NOTHING LIKE ice.

True, they certainly don't look like ice, but still they got that something.

> * Snow that looks like rock.

Check this group few weeks back - there has been glorius examples of snow.

Besides the snow doesn't look like a rock - it looks more like brass :p.

> * A pittiful non-attempt at a flame.

Like I said, flame is a pain in the ass to model.

> Not content with all that, it took just under FOUR HOURS to render.

Is there something wrong with me, when I think that four hours ain't
much for an image containing area lights and radiosity.

> When my sister walked past and saw this, she said to me "hey, why did
> you draw a giant lump of poo on a stick?" (!!)

If I didn't get the ice on the first look, I certainly can't find a
giant lump of poo on a stick from that.

> But I drew this instead.

Ok, I can see why you're dissapointed, 'cause the image ain't yet what
you ment it to be. But there's three weeks left and you're allready made
a huge part, so go for it! There's allready something in the image that
made me stick to to look at it for a moment - and after that I looked
again. This is NOT the time to give up, but to start correcting the
annoying things. Try to get the image less yellow (a bit more red, AND
possibly add a bit of white, strongly fading light from the candle
(makes the snow better, while it gets lighter)) and make the ice
crystals more transparent. Modify the flame to be more drop-shaped (like
they usually are in real life). Go for it! Hush! Get to the core of the
code! Go!

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
   http://www.zbxt.net
      aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Post a reply to this message

> Ok. At first look, I wasn't sure what should be ice. I did immediality
> see what should be fire. Candlelight is darned hard thing to raytrace
> realisticly - my first public try goes here:
> http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-02-28/calcu.jpg
>
> IIRC, it took me twothree weeks to create that candlelight and I
> rendered it for 44 hours (something like half an hour with simple
> light_source in the place of the flame...) with ~1,7GHz AMD Athlon
> (XP2100+).

If you're interested, I have a macro I made a couple years ago for a candle
flame as in the attached image.


-tgq

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'candleflame.jpg' (12 KB)

Preview of image 'candleflame.jpg'

Intriguing image...

One is not sure what it is at first glance but... yes there is something
there. I think you should explore this more in detail.

Where are your wood an marble textures? ... oh! the background, or box?
There is a sense of scale missing here imho....

Thomas

Post a reply to this message

I suggest a change in lighting: a subtle pale blue light from above, 
preferably an area light or even totally shadowless so it doesn't look too 
obvious. This will shift the image away from the monochromatic and, assuming 
your ice is white and everything else is orange, should really help make it 
look like ice and make it stand out from the background.

-- 
Tek
http://evilsuperbrain.com

"Orchid XP v2" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message 
news:43ea49af@news.povray.org...
> This is... er, wait... was GOING to be my entry for the IRTC. I've never
> entered before - and which the quality of this image, you can clearly
> see why.
>
> Featuring:
> * Possibly the least believable wood texture *ever*. o__O
> * A pretty pathetic marble texture.
> * Ice crystals that look NOTHING LIKE ice.
> * Snow that looks like rock.
> * A pittiful non-attempt at a flame.
>
> Not content with all that, it took just under FOUR HOURS to render.
>
>
> When my sister walked past and saw this, she said to me "hey, why did
> you draw a giant lump of poo on a stick?" (!!)
>
>
>  * * *
>
>
> The idea for this image (not that you'd know it!) was something I saw in
> a shop. They were selling candles that look for all the world like
> they're made of snow. In fact, if they still have some, I think I'll
> photo it, because it was just so amazing. When you get close, you
> realise that the candle isn't snow at all; it's lumpy wax that's been
> strayed with glitter. (The green and purple refracting stuff.) Extremely
> effective unless viewed from very near to.
>
> The idea was to put a snow candle in a box encrusted with ice, with a
> tiny flame on the wick lighting the whole box.
>
>
> But I drew this instead.
>
>
> I think I'll have to make the flame blue. Then at least the thing might
> look icy. The balance of the image was basicually supposed to be that
> the ice was almost "winning", with a tiny little flame just hanging on.
> But the yellow colour of the flame, echoed by the orange wood, makes the
> whole thing look far too warm...
>
>
> The extreme render time is due to the multiple isosurfaces, area lights,
> the craze "snow" texture, and the use of radiosity. (Very low settings,
> obviously.)
>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Trevor G Quayle wrote:
>
> If you're interested, I have a macro I made a couple years ago for a candle
> flame as in the attached image.
>

Nice one - open source? :)

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
   http://www.zbxt.net
      aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Post a reply to this message

Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> Trevor G Quayle wrote:
> >
> > If you're interested, I have a macro I made a couple years ago for a candle
> > flame as in the attached image.
> >
>
> Nice one - open source? :)
>
> --
> Eero "Aero" Ahonen
>    http://www.zbxt.net
>       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Sure.  It evens contains a macro that attempts to reverse engineer the
turbulence to keep the flame properly postioned when turbulated (doesn't
work too well with turbulence of 1 or more, tends to get stuck and not be
able to find the turbulated point).

Feel free to adjust anything in it.  Don't ask me o explain the mathematics
though, I wrote it a few years ago and have no idea how it works anymore.


#macro Flam (Turb)
  #local R1=seed(2);
  #local OS=rand(R1)*50;
  #local Flam1 = function(x,y,z)
{pow(pow(pow(3*x,2)+pow(0.8*y-0.2,2)+pow(3*z,2),3)+pow(max(1-sqrt(pow(5*x,2)+pow(y+.5,2)+pow(5*z,2)),0),2))}
  #local Flam2 = function(x,y,z)
{floor(pow(sqrt(pow((3.5*x),2)+pow((0.4*y+0.6),2)+pow((3.5*z),2)),2))}
  #local FlamF = function(x,y,z) {min(max(Flam1(x,y,z),Flam2(x,y,z)),1)}
  #macro turb_translate (tTurb,tOcta,tLamb,tOmeg,P0,Acc)
    #local PC=P0;
    #local Dir=<0,0,0>;
    #local V0=vlength(vturbulence(tLamb, tOmeg, tOcta, P0)*tTurb);
    #local Step=V0/2;
    #macro AB(PC,Step,d,Dir,V0)
      #local P1=PC+Step*d;
      #local V1=vlength(P1+vturbulence(tLamb, tOmeg, tOcta, P1)*tTurb-P0);
      #if (V1<V0 | d.x=1)
        #local Dir=d;
        #local V0=V1;
      #end
    #end
    #while (V0>Acc)
      #local DrP=Dir;
      AB(PC,Step, x,Dir,V0)
      AB(PC,Step,-x,Dir,V0)
      AB(PC,Step, y,Dir,V0)
      AB(PC,Step,-y,Dir,V0)
      AB(PC,Step, z,Dir,V0)
      AB(PC,Step,-z,Dir,V0)
      #if (vlength(DrP+Dir)=0)
        #local Step=Step/2;
      #else
        #local Step=V0/2;
      #end
      #local PC=PC+Step*Dir;
    #end
    PC
  #end
  #local tOcta=7;
  #local tLamb=1.32;
  #local tOmeg=0.135;
  sphere{0 1.1 scale <1/2,1,1/2> translate y*(0.15+OS)
    hollow
    pigment{rgbt <1,1,1,1>}
    interior{
      media{
        emission rgb 0.3
        method 3
        intervals 2
        density{
          function{FlamF(x,y-OS,z)}
          color_map{
            [0.00 rgb <1,1,.5>]
            [0.20 rgb <1,.5,0>]
            [0.60 rgb <1,.1,0>]
            [0.78 rgb <0,0,0>]
            [0.84 rgb <0,0,0>]
            [0.89 rgb <1,0,1>]
            [0.93 rgb <0,0,1>]
            [0.98 rgb <0,1,1>]
            [1.00 rgb <0,0,0>]
          }
          warp{
            turbulence Turb
            octaves tOcta
            lambda tLamb
            omega tOmeg
          }
        }
      }
    }
    no_shadow
    translate turb_translate(Turb,tOcta,tLamb,tOmeg,y*(0.65-OS),0.001)
  }
#end

object{Flam(0.2) scale 10}


-tgq

Post a reply to this message

> Intriguing image...
> 
> One is not sure what it is at first glance but... yes there is something
> there. I think you should explore this more in detail.
> 
> Where are your wood and marble textures?

That's Not Good(tm)... :-/

> ... oh! the background, or box?

Yeah. The box is supposed to be wood. And the thing the candle stands on 
is supposed to be a slab of cold marble.

Post a reply to this message

> I suggest a change in lighting: a subtle pale blue light from above, 
> preferably an area light or even totally shadowless so it doesn't look too 
> obvious. This will shift the image away from the monochromatic and, assuming 
> your ice is white and everything else is orange, should really help make it 
> look like ice and make it stand out from the background.

I tried making the candle flame cyan instead of yellow.

It made the wood look green! :-S

The ice did look slightly more icy though. But only slightly. I think 
maybe the ice is just too damn transparent? Or maybe I should put some 
scattering media in it or something? (I mean heck, it's only 4 hours a 
render at the moment; why not make it 4,000 hours??)


The candle is *supposed* to be composed of snow. But nobody would ever 
realise that. It just looks... well, like granite, actually. Or maybe 
brass, with all that orange light on it. (Candle flame is orange, wood 
is orange, radiosity.....)

I haven't even started on the flame yet. As I see it, I need to fix the 
abysmal wood and marble textures, make the ice look more like ice, and 
somehow make my snow look like snow.

So, basically, change the entire image, actually... >_<

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v2" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:43ebb52f$1@news.povray.org...

>
> I tried making the candle flame cyan instead of yellow.
>
> It made the wood look green! :-S

Leave the candle flame orange/yellow and put a fade_distance on it, then a
blue light from above will look very nice. Warm in the center (within range
of the candle) and cool further away

> The ice did look slightly more icy though. But only slightly. I think
> maybe the ice is just too damn transparent? Or maybe I should put some
> scattering media in it or something? (I mean heck, it's only 4 hours a
> render at the moment; why not make it 4,000 hours??)
>

Try these...

#declare M_Ice= // might be suitable, was designed for a frozen lake
 material {
  texture {
   pigment{rgb <.9,.9,1>}
   normal {bumps 0.02 scale 0.25 turbulence .5}
   finish {specular 0.5 roughness 0.02 diffuse 0.7 ambient 0.3
    reflection { 0 , 0.15 }
    conserve_energy
   }
  }
  interior {
   ior 1.25
   fade_distance 0.002
   fade_power 2
   fade_color rgb <1,1,1>
  }
}

#declare T_Snow=
  texture {
   pigment {rgb <0.95,0.95,1>}
   finish {
    ambient 0.25
    diffuse 0.55
    reflection {0,0.2}
    specular 0.6 roughness 0.008
   }
   normal {granite 0.1 scale 0.01}
  }

> I haven't even started on the flame yet. As I see it, I need to fix the
> abysmal wood and marble textures, make the ice look more like ice, and
> somehow make my snow look like snow.

The textures in woods.inc and stones.in are quite nice, at least as
starting point

> So, basically, change the entire image, actually... >_<

As my archery coach is fond of saying Why should you be different from
everyone else? Most of my scenes go through 2-3 complete redesigns before
I'm happy.

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