All I see are problems here, but this thing has absorbed so much time so 
far that I thought I would stop and get a reaction.

The light is actually three lights placed randomly and colored randomly 
in the red-yellow range of hues.  The total light color of the three 
lights approaches something like rgb <1,.99,.97>

Radiosity data was collected at 600 samples.  The actual render used 
"Outdoor Low Quality" settings from the include file of presets.

The actual cup is a iso dirived from a SOR with bump and bitmap textures 
subtracted.  The rest is all mesh modelledin Wings with some bump 
normals to suggest pounded metal and a "micro" normal for blurred 
reflection applied.

The enamel inlay is a bitmap applied with uv's and was hand "painted"

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Attachments:
Download 'img.0075.jpg' (78 KB)

Preview of image 'img.0075.jpg'

That's an elaborate cup! Must've been a lot of work.

You said metal... well, sorry to say that I see it as ceramic-like. Possibly 
carved wood that has been painted. Except maybe the upper parts. And even 
then I'm seeing the top as being nearly opaque frosted glass, maybe because 
of the darkened edge on the right side which looks like a cross section of 
the thickness.

I wouldn't really want to change anything about it if I were doing anything 
with it, except maybe the tabletop. That's so smooth it makes the chalice 
seem to float over it. At least that's my guess as to why I'm thinking that.

Fantastic creation, Jim.

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Jim Charter spake:

> All I see are problems here, but this thing has absorbed so much time so
> far that I thought I would stop and get a reaction.
> 
> The light is actually three lights placed randomly and colored randomly
> in the red-yellow range of hues.  The total light color of the three
> lights approaches something like rgb <1,.99,.97>
> 
> Radiosity data was collected at 600 samples.  The actual render used
> "Outdoor Low Quality" settings from the include file of presets.
> 
> The actual cup is a iso dirived from a SOR with bump and bitmap textures
> subtracted.  The rest is all mesh modelledin Wings with some bump
> normals to suggest pounded metal and a "micro" normal for blurred
> reflection applied.
> 
> The enamel inlay is a bitmap applied with uv's and was hand "painted"

Love the detail, especially on the stand / bottom of the chalice...

-- 
Stefan Viljoen
Software Support Technician / Programmer
Polar Design Solutions

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Bob H wrote:
> That's an elaborate cup! Must've been a lot of work.
> 
> You said metal... well, sorry to say that I see it as ceramic-like. Possibly 
> carved wood that has been painted. Except maybe the upper parts. And even 
> then I'm seeing the top as being nearly opaque frosted glass, maybe because 
> of the darkened edge on the right side which looks like a cross section of 
> the thickness.
> 
> I wouldn't really want to change anything about it if I were doing anything 
> with it, except maybe the tabletop. That's so smooth it makes the chalice 
> seem to float over it. At least that's my guess as to why I'm thinking that.
> 
> Fantastic creation, Jim.
> 
> 
Thanks for the feedback! Yes I have had a miserable time trying to get a 
metallic look to it,  The dark band you noticed is, I believe, the edge 
of the darkened hemisphere that forms the background.  The hemisphere 
extending from "behind" the camera is colored to provide something to 
reflect.  The "soft" or "rough" look of the slighly downtapered sides of 
the actual cup is so recalcatrant that I actually did some test renders 
to assure myself that it wasn't somehow a property of how textures act 
on SORs or Iso's vs on mesh!  It seems to be a matter of the downturned 
nature or the surface.    Meanwhile the upturned surfaces of the base 
seem to have an overdiffuse look of shiney plastic instead of the 
specular sheen of worried metal.  Sigh!  The rounded box surface the 
thing is standing on is just a pigment texture with no normal and 
default finish, really just a placeholder for now.

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> schreef in bericht
news:4426fcfd@news.povray.org...
> All I see are problems here, but this thing has absorbed so much time so
> far that I thought I would stop and get a reaction.
>
> The light is actually three lights placed randomly and colored randomly
> in the red-yellow range of hues.  The total light color of the three
> lights approaches something like rgb <1,.99,.97>
>
> Radiosity data was collected at 600 samples.  The actual render used
> "Outdoor Low Quality" settings from the include file of presets.
>
> The actual cup is a iso dirived from a SOR with bump and bitmap textures
> subtracted.  The rest is all mesh modelledin Wings with some bump
> normals to suggest pounded metal and a "micro" normal for blurred
> reflection applied.
>
> The enamel inlay is a bitmap applied with uv's and was hand "painted"
>
This is an impressive piece of work, Jim. The only thing "wrong" ith it is
the metal texture which looks too much like plastic, imho. It seems to be
the finish. Did you use specular or phong here? Looks like specular to me.
That is often what I prefer, but maybe phong would work better here (if I am
correct in my analysis! which is probably not the case). However, metal is
sooo difficult to get right!

Still, a mighty achievement!

Thomas

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Jim, not entirely same material, but you saw that sax a couple of threads
above. I would expect something in that direction for the chalice.

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Jim, not entirely same material, but you saw that sax a couple of threads
> above. I would expect something in that direction for the chalice.
> 

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah about Steves Sax, but it doesn't seem to work here, assuming that 
there he blew out

the reflection and smooth settings to get essentially a mirror-like 
surface.

When I do that on this object it tends to
look like colored glass.  I definitely need a blurred reflection effect 
together with a high specular I think.  Maybe just a matter of finer 
tweeking.  If I boost the specular too much the upward facing surface of 
the base just blows out.  I think I also need a way to distress the 
whole surface more.  I think the "painted on" look Bob referred to has a 
lot to do with the homogeneity along the joins of some of the metal 
work. Like where the little containing ridges for the enamel inlays meet 
the surface they are resting on.  Actually, in the reference those are 
serrated into a beads almost. Might have to go to a bit-map for the 
metal texture too in order to get some tarnish into the seems etc. 
though that would be a lot of work.  Will prob add more irregularity and 
detail to the metalwork first.

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Stefan Viljoen <spamnot@ wrote:

> 
> Love the detail, especially on the stand / bottom of the chalice...
> 

Thanks Stefan.  The filligree along the bottom edge was the first major 
challenge.  (Modelled the whole chalice literally from the bottom up) 
Basically I isolated a 1/8th section of the repeating motif that could 
be mirrored, modelled that section manually, then mirrored the 1/8th to 
make a 1/4, the 1/4 to make a 1/2, the 1/2 to the whole, using Wings' 
"mirror" tool. There are actually two layers of filligree to reproduce 
the dense pattern in the reference, but only the outer one seems to show.

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Jim Charter spake:

> Stefan Viljoen <spamnot@ wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Love the detail, especially on the stand / bottom of the chalice...
>> 
> 
> Thanks Stefan.  The filligree along the bottom edge was the first major
> challenge.  (Modelled the whole chalice literally from the bottom up)
> Basically I isolated a 1/8th section of the repeating motif that could
> be mirrored, modelled that section manually, then mirrored the 1/8th to
> make a 1/4, the 1/4 to make a 1/2, the 1/2 to the whole, using Wings'
> "mirror" tool. There are actually two layers of filligree to reproduce
> the dense pattern in the reference, but only the outer one seems to show.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? I'm still learning a lot, and this
has happened to me too - spending hours putting in extra detail, only to
find that in the final image it is invisible...

You wouldn't consider documenting exactly how you did that and putting it up
somewhere on the web? I read your description of its creation and the bit
you say here just makes it sound even more involved. The final effect IS
impressive, though!

I'm always amazed with Pov (and with Blender) and Wings at the stuff
talented people can produce. I've often sat, bored, wondering what I can do
next that would look cool, and then somebody comes along and I can bang my
head on the table and ask the old "now why did't I think of that?!" :)

Kind regards,
-- 
Stefan Viljoen
Software Support Technician / Programmer
Polar Design Solutions

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Stefan Viljoen <spamnot@ wrote:

> 
> Don't you just hate it when that happens? I'm still learning a lot, and this
> has happened to me too - spending hours putting in extra detail, only to
> find that in the final image it is invisible...

At least I had the good luck ( not really through foresight but more 
through the cautious methodologies of age, and because it made the 
modelling a little easier, ) to break out the added detail into a 
separate piece which I can include, or not, as I wish.


> 
> You wouldn't consider documenting exactly how you did that and putting it up
> somewhere on the web? I read your description of its creation and the bit
> you say here just makes it sound even more involved. 

That is a nice invitation.  I will give it some thought.  When I work I 
save off my models at different nodes or points where the modelling is 
about to branch either into a new level of detail that can't be 
retreated from, or into an alternate approach to the problem.  So I have 
something of a record, not really complete, but something anyway that I 
can consult.  Still, there was so much trial and error and backtracking 
of steps that it is difficult to reconstruct and remember what I 
actually did... and further, to sense what might be of interest and what 
wouldn't.

As a ancilliary thought, I am quite convinced that this object would 
have required about the same amount of work if I'd modelled it with 
SDL/CSG.  There would probably have been less trial and error on 
technique and approach, but at lot of fussing with transforms.


> talented people can produce. I've often sat, bored, wondering what I can do
> next that would look cool, 

People make images for all sorts of different reasons and motivations. 
It has always been my contention that there are as many different 
reasons for making "art" as there are "artists."  And also, that the 
tribe, if you will, of people who self-identify as "artists" is far more 
various than "non-artists" think it is.

I remember seeing a show of photographs, years ago now, by a 
photographer who never did "make it"  But she had gained some sort of 
access to a group of people who were producing S&M materials and at the 
same time, of course, indulging in these practices for their own 
enjoyment.  It seems to me that this was in the early eighties just when 
such things were becoming popular or "mainstream" but had not yet 
reached their present state of commodity.  It was like these people were 
the early commoditizers and she felt she had discovered a secret, 
furtive world.  (That is just how it seems to me, I really know very 
little of that world or its actual history.  I am probably revealing 
myself as impossible naive! )  Anyway, this is a lengthy preamble to a 
short point.  I remember that in her documentary, it was quoted that the 
  S&M participants "couldn't believe" that anyone would be interested in 
these materials.  That for them the interest was purely in doing it, not 
watching.  And I have known many artists who viewed their art 
similarily, as merely the by-product of their activities, interests,... 
obsessions even.

For instance, the guy who taught sculpting at my undergraduate school, a 
macho ex-marine, often ruddy from liquor, quick tempered and surly, 
considered his own work to be so much "dirty linen."  (He cast heroic, 
oversized, contorted male torsos, headless and limbless, in bronze, in a 
Rodinesque, factured style.)

So I can't tell you what use, or art, there is to going to a museum, 
picking out some artifact as a subject, then modelling and rendering it. 
  All I can say is that I can't really stop myself and spend a good 
amount of time trying to rationalize it after the fact.

When I finally began to emerge from depression after loosing my job and 
9/11 and all that, I began to work doing aisle sales selling printers. 
At that job I met yet another ex-marine.  He had a regular job with a 
lot of responsibility in a large brokerage firm, was due to be made VP, 
but still he worked the weekend aisle-sales job.  He also did peoples' 
taxes on the side, and various speaking gigs on identity theft, ( I 
dunno, but he was formerly Special Forces, ) and I don't know what else. 
  Anyway he once said to me that one very wealthy man he knew 
(money-wise) had stated a simple credo, that one should never put energy 
into anything that didn't make money.  Well I have put most of my 
energies in life into things that don't make money.  And presto, I don't 
have much money! It's a serious joke, my friend.

There is one person here who mentions something in conversation that is 
very close to my own experience.  The person is Jaime Vives Piqueres, 
and what he talks about is the role of "surprise" in his motivation for 
making pictures.  I think it is significant that he, like me, is mostly 
a mimetic artist.  This role of surprise was crucial to me during all 
the years I spent painting.  It may seem counter-intuitive to others but 
realists or mimeticists can be genuinely surprised at the outcome of a 
painting or image.  It is really at the heart of it, even when the sole 
purpose is to reproduce some object.  It has something to do with the 
idea of garnering and displaying empirical information.  Though he 
doesn't talk about it, I sense that this same factor is also strongly 
present in Christoph Hormann's "Earth View" pictures.

I also wanted to mention Rene Buui's work as a further turn of this 
screw but it will have to wait.  Time to go on shift!  In fact I'm late.

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