Being on the brink of moving houses this week, this seems appropriate:-)

When I started reading SF, back in the late 1960's, I came across many short 
stories and novelettes in the magazine Analog which became classics 
afterwards. Also in Analog, I discovered the work of such artists as Ed 
Emshwiller and Frank Kelly Freas, or John Schoenherr. Look for them and 
others here: http://www.noreascon.org/retroart/CatalogByArtist.html.

When looking at an old book cover, a couple of months ago, I thought I would 
make a kind of tribute to those artists by creating a scene - if not in the 
style - then in the mood of the 60's - 70's illustrators of SF. This is the 
result (WIP-01). There is still a lot to do of course. Here, no radiosity (a 
small, feeble fillin light is used), rendered in version 3.7, beta 23 in 
about 10 minutes. Another version, with the sun behind the camera, took 
about 30 minutes but seems more dull in terms of overall composition.

The title "Why don't you go home?" is, I think, emblematic for a whole 
section of SF concerned with the contact between humans and aliens, but it 
may also serve as a metaphore for our own multicultural world.

As always, comments and criticisms are welcomed.

Thomas

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Excellent. I thought it must be nearly time for another TdG creation!

The characters and clothing are great as always, reflecting all the hard work
you've put into these techniques. The trees look good; they look like POV-Tree
objects (not a bad thing). But I love the skyways and buildings! Brilliant. Is
this your own creation, or inspired by a piece of SF art in particular? And, to
hazard a guess at the method, it looks like very good use of a crackle
isosurface with some buildings placed by hand...?

I'll be following this one with some interest. :)

Bill

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> schreef in bericht 
news:web.475413512440ca8d731f01d10@news.povray.org...
> Excellent. I thought it must be nearly time for another TdG creation!

Thank you indeed, Bill! <grin> yes indeed. I am hard at work on this one, a 
few others are pending (as always).
>
> The characters and clothing are great as always, reflecting all the hard 
> work
> you've put into these techniques. The trees look good; they look like 
> POV-Tree
> objects (not a bad thing). But I love the skyways and buildings! 
> Brilliant. Is
> this your own creation, or inspired by a piece of SF art in particular? 
> And, to
> hazard a guess at the method, it looks like very good use of a crackle
> isosurface with some buildings placed by hand...?

I have a slowly growing wardrobe of clothes that can be used by different 
characters, so that eases the hard work somewhat. However, I am also getting 
the experience of making them and it goes faster now. There still remain all 
kind of difficulties of course, but that is stimulating. I think I have 
found a better method to draw belts tight around the waist, better and 
simpler than what I proposed last June in povray.tools.poser. I shall come 
back to that later.

The trees are POV-Tree indeed. Mostly the basic birch model which suited my 
needs.

The skyways and buildings are inspired by the book cover I mentioned. I 
don't remember the title (the book went down to the waste paper trash as the 
stories were rather poor imo), but it showed something like these, rather 
stylized, and it triggered the rest of the scene into being. I had a couple 
of different situations in mind, one particular one showing a stupid alien 
trying to learn husbandry, but I could not find a suitable sheep model so I 
switched to the present one.

No, you are wrong unfortunately. The whole set was built from scratch in 
Silo2. It is one large mesh2, so it renders very fast.

>
> I'll be following this one with some interest. :)

I hope not to disappoint you in coming wips  :-)

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot wrote:
  > As always, comments and criticisms are welcomed.
> 
> Thomas


Good work Thomas! I especially like the buildings. The clothes are nice 
too. Makes me want to try some stuff in Blender, cloth-wise.

I'm a big fan of sci-fi myself. My favorite story is the Rama saga. 
Classic Clarke.

Sam

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stbenge wrote:

> I'm a big fan of sci-fi myself. My favorite story is the Rama saga. 
> Classic Clarke.
> 
> Sam

I have mixed feelings about the Rama series.  I agree that the first 
(Rendezvous) is classic Clarke, but to me, the remainder with his 
collaboration with Gentry Lee went rapidly downhill.  Rama II was merely 
disappointing, but the third book (Gardens) was boring and its 
(non)ending was annoying.  I now have no interest in reading the fourth 
(Revealed).

OTOH, I think my all-time favorite SF book is "Code of the Lifemaker" by 
James P Hogan.  His Giants series is excellent also.  IMHO, all very 
classic Clarkeish.    ;-)

      -=- Larry -=-

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"Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlDOTnet> wrote:
> Being on the brink of moving houses this week, this seems appropriate:-)
>
> When I started reading SF, back in the late 1960's, I came across many short
> stories and novelettes in the magazine Analog which became classics
> afterwards. Also in Analog, I discovered the work of such artists as Ed
> Emshwiller and Frank Kelly Freas, or John Schoenherr. Look for them and
> others here: http://www.noreascon.org/retroart/CatalogByArtist.html.
>
> When looking at an old book cover, a couple of months ago, I thought I would
> make a kind of tribute to those artists by creating a scene - if not in the
> style - then in the mood of the 60's - 70's illustrators of SF. This is the
> result (WIP-01). There is still a lot to do of course. Here, no radiosity (a
> small, feeble fillin light is used), rendered in version 3.7, beta 23 in
> about 10 minutes. Another version, with the sun behind the camera, took
> about 30 minutes but seems more dull in terms of overall composition.
>
> The title "Why don't you go home?" is, I think, emblematic for a whole
> section of SF concerned with the contact between humans and aliens, but it
> may also serve as a metaphore for our own multicultural world.
>
> As always, comments and criticisms are welcomed.
>
> Thomas

I love the old guy with the skinny legs. :) I like his clothes a lot too. The
short cape thing is great. I do wonder, though, what is behind that sheet??

Janet

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"Janet" <par### [at] attnet> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4754f1c72440ca8dd382c7d70@news.povray.org...
>
> I love the old guy with the skinny legs. :) I like his clothes a lot too. 
> The
> short cape thing is great. I do wonder, though, what is behind that 
> sheet??
>

Thank you Janet! Both characters are derived from Apollo Maximus which 
provides us with a wealth of different morphs. Adapting them to one's needs 
is then fairly simple.

Imo, the sheet itself is the bone of contention, so to speak, the alien 
trying to sell it to the old guy who does not see any use for it  :-)

Thomas

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"stbenge" <stb### [at] hotmailcom> schreef in bericht 
news:47546e85@news.povray.org...
> Thomas de Groot wrote:
>  > As always, comments and criticisms are welcomed.
>>
>> Thomas
>
>
> Good work Thomas! I especially like the buildings. The clothes are nice 
> too. Makes me want to try some stuff in Blender, cloth-wise.

Thank you Sam! I think Blender would be excellent for making clothes.

>
> I'm a big fan of sci-fi myself. My favorite story is the Rama saga. 
> Classic Clarke.

I liked the first Rama, but I was disappointed by the others. One of my 
favourite (classic) authors is Cordwainer Smith and his Instrumentality 
saga.

Thomas

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news: 475402e4@news.povray.org...

Thomas the Great as usual ;-)

I like how your images are a backdoor  into a larger story.
In this one I specially like the cultural clash and the encounter between 
the feudal shepherd(?) and the merchant who has access to a hi-tech 
civilization (though doesn't look like he belongs this civ.).
As many I like the huge yet light buildings.
The merchant looks very athletic for a cloth seller.
The trees are very equal in size and plantation. is it an orchard?
Anyway the grass below them should be shorter (less light, soil dried by 
trees roots)

It is always a pleasure to see your works :-)

Marc

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"M_a_r_c" <jac### [at] wanadoofr> schreef in bericht 
news:47551390@news.povray.org...
>
>
> Thomas the Great as usual ;-)
<grin> Thank you Marc!

> I like how your images are a backdoor  into a larger story.
> In this one I specially like the cultural clash and the encounter between 
> the feudal shepherd(?) and the merchant who has access to a hi-tech 
> civilization (though doesn't look like he belongs this civ.).
In my view the alien is really alien, meaning he comes from a different 
solar system. However, some basic urges (like commerce, buying and selling) 
seem to be universal  :-). So, we are looking at an outpost or a colony of 
them, probably not really appreciated by the autochtons who live 
approximately at a bronze age / iron age civilization level.
I tried to give the alien a look that was fairly common to SF illustrations 
in the 1950's 1960's.

> As many I like the huge yet light buildings.
> The merchant looks very athletic for a cloth seller.
Well, being an alien, he has a slightly different morphology. But don't be 
misled! It is mostly fat, I am told  :-)

> The trees are very equal in size and plantation. is it an orchard?
That's funny, because the size varies randomly from 2 to 4 times the basic 
shape. You don't see this really indeed. I shall investigate.

> Anyway the grass below them should be shorter (less light, soil dried by 
> trees roots)
Yes, the grass needs some more work. Be aware however that the ground is 
rather marshy (there is water in the middle background, to the right)

>
> It is always a pleasure to see your works :-)
Great! :-)

Thomas

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