Ive <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote:
> Am 10/14/2017 um 21:31 schrieb Simon J. Cambridge:
> >
> > Beautiful! Really beautiful! I am in awe!
> >
>
> Thank you, Simon.
>
> > That must have taken a good while to create. The posing is spot on. I am
> > presuming Blender? If so, how long did it take you to get to grips with? I keep
> > threatening myself with taking the plunge but have not yet got around to it.
> > (Daunting interface, different way of working, inherent inertia, etc, etc).
> >
> I'm using Blender since about 10 years, but I'm still learning, and
> always will - somehow there are new features and possibilities faster
> added than I'm able to get grasp on the existing ones. So, as I've never
> used Blender for rigging and posing (but I'm certain it can be done
> there), I used DAZ-Studio as I'm already familiar with the way it works
> there.
> But breaking the pitcher was done with Blender and is one of the new
> things I've learned. As it turns out, it is easy to do and I guess I
> will break a lot more things in the future ;)
>
> > Also, what hardware did you use for the render, and how long did it take?
> >
>
> I had the opportunity to build (and use for myself for a limited time) a
> machine meant for numeric simulations. It's heart is a
> Skylake-generation, 14nm, turbo-clocked Xeon, 20 cores/40 threads with
> 192GB DDR4-2666MHz ram. It did run a AVX2 optimized compile of
> Christoph's UberPOV. Each render took between 35-45 hours.
> For GI based renders, blurred reflections are a must-have-feature - and
> as *every* object in the scenes uses it, I expected even longer render
> times.
> I did prepare a few POV-Ray scenes of mine before-head to be rendered on
> that machine - what else would an old-time POV-Ray user do when he has
> such a beast at his fingertips ;)
>
> -Ive

It's the rigging and the posing in Blender that keeps beckoning to me. At the
moment I do everything by hand (I have a lot of pre-prepared meshes). Can't get
out of the habit! I also keep promising myself a refurbished workstation with a
serious number of cores, but given your render times I am wondering how high
your settings are (radiosity, samples and the like). This may have been
mentioned previously, but are you using SSLT for the hairs?

Either way, no gripes from me. I love the images.

Cheers,

Simon

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As promised, here is a 16:10 wallpaper image.
In case you want a lossless compressed version, this is a direct link to 
a PNG file (ca. 3.5 MB):

http://www.lilysoft.org/Download/Vermeer's%20Cat%20-%20Wallpaper%201.png

If you want a 16:9 version, you have my permission to crop it as you see 
fit ;) - and I suggest you also use the PNG for this purpose.

-Ive

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Attachments:
Download 'vermeer's cat - wallpaper 1.jpg' (658 KB)

Preview of image 'vermeer's cat - wallpaper 1.jpg'

As promised, here is a 16:10 wallpaper image.
In case you want a lossless compressed version, this is a direct link to 
a PNG file (ca. 3.5 MB):

http://www.lilysoft.org/Download/Vermeer's%20Cat%20-%20Wallpaper%202.png

-Ive

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Attachments:
Download 'vermeer's cat - wallpaper 2.jpg' (655 KB)

Preview of image 'vermeer's cat - wallpaper 2.jpg'

Am 10/15/2017 um 18:06 schrieb clipka:
> Am 12.10.2017 um 11:46 schrieb Ive:
>> "I'm done now ... sleepy ... purr"
>>
> 
> Just one gripe about your cat: In the relaxed pose, we shouldn't be able
> to identify the individual digits of its paws (nor should we be able to
> see its claws).
> 

You are right. I'm also sure that with more patience the overall 
appearance of the fur could be greatly improved.
The fur-making is driven by grayscale maps to control the length, 
thickness, direction and curliness of the individual hairs. I used 
Photoshop to "paint" all the maps and could watch the result within an 
OpenGL preview window. But as this is a quite tedious task I lost my 
patience at some point, something I regret meanwhile, just one hour more...

-Ive

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Very cool.

This reminds me a lot of the movie "Tim's Vermeer" - wherein Tim Jenison 
recreates the room and then paints "The Music Lesson" using a technique 
that is a guess at how Vermeer got a photorealistic quality to his 
paintings.

Fascinating movie - definitely worth a watch, especially by folks who are 
into raytracing.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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Ive <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote:
> Vermeer's cat...

Wow, the whole series is very nicely done!  I salute you :)

--
Dan
roadkillpuppy.com

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Ive <ive### [at] lilysoftorg> wrote:
> "..."

:-D  Awesome

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I'm always looking to learn how to increase the quality of my images, and reduce
the amount of work it takes to create a scene (thereby freeing up more time to
fine-tune it).

Can you give us a bit of background on the creation of this scene?

How long did it take you to model it?
How many tools other than POV-Ray did you use?

What sorts of simplifying "tricks" did you use (if any), and what interesting
methods or algorithms did you employ (you already touched on the map for the
hairs in the cat's fur)

Any special comments on lighting?

The carpet is beautiful - how did you texture and drape it?


Thanks  :)

[Looking at your finished work is reward in itself, but of course, as POV-ers,
you know we're all dying to know more.]

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Ive wrote on 12/10/2017 12:54:
> Am 10/11/2017 um 17:31 schrieb Paolo Gibellini:
>>
>> One of the best cat I've ever seen rendered in POV-Ray.
> 
> ;)
> out of interest and as my memory might fade away, any links to any 
> (best) cats rendered in POV-Ray - besides Gille's "Mouseless"?
> 
> -Ive
> 


I remember the convincing procedural cat found in Cassidy.inc (Neil 
Alexander, 1998 - see http://www3.sympatico.ca/stoker/IGlvroom.html and 
http://objects.povworld.org/binaries/cat.inc) and the fun coolcat.inc 
in POV-RAy examples...

But, seriously, the fur of a cat is very difficult to render and most of 
the previous examples I've seen was flat (e.g. 
http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/thread/%3C46fa10f0$1@news.povray.org%3E/

and 
http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/thread/%3C553e9fd1%40news.povray.org%3E/),

except for Nathan o'Brian cat
(http://oz.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/1998-12-31/13kitty.jpg, used also 
here 
(http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/thread/%3Cweb.4f4a511d868e2771978383930@news.povray.org%3E/).

Paolo

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Ive wrote on 16/10/2017 13:31:
> As promised, here is a 16:10 wallpaper image.
> In case you want a lossless compressed version, this is a direct link to 
> a PNG file (ca. 3.5 MB):
> 
> http://www.lilysoft.org/Download/Vermeer's%20Cat%20-%20Wallpaper%202.png
> 
> -Ive
> 
Lovely!
:D

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