Hello,
  I used to use 3.0 quite a bit, but I hadn't done much POV-Ray for a long time
until a bit less than two years ago.  I wanted to re-familiarize myself with
POV-Ray.  At the time my daughter was a few months old and consequently there
were a profusion of new baby toys around.  I figured they were good models to
practice and get reacquainted with POV-Ray and SD; simple colors, geometric
shapes, not too complex.
  Well, while all this is true, there turned out to be some interesting
challenges as well.  Few surfaces are flat, there are few regular angles, and
EVERYTHING has rounded edges.  For example the basic shapes, while seemingly
simple extrusions, were actually slightly larger in radius on the bottom than
the top.
  Anyhow, this is a simple composition I made a while ago.  These are all real
toys, and are fairly close representations.  While harder than I expected, I
still think baby toys are fun things to model, and definitely helped me brush
up.

PS In the interests of full disclosure, the extruded shapes are actually meshes
made in Wings3D.  However all my attempts to make them in SDL were quite
instructive.

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Blue Herring nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2008/01/02 10:56:
> Hello,
>   I used to use 3.0 quite a bit, but I hadn't done much POV-Ray for a long time
> until a bit less than two years ago.  I wanted to re-familiarize myself with
> POV-Ray.  At the time my daughter was a few months old and consequently there
> were a profusion of new baby toys around.  I figured they were good models to
> practice and get reacquainted with POV-Ray and SD; simple colors, geometric
> shapes, not too complex.
>   Well, while all this is true, there turned out to be some interesting
> challenges as well.  Few surfaces are flat, there are few regular angles, and
> EVERYTHING has rounded edges.  For example the basic shapes, while seemingly
> simple extrusions, were actually slightly larger in radius on the bottom than
> the top.
>   Anyhow, this is a simple composition I made a while ago.  These are all real
> toys, and are fairly close representations.  While harder than I expected, I
> still think baby toys are fun things to model, and definitely helped me brush
> up.
> 
> PS In the interests of full disclosure, the extruded shapes are actually meshes
> made in Wings3D.  However all my attempts to make them in SDL were quite
> instructive.
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
You are not suposed to post photos on this group ;-)

Are you sure those are phtalene and lead free?

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when 
you are not.

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nice!  but what really spoils is the fact that the normals on the wall are not
visible under the flat shadows.  You'll learn in time all the craze behing
Global Illumination that took the CG world by storm... available in povray as
radiosity...

"Blue Herring" <bhe### [at] tinfoilcatcom> wrote:
>   Well, while all this is true, there turned out to be some interesting
> challenges as well.  Few surfaces are flat, there are few regular angles, and
> EVERYTHING has rounded edges.  For example the basic shapes, while seemingly
> simple extrusions, were actually slightly larger in radius on the bottom than
> the top.

yes, in real life there's always some glueing material between sharp edges or
some non-linear, assymetric distortions... very hard on SDL, specially with
functions and isosurfaces...

I wish there could be a way to do straightforward CSG with primitive shapes and
specify some glueing threshold...

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nemesis wrote:
> nice!  but what really spoils is the fact that the normals on the wall are not
> visible under the flat shadows.  You'll learn in time all the craze behing
> Global Illumination that took the CG world by storm... available in povray as
> radiosity...

Note that radiosity does not take normals into effect by default.

Even when you turn it on, it's often not directional enough to make them
really visible. :-/

-- 
William Tracy
afi### [at] gmailcom -- wtr### [at] calpolyedu

You know you've been raytracing too long when you thought the infamous
Book of Questions would have deeper stuff in it, like "If you could only
use one renderer, which would it be?', etc.
    -- Taps a.k.a. Tapio Vocadlo

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William Tracy <wtr### [at] calpolyedu> wrote:
> Even when you turn it on, it's often not directional enough to make them
> really visible. :-/

yes, who am I kidding... perhaps the poor guy is better off with just a second
light_source just close to the wall for some dramaticism... :)

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"Blue Herring" <bhe### [at] tinfoilcatcom> wrote in message 
news:web.477bb3e0cbfc471ab05f96f70@news.povray.org...
> Hello,
>  I used to use 3.0 quite a bit, but I hadn't done much POV-Ray for a long 
> time
> until a bit less than two years ago.  I wanted to re-familiarize myself 
> with
> POV-Ray.  At the time my daughter was a few months old and consequently 
> there
> were a profusion of new baby toys around.  I figured they were good models 
> to
> practice and get reacquainted with POV-Ray and SD; simple colors, 
> geometric
> shapes, not too complex.
>  Well, while all this is true, there turned out to be some interesting
> challenges as well.  Few surfaces are flat, there are few regular angles, 
> and
> EVERYTHING has rounded edges.  For example the basic shapes, while 
> seemingly
> simple extrusions, were actually slightly larger in radius on the bottom 
> than
> the top.
>  Anyhow, this is a simple composition I made a while ago.  These are all 
> real
> toys, and are fairly close representations.  While harder than I expected, 
> I
> still think baby toys are fun things to model, and definitely helped me 
> brush
> up.
>
> PS In the interests of full disclosure, the extruded shapes are actually 
> meshes
> made in Wings3D.  However all my attempts to make them in SDL were quite
> instructive.
>

Hi,
Very nice. I think those models are extremely well done.

Regards,
Chris B.

p.s. Any of them would make a very nice addition to the object collection we 
started last year at http://lib.povray.org, if you're interested.

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Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:

> You are not suposed to post photos on this group ;-)
>
> Are you sure those are phtalene and lead free?

Heh, thanks, and yes, I made sure to include the no_lead option in all my
objects =)

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> nice!  but what really spoils is the fact that the normals on the wall are not
> visible under the flat shadows.  You'll learn in time all the craze behing
> Global Illumination that took the CG world by storm... available in povray as
> radiosity...
>

Thanks!  Yeah, I didn't spend much time on the scene as compared to the models
themselves.  I like what can be done with radiosity, but most of my experience
with it has been about as enjoyable painting a house with my eyelashes.

> yes, in real life there's always some glueing material between sharp edges or
> some non-linear, assymetric distortions... very hard on SDL, specially with
> functions and isosurfaces...
>
> I wish there could be a way to do straightforward CSG with primitive shapes and
> specify some glueing threshold...

I noticed that IsoCSG looks to be able to blob any shape together.  I haven't
really tried it out yet, but it looks quite interesting.

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"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
> Hi,
> Very nice. I think those models are extremely well done.
>
> Regards,
> Chris B.
>
> p.s. Any of them would make a very nice addition to the object collection we
> started last year at http://lib.povray.org, if you're interested.

Thanks very much!  I'd be happy to submit these, though I'm wondering if there
are any copyright issues as they are modeled on real products (the blocks also
use the actual patterns as well.)

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"Blue Herring" <bhe### [at] tinfoilcatcom> wrote:
> I like what can be done with radiosity, but most of my experience
> with it has been about as enjoyable painting a house with my eyelashes.

but if it's old experience, remember the hardware back then wasn't up to the
task...

> > I wish there could be a way to do straightforward CSG with primitive shapes and
> > specify some glueing threshold...
>
> I noticed that IsoCSG looks to be able to blob any shape together.  I haven't
> really tried it out yet, but it looks quite interesting.

yes, Christoph Hormann has lots of goodies in his site.  But I wish it was
syntax rather than kinda clumsy macro calls.  Or wouldn't it be nice to specify
isosurfaces with primitive object syntax too rather than just with functions?

it should be so much easier to write:
isosurface {
  union {
    cylinder { -y,y .2 bend_with spline_foo }
    cylinder { -x,x .2 }
    glue_threshold .1
  }
}

rather than the cryptic function equations or macro calls...

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