Hi everyone,
Despite I'm lucky enough to be able to use Pov-Ray at my work almost every day,
I haven't had time to play with it personally since probably more than a year.
Finally last month has been quiet enough to let me achieve one of the things I
wanted to do since eternity: reproduce a lithography of Escher.
I've chosen the House of Stairs. My final result has several differences from
the original one but I'm really happy with it. Differences come from incoherence
in his lithography. Not to satisfy some optical illusion like his infinite
staircase, but real mistakes I believe. This lithography is so complex that
thinking of him doing it with only a pencil and a ruler... we can't blame it !
The lighting to is unrealistic, but I think he was more attached to the
aesthetic on this point. I could have cheated to get closer to his result, but
I've chosen to remain faithful to the underlying mathematical model (according
to my hypothesis): the House is made of one quarter repeated by rotation and
horizontal symmetry. With a camera's type set to cylinder it works perfectly !
About lighting, I've kept his idea of light entering from outside through wall's
doors, and tuned it freely until it pleases me. It lacks the "Curl-ups", which I
definitely want to add, when I'll find time for that... Different points of view
and a video are also tempting me.

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Attachments:
Download 'xl-51_small.jpg' (233 KB)

Preview of image 'xl-51_small.jpg'

On 3/1/20 9:13 AM, BayashiPascal wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> Despite I'm lucky enough to be able to use Pov-Ray at my work almost every day,
> I haven't had time to play with it personally since probably more than a year.
> Finally last month has been quiet enough to let me achieve one of the things I
> wanted to do since eternity: reproduce a lithography of Escher.
...
> 

Very cool - I like it!

In the lower half of the image we face two doors one offset vertically 
from the other and I'm supposing the smaller farther away. Under the one 
which looks smaller, there is a horizontal bar of light. Should this be 
there? I couldn't decide.

It stood out to me because it's not there in the pair of facing / 
mirrored about y doors above.

Bill P.

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Well done! I really like it.

It looks like the light is coming in from the outside, and that there 
are no lights inside the house. I thought povray had trouble with scenes 
like that. Did you use radiosity?

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> Hi everyone,
> Despite I'm lucky enough to be able to use Pov-Ray at my work almost every day,
> I haven't had time to play with it personally since probably more than a year.
> Finally last month has been quiet enough to let me achieve one of the things I
> wanted to do since eternity: reproduce a lithography of Escher.
> I've chosen the House of Stairs. My final result has several differences from
> the original one but I'm really happy with it. Differences come from incoherence
> in his lithography. Not to satisfy some optical illusion like his infinite
> staircase, but real mistakes I believe. This lithography is so complex that
> thinking of him doing it with only a pencil and a ruler... we can't blame it !
> The lighting to is unrealistic, but I think he was more attached to the
> aesthetic on this point. I could have cheated to get closer to his result, but
> I've chosen to remain faithful to the underlying mathematical model (according
> to my hypothesis): the House is made of one quarter repeated by rotation and
> horizontal symmetry. With a camera's type set to cylinder it works perfectly !
> About lighting, I've kept his idea of light entering from outside through wall's
> doors, and tuned it freely until it pleases me. It lacks the "Curl-ups", which I
> definitely want to add, when I'll find time for that... Different points of view
> and a video are also tempting me.
> 
> 

Nice and impressive.
Very well done.

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hi,

"BayashiPascal" <Pas### [at] BayashiInJapannet> wrote:
> ... reproduce a lithography of Escher.

far out.  (I'd forgotten just how envious I can feel.  :-))


regards, jr.

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Very, very well done!

-- 
Thomas

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Bill P. > It's light filtering through the interstice between the rounded edges
of blocks (superellipsoid) perfectly aligned with the camera. One more row of
blocks fixed it everywhere else, but I forgot this place and was too tired/lazy
yesterday night after the "final" rendering. It's fixed now, thanks for pushing
me forward.

Anthony > I'm glad you think the light is coming from the outside, it's the
intended effect. Yes I'm using radiosity, which is enough, if properly set, to
illuminate the room. However I've added one low intensity light in each quarter
to get a little more out of the shadows. Also, I've post-processed a little bit
the overall contrast using Gimp as the rendered image looked a bit flat. Purely
aesthetic choices of mine, one could have gone another way.

Alain Martel, Jr, Thomas > Thanks.

Preparing some other views, stay tuned.

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BayashiPascal wrote on 01/03/2020 15:13:
> Hi everyone,
> Despite I'm lucky enough to be able to use Pov-Ray at my work almost every day,
> I haven't had time to play with it personally since probably more than a year.
> Finally last month has been quiet enough to let me achieve one of the things I
> wanted to do since eternity: reproduce a lithography of Escher.
> I've chosen the House of Stairs. My final result has several differences from
> the original one but I'm really happy with it. Differences come from incoherence
> in his lithography. Not to satisfy some optical illusion like his infinite
> staircase, but real mistakes I believe. This lithography is so complex that
> thinking of him doing it with only a pencil and a ruler... we can't blame it !
> The lighting to is unrealistic, but I think he was more attached to the
> aesthetic on this point. I could have cheated to get closer to his result, but
> I've chosen to remain faithful to the underlying mathematical model (according
> to my hypothesis): the House is made of one quarter repeated by rotation and
> horizontal symmetry. With a camera's type set to cylinder it works perfectly !
> About lighting, I've kept his idea of light entering from outside through wall's
> doors, and tuned it freely until it pleases me. It lacks the "Curl-ups", which I
> definitely want to add, when I'll find time for that... Different points of view
> and a video are also tempting me.
> 
> 

A very nice image!
Paolo

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This is great! I've tackled a few Eschers in my time but I never had a go at
this one. I look forward to the addition of the Pedalternorotandomovens
Centroculatus Articulosuses :D

Bill (the other P)

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On 2020-03-01 10:13 AM (-4), BayashiPascal wrote:
>
> Finally last month has been quiet enough to let me achieve one of the things I
> wanted to do since eternity: reproduce a lithography of Escher.

Just a reminder that the copyrights on Escher's works have not yet 
expired.  (This issue has come up before.)  Note that IANAL, and I am 
not telling anyone what to do with this information.

Trying to reproduce Escher looks like fun.  I once started an 
interpretation of one of Escher's prints, but I never finished it.

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