Hello

Disclaimer: this is not an official statement. An official annoucement from 
the POVCOMP organisers will follow (some details are still being worked on) 
and participants will be emailed privately.

There are 56 entries. Among these, there are exceptional images, that would 
be worthy of the main prizes. People have been working hard, and these 
images are a good testimony of what can be achieved with POV-Ray.

However, these exceptional images are too few. The competition was all about 
getting the best out of POV-Ray, and while most entries are very good, they 
are on the whole not up to the standard that can be observed in current 3D 
contests. It's not an easy thing to say and we understand that this may be 
offending to some. Be sure that we fully realise the amount of work that was 
put in all entries: it's just that the bar has been raised very high in 3D 
these days. The feedback on the new hall of fame was extremely positive: 
this newfound reputation should not be squandered. We all know that POV-Ray 
is an exceptional piece of software, so we need lots of exceptional artworks 
to prove it.

One major reason for the lack of exceptional pieces may have been that the 
time period of two and a half months was too short. POVCOMP is of an order 
of magnitude harder than the IRTC, and the organisers underestimated the 
time needed to create this sort of work without giving up on real life. 
People couldn't find the time to complete their entries, and among those 
submitted, we feel that many can be improved.

Accordingly, it has been decided to postpone the deadline until January 31, 
2005. That's almost 3 additional months for people to resume or complete 
their work, or submit new ones.
In a nutshell:
- Those of you who have submitted an image will be given the opportunity to 
unsubmit it and resume work.
- Those of you who did not submit due to lack of time are encouraged to 
resume work on their creation.
- For those who are happy with what they have submitted already, their image 
will remain in its 'submitted' state. Of course, you can always create a new 
work.

The precise procedures to do so will be explained later.

Again, this was not an easy decision to take. I'm painfully aware of how 
difficult this must be for the POVCOMP participants. We hope, however, that 
these 3 extra months will result in many exceptional pictures.

Gilles Tran

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