To start off, I'd like to say this competition is very enticing! How 
nice it would be to win that computer..... having it would mean I would 
never go to sleep again!

At any rate, I have some concerns about the image submission rules. In 
section Four it is written:

d.
Each image submitted has to be the direct result of a POV-Ray render. No 
post processing of any kind is permitted. The image can be submitted in 
either PNG or JPG format.

<clip>

f.
You must not use any feature of POV-Ray (whether official or patched) to 
circumvent the intent of any of the other rules (especially the post 
processing rule and the requirement of the image to be rendered with 
POV-Ray).

I take this to mean I can't use my 'luminous bloom' filter, which is 
made with POV-Ray? The filter takes a rendered image, slaps it onto a 
plane and spreads out the highlights. It is all raytraced completely 
within POV.

Wouldn't my filter show off POV's abilities in yet another useful way, 
making it nearly 'on par' with the expensive rendering packages?

-Sam

Samuel Benge wrote:
> [...]
> 
> I take this to mean I can't use my 'luminous bloom' filter, which is 
> made with POV-Ray? The filter takes a rendered image, slaps it onto a 
> plane and spreads out the highlights. It is all raytraced completely 
> within POV.
> 
> Wouldn't my filter show off POV's abilities in yet another useful way, 
> making it nearly 'on par' with the expensive rendering packages?

 From my personal understanding this would not violate the letters of 
the rules but their spirit.  Note the rules don't say anything about 
post processing being bad or so, the decision to disallow any post 
processing was just made to ensure that what is judged is the actual 
scene design work of the entrant and not some photoshopping skills.  As 
written in the guidelines:

http://www.povcomp.com/guidelines/

you are welcome to submit a post processed version in addition to the 
unmodified render and this will be considered in judging.  But the 
unmodified image has to be good as it is as well.

-- Christoph

"Christoph Hormann" <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote in message
news:4113abe2@news.povray.org...
>  From my personal understanding this would not violate the letters of
> the rules but their spirit.

I agree.

The point of this contest is to highlight the abilities of povray, but an effect
like that is explicitly using povray to work around one of it's own inherent
limitations. Whilst this is a valid use of pov, it is surely better to create a
scene that shows the intrinsic beauty of pov's features, rather than emphasizing
a limitation.

Though it is also valid to argue that demonstrating pov's ability to work round
even the most fundamental limitations of ray-tracing makes it a truly powerful
tool. But I feel this is a little peripheral to the main intention of pov.

Just my 2 cents :)
-- 
Tek
www.evilsuperbrain.com

Samuel Benge wrote:
> I take this to mean I can't use my 'luminous bloom' filter, which is
> made with POV-Ray? The filter takes a rendered image, slaps it onto a
> plane and spreads out the highlights. It is all raytraced completely
> within POV.

I think it violates both the spirit and the letters of the rules. In the
image submitted, which is a direct result of a POV-Ray render, the only
thing that is raytraced is a plane. That the plane has an image_map (or
similar) and that this image_map happens to be created using POV-Ray also is
irrelevant, since the image in the image_map is not the image that is
submitted.

I think rule f is referring exactly to filters such as your 'luminous bloom'
filter.

> Wouldn't my filter show off POV's abilities in yet another useful way,
> making it nearly 'on par' with the expensive rendering packages?

I guess that using POV-Ray as a 2d image manipulative tool is not what the
competition is about, and to make that clear, they prohibited it completely.

Rune
-- 
3D images and anims, include files, tutorials and more:
rune|vision:  http://runevision.com
POV-Ray Ring: http://webring.povray.co.uk

Rune wrote:

> Samuel Benge wrote:
> 
>>I take this to mean I can't use my 'luminous bloom' filter, which is
>>made with POV-Ray? The filter takes a rendered image, slaps it onto a
>>plane and spreads out the highlights. It is all raytraced completely
>>within POV.
>>
> 
> I think it violates both the spirit and the letters of the rules. In the
> image submitted, which is a direct result of a POV-Ray render, the only
> thing that is raytraced is a plane. That the plane has an image_map (or
> similar) and that this image_map happens to be created using POV-Ray also is
> irrelevant, since the image in the image_map is not the image that is
> submitted.
> 
> I think rule f is referring exactly to filters such as your 'luminous bloom'
> filter.


I'm convinced. No big loss, though, since the filter seems to mess some 
scenes up....

 
 
>>Wouldn't my filter show off POV's abilities in yet another useful way,
>>making it nearly 'on par' with the expensive rendering packages?
>>
> 
> I guess that using POV-Ray as a 2d image manipulative tool is not what the
> competition is about, and to make that clear, they prohibited it completely.
> 
> Rune


That won't keep me from using it as such outside the competition :)

-Sam

"Rune" <run### [at] runevisioncom> wrote:
> I think rule f is referring exactly to filters such as your 'luminous bloom'
> filter.
>
would using a transparent box just in fromnt of the camera, with edges
fading
to black also be a violation of this? (i'm doing this right now)

jaap.

"Jaap" <jws### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.412d072f2e956b7ba8399d8d0@news.povray.org...
> "Rune" <run### [at] runevisioncom> wrote:
> > I think rule f is referring exactly to filters such as your 'luminous bloom'
> > filter.
> >
> would using a transparent box just in fromnt of the camera, with edges
> fading
> to black also be a violation of this? (i'm doing this right now)

Not at all. Anything you can do with internal POV-Script is acceptable. This includes
special
tricks with transparent boxes or placing a normal{} in the camera statement.

Ken Tyler
TAG, you're it!