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

-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

First of all, thank you for finally telling us what is going on.

Secondly, I am very disappointed.  I worked very hard on my image and
because of the confusion on the deadline, wound up losing quite a few hours
that I would have used to continue improving it.  I've been anxiously
awaiting an opportunity to see all the work submitted and making my own
estimations as to how well my effort stacked up against the really great
artists out there.  Being told that the sum of the efforts that were
submitted was not good enough for you to award a prize is a slap in the
face to all of us.  This doesn't encourage me to provide you with a better
work, this makes me reluctant to continue to participate.

Personally, I feel that you should award the prizes and organize a new
contest if you feel that you didn't get what you wanted from this one.  For
your next iteration, I suggest that you make some significant modifications
to the rules.  First and foremost, your requirement that we submit images
without a copyright notice makes me acutely uncomfortable.  Though I don't
ascribe any such motive to you, such a requirement makes it easy to just
take our images and use them without even acknowledging the artist.  At the
very least, we should be given an explanation as to why you don't want a
copyright notice on the image.

Secondly, either you need to get more people involved in moderating the
boards or you need to provide a forum for unmoderated discussion.  It often
takes a day or more for my posts on this board to appear.  Free discussion
would really help this competition.  I also suggest you set up a mailing
list like the one that exists for the IRTC.  Again it will help foster a
sense of community among the participating artists and perhaps encourage
people to get their work finished on time.

Finally, you need to provide more feedback to the artists during the final
days of the competition.  The reminder email was a nice touch, but it would
be best to have a count-down clock so that the time remaining is clear to
everyone.

I'm sure other artists will have other comments that are perhaps better
thought out then mine.

Gilles Tran wrote:

> There are 56 entries. Among these, there are exceptional images, that
would
> be worthy of the main prizes.

And their creators now have no laurels to rest on.

You just told us that _all_ of us have to get off our lazy butts and
re-compete, not just those of us who appeared to run out of time.

At my weekly rates, I'm about to put enough work into this to have bought
_another_ grand prize, off the shelf! ;-)

-- 
  Phlip
  http://industrialxp.org/community/bin/view/Main/TestFirstUserInterfaces

rben wrote:

> First and foremost, your requirement that we submit images
> without a copyright notice makes me acutely uncomfortable.  Though I don't
> ascribe any such motive to you, such a requirement makes it easy to just
> take our images and use them without even acknowledging the artist.  At
the
> very least, we should be given an explanation as to why you don't want a
> copyright notice on the image.

To preserve anonymity, so judges wouldn't recognize artists.

Note that all art is copy-wrought as it is created. "No copyright notice" is
not the same as "no copyright".

The (c) notice is just a tactic.

-- 
  Phlip
  http://industrialxp.org/community/bin/view/Main/TestFirstUserInterfaces

web.417aa863b45fa19e497bbfc0@news.povray.org...
> First of all, thank you for finally telling us what is going on.

We certainly owed it to you.

> Being told that the sum of the efforts that were
> submitted was not good enough for you to award a prize is a slap in the
> face to all of us.

As I said, this wasn't an easy decision. Hey, I'd be awfully disappointed 
myself if I were participating... But then, there were 25 prizes to 
distribute to 56 images. We'd have to award prizes to images that weren't 
just special enough, and that would have been, well, wrong. There's more at 
stake than it seems in fact. POV-Ray needs (and deserves) more public 
recognition than it has presently, and a high profile competition like the 
POVCOMP is the right tool for that, but it also means that the outcome of 
this competition has to be high profile too, otherwise we're not going to 
convince anyone that POV-Ray is the great tool it is.

> This doesn't encourage me to provide you with a better
> work, this makes me reluctant to continue to participate.

Since you said that you missed a few hours to complete your entry I warmly 
encourage you get over the initial disappointment and to continue to 
participate.

> Personally, I feel that you should award the prizes and organize a new
> contest if you feel that you didn't get what you wanted from this one.

To organise a new contest, to find paying sponsors and willing participants, 
it is mandatory that the first one is a success, and that the results are 
impressive enough.

> First and foremost, your requirement that we submit images
> without a copyright notice makes me acutely uncomfortable.

You are actually invited to provide one:
 "4.g. You can optionally submit a PNG image with alpha channel - of the 
same size as the main image - which contains a signature that will be 
applied to the image before it is published on the website. (...)  If you do 
not provide such a signature file, the competition organisers will, if you 
request, apply an automated copyright notice for you, using your real name 
or nickname as supplied in registration. "

The reason why the signature/copyright has to be separate is given in the 
guidelines:
"Judging will be done 'blind' meaning the competition organisers will not 
supply the name of the entrant with the entry. Each entry will have a unique 
ID which is what the judges refer to them by. All submitted files are 
renamed based on this ID. The descriptions and other texts supplied with 
your submission should not reveal your identity. "

> Secondly, either you need to get more people involved in moderating the
> boards or you need to provide a forum for unmoderated discussion.  It 
> often
> takes a day or more for my posts on this board to appear.

There is clearly something wrong on your end (proxy, cache issue...). 
Discussions are not moderated and posts appear immediately.

> The reminder email was a nice touch, but it would
> be best to have a count-down clock so that the time remaining is clear to
> everyone.

This is in the works (AFAIK).

Thanks for your input !

Gilles


-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

Thanks for the update Gilles. I am sorry to hear so few images were
submitted. Time was an issue for me and I did not enter images despite
having that intent.  Those who worked really hard to meet the deadline are
going to be frustrated by this turn and I can understand.

While it is contrary to the way normal competitions are run, I wonder if it
might not help keep everyone motivated if the images submitted to the
competition were visible immediately on submission and that any image could
be replaced with an improved version some number of times prior to the
deadline. I am thinking of  a running competition where entries evolve to a
high level.

I started images, but life didn't cooperate to give me the time to get any
of them to the level I thought would be competitive.  It is hard to stay
motivated when you cannot see how far behind you are and can only imagine
how your images look in comparison.

An analogy. We are all choosing to run marathons when we take on a image. It
is hard to keep running hard in a competitive race when you have no idea
where you stand - especially once life gets in the way a few times.

Bill P.

"Gilles Tran" <gitran_nospam_@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:417a9f5a$1@news.povray.org...
> 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
>
> -- 
> **********************
> http://www.oyonale.com
> **********************
> - Graphic experiments
> - POV-Ray and Poser computer images
> - Posters
>
>

Now what do I do ? Do I try to improve my current submission that wasn't good enough
for your initial contest and hope that it might be good enough for the next round 
or do I start over and hope I don't waste my time and effort like I did for the first
round ? 

Chris Holtorf

417abc3f$1@news.povray.org...

> While it is contrary to the way normal competitions are run, I wonder if 
> it
> might not help keep everyone motivated if the images submitted to the
> competition were visible immediately on submission and that any image 
> could
> be replaced with an improved version some number of times prior to the
> deadline. I am thinking of  a running competition where entries evolve to 
> a
> high level.

Some 3D competitions run like this, and allow people to show their entries 
beforehand. People can comment on the WIPs too. In retrospect, I'm starting 
to think that this would have been a better way (though there may be some 
issues with this too). I am personally in favour to show the current images 
at this stage, but it's not a simple decision as the original rules clearly 
said that the judging was "blind".  This may or may not change and no 
decision has been taken.

> An analogy. We are all choosing to run marathons when we take on a image. 
> It
> is hard to keep running hard in a competitive race when you have no idea
> where you stand - especially once life gets in the way a few times.

Well, I'm not completely buying this. In 3D, the competition is all around 
us, in the movies, in the advertising, in the galleries of every 3D software 
out there... I really don't think people should strive to be better than the 
other POV-Ray user. In any case, I never did that when I competed in the 
IRTC. My goal was always to emulate the best possible stuff I had seen, and 
for this there were enough available material from the last 25000 years of 
painting... In any case, I will (possibly) prepare a short text addressing 
some of the most obvious shortcomings I've seen in POV-Ray images (POVCOMP 
or elsewhere).

G.


-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

Wow.  That sure clears-up a lot of things...  Not an easy decision, indeed.

I'm somewhat surprised that there were so few participants.  It does make me 
think that many people didn't feel they had enough time.  However, now we're 
in a position where (as Bill P. mentioned) we've all run a marathon and now 
we're told that we need to run an extra 30 miles.  It's good news for my 
scene that I created, but on a personal level, such news is a little 
unsettling.  I hope this isn't the case (sincerely, I do), but I have to 
wonder if some people may give-up at this point.  I really hope that this 
encourages more participants, and not less.  At this point, even if someone 
was just now starting their image, they would still have 3 months, which 
isn't bad.

I'm planning to look on the bright side.  There were quite a few things that 
I wanted to do, but simply ran out of time.  I expected that.  I realized 
the time-constraints.  I'm quite hopeful that I can make a number of 
improvements to what I've already put together, including certain technical 
problems that I didn't notice until too late.

Once again, good luck to all!  And may "all" include more of you!

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

"Gilles Tran" <gitran_nospam_@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message 
news:417ac4d0@news.povray.org...

> 417abc3f$1@news.povray.org...
>
>> An analogy. We are all choosing to run marathons when we take on a image. 
>> It
>> is hard to keep running hard in a competitive race when you have no idea
>> where you stand - especially once life gets in the way a few times.
>
> Well, I'm not completely buying this. In 3D, the competition is all around 
> us, in the movies, in the advertising, in the galleries of every 3D 
> software out there... I really don't think people should strive to be 
> better than the other POV-Ray user. In any case, I never did that when I 
> competed in the IRTC. My goal was always to emulate the best possible 
> stuff I had seen, and for this there were enough available material from 
> the last 25000 years of painting...

"Time-trial" comes to my mind.  You do the best that you can.  You hope for 
the best.  You prepare for the worst.  But you never know how well you 
compare until it's all over.  Not all time-trials work that way, but the 
analogy works (for me anyway).

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com