"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote:
> Of course, but I understood the competition was about creating a world class
> *image* using POV.  If this really was the case, the judges should have
> judged the images with no knowledge of how it was created.  Of course
> afterwards they can check that is was actually created in a way that
> complied with the rules, but *how* it was created shouldn't have affected
> the judging or the comments if it was truly an "image" competition, and not
> a "scene" competition.
>
> But as I said, maybe I misunderstood (most likely) and there was some
> element of creating a good "scene" as well as a good final image.  I was
> under the impression it was to show off to non-POV people how good an image
> POV can create.

You know, in these types of debates, I think it occasionally helps to take
examples to ridiculous extremes, in order to make a point. Please don't
misinterpret this post as an implication that anyone has previously made
similarly silly statements during the course of this thread.

I think we can all agree that it actually does matter how the scene was
created. Some hypothetical person could actually generate a very beautiful,
compelling image with photographs, photo editing programs, paint programs,
other rendering programs, etc. This wonderful image could then be mapped
onto a plane, lit, and rendered with POV. The result may look very nice,
but the image is obviously not eligible for any recognition in a POV-Ray
competition. Although POV-Ray was used to render the image, and it may end
up being the "best" image that is submitted, it does not at all make good
use of POV-Ray's capabilities.

If you can agree with me on this, then you must be forced to admit that some
consideration needs to be given to the method of image creation, beyond
simply "rendered with POV-Ray". Again, remember that this is an intentional
exaggeration. Now, you can extrapolate this inane example through a series
of more sane situations that could include some textures created outside of
POV, some models created outside of POV, all the way out to the other
extreme in which the entire image is SDL generated. I think that we can all
agree that any image in which everything that you see in the image was
generated entirely in SDL would likely be eligible for consideration in a
POV-Ray competition.

Now, somewhere along that spectrum, you need to make a cutoff point that
says that anything over here is eligible, whereas anything beyond this
point is unacceptable. We may not all agree as to where that cutoff point
is, but I think we can all agree that such a point absolutely must exist.
Beyond this, I think that it is also obvious that any images that are

would probably be upstaged by images that are further down the spectrum

appearance since, remember, we are only talking about very good images
here, but in terms of adhering to the spirit of the competition.

The bottom line is that it is possible to create some dazzling images
without the use of POV-Ray. You can create some dazzling images that just
happen to use POV-Ray to render them, but nothing about them really
demonstrates the power of POV-Ray as a tool. You can also create some
dazzling images that make great use of POV-Ray and the flexibility that
this wonderful program offers. The blatant purpose of this competition was
to show off the power of POV-Ray as an image creation tool. It should come
as no surprise to people that the images were judged based on how well they

tools does require a lot of skill, and can produce very pleasing results,
but for the purposes of this specific competition, it is no different than
my Photoshop example above. Photoshop, Illustrator, photography, etc. all
require a lot of skill as well, and when used effectively, can produce some
very nice results. Neither one showcases POV-Ray in the way that the
contest intended.

 - dan B hentschel

dan B hentschel wrote:
 >

Don't want to drag this out into a huge debate, but I just "have" to 
point out that you have made a very good case for *another* argument, 
but not this one. The problem some entrants had is *not* that POV-Ray 
models were (apparently) judged more favorably, but that it was not made 
clear this would happen. In fact, more the opposite.

See this from Gilles Tran:
,--------------------------------------------------------------
| Well, the guidelines say "You are allowed to use any tool
| you want for modeling, texturing etc.". About modeling, they
| say that "self-made models" will be seen in a positive light,
| but it's vs non-self-made models, not 3rd party modelers!
`--------------------------------------------------------------

Note the exclamation point. Now, contrast this with the judges' 
comments, and Warp's comments in this group, which basically say:

(paraphrased)
I (Warp) think modeling things in a modeler is trivial.
I (Warp) think giving more credit to POV models is right.
But don't worry, IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!

Now can you see why some 3rd party modeler users might be upset? This 
has nothing to do with the standards themselves. If you want to write a 
reply, I have set follow-ups to off-topic. No use continuing here. If 
someone still doesn't get it, they're not going to.

  -Shay

dan B hentschel wrote:


>    The blatant purpose of this competition was
> to show off the power of POV-Ray as an image creation tool. 

Hmmmmmm "image creation tool"


It should come
> as no surprise to people that the images were judged based on how well they


I don't think that is what surprised people.

  Yes, creating mesh objects with third party
> tools does require a lot of skill, and can produce very pleasing results,

Some of us use TPT's and are shooting for a good deal more than that


> but for the purposes of this specific competition, it is no different than
> my Photoshop example above. Photoshop, Illustrator, photography, etc. all
> require a lot of skill as well, and when used effectively, can produce some
> very nice results.

"pleasing" AND "very nice"  hey hey

  Neither one showcases POV-Ray in the way that the
> contest intended.
>
That's been pretty much beaten to death.  Had you hoped to add something 
new?

Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> That's been pretty much beaten to death.  Had you hoped to add something 
> new?

  Your attitude is certainly not helping.

  He just wrote his thoughts and you are dissing him.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

Warp wrote:
> Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> 
>>That's been pretty much beaten to death.  Had you hoped to add something 
>>new?
> 
> 
>   Your attitude is certainly not helping.
> 
>   He just wrote his thoughts and you are dissing him.
> 
You are right but he is adding nothing that is helpful or new while 
subtlely reinforcing the prejudice against mesh modeling.  We, on the 
other side of the table, are willing to let it drop. You also have shown 
admirable constraint.  Why can't he?

Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> You are right but he is adding nothing that is helpful or new while
> subtlely reinforcing the prejudice against mesh modeling.  We, on the
> other side of the table, are willing to let it drop. You also have shown
> admirable constraint.  Why can't he?

I'm very sorry. It was not my intention to be at all derogatory or divisive.
In fact, I was hoping to create a common frame of reference to promote

that this was a dead topic, or that I would be re-opening any wounds. I
should have looked at the time stamps before responding. Again, I apologize
if I offended anyone with my post.


who are skilled at third-party modelers. I, myself, have tried Wings3D and
failed miserably. I am always very impressed (sometimes awestruck) with

trying to belittle those who use mesh modelers.

 - dan B hentschel

dan B hentschel wrote:
> Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> 
>>You are right but he is adding nothing that is helpful or new while
>>subtlely reinforcing the prejudice against mesh modeling.  We, on the
>>other side of the table, are willing to let it drop. You also have shown
>>admirable constraint.  Why can't he?
> 
> 
> I'm very sorry. It was not my intention to be at all derogatory or divisive.
> In fact, I was hoping to create a common frame of reference to promote

> that this was a dead topic, or that I would be re-opening any wounds. I
> should have looked at the time stamps before responding. Again, I apologize
> if I offended anyone with my post.
> 

> who are skilled at third-party modelers. I, myself, have tried Wings3D and
> failed miserably. I am always very impressed (sometimes awestruck) with

> trying to belittle those who use mesh modelers.
> 
>  - dan B hentschel
> 
> 
Apology accepted and I apologize in return, doubly so because your 
apology may not have been strictly necessary and I, meanwhile, knowingly 
exploited your good will. But you may not have understood how I see your 
attempt at a reasoned argument as just one more reinforcement of a 
prejudice. In the end, I didn't know any other way to make my point than 
to attack your intention.  Your discussion wasn't so bad imo, it did 
focus on external v internal rather well.  But my point is that the idea 
that certain modeling techniques are internal, and therefore more 
virtuous somehow, is being used to validate what amounts to prejudice 
against other creative paths, which are equally supported by the 
software.  Also, it seems to me you explored the "external" pole of your 
axis with more assurance than you did the "internal" pole.  What would 
it take to make a picture with a very extreme definition of "internal", 
and would it really amount to virtue?  Also a splinter issue here is 
raytracer support for using empirically collected
data.  If a photo is used to produce a texture map, this is univerally 
deplored.  But if satellite data is used to generate a model of the 
earth's surface, maybe it's not so bad?  They look like the same thing 
to me.

dan B hentschel wrote:
> "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote:
>> Of course, but I understood the competition was about creating a
>> world class *image* using POV.  If this really was the case, the
>> judges should have judged the images with no knowledge of how it was
>> created.  Of course afterwards they can check that is was actually
>> created in a way that complied with the rules, but *how* it was
>> created shouldn't have affected the judging or the comments if it
>> was truly an "image" competition, and not a "scene" competition.
>>
>> But as I said, maybe I misunderstood (most likely) and there was some
>> element of creating a good "scene" as well as a good final image.  I
>> was under the impression it was to show off to non-POV people how
>> good an image POV can create.
>
> You know, in these types of debates, I think it occasionally helps to
> take examples to ridiculous extremes, in order to make a point.
> Please don't misinterpret this post as an implication that anyone has
> previously made similarly silly statements during the course of this
> thread.
>
> I think we can all agree that it actually does matter how the scene
> was created. Some hypothetical person could actually generate a very
> beautiful, compelling image with photographs, photo editing programs,
> paint programs, other rendering programs, etc. This wonderful image
> could then be mapped onto a plane, lit, and rendered with POV. The
> result may look very nice, but the image is obviously not eligible
> for any recognition in a POV-Ray competition. Although POV-Ray was
> used to render the image, and it may end up being the "best" image
> that is submitted, it does not at all make good use of POV-Ray's
> capabilities.
>
> If you can agree with me on this, then you must be forced to admit
> that some consideration needs to be given to the method of image
> creation, beyond simply "rendered with POV-Ray". Again, remember that
> this is an intentional exaggeration. Now, you can extrapolate this
> inane example through a series of more sane situations that could
> include some textures created outside of POV, some models created
> outside of POV, all the way out to the other extreme in which the
> entire image is SDL generated. I think that we can all agree that any
> image in which everything that you see in the image was generated
> entirely in SDL would likely be eligible for consideration in a
> POV-Ray competition.
>
> Now, somewhere along that spectrum, you need to make a cutoff point
> that says that anything over here is eligible, whereas anything
> beyond this point is unacceptable. We may not all agree as to where
> that cutoff point is, but I think we can all agree that such a point
> absolutely must exist.

Sorry for the late reply but I've been away for a while.

I agree 100% with what you wrote about there being a "point" whereby the
image is acceptable.  That point should be defined in the rules (as best is
possible).

The question is though, should how far away you are from that point
influence how well you image ranks?  If it does, then they should say so.
If it doesn't, the judges should not look at the source at all until after
the judging (only to check it is past that point).

As I understood it, that point was quite far to the pure-SDL end of things
(ie you couldn't just use 10 meshes from modellers, they made it quite clear
it was to show off POV's features).  Also, I understood that the idea was to
generate a world class image, so the judges would be judging the images, not
the code.  Of course they would check the code afterwards to ensure it was't
just a bunch of meshes and texture maps, but this wouldn't influence the
ranking unless an image was disqualified for not being past the point.

I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway, but if the people running the
next competition take even a little bit of feedback from all the discussion
in here when writing the rules, it will have been worthwhile.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom>
Newsgroups: povray.competition
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 11:56 AM
Subject: Re: Why I won't enter PoVComp again.


<cut>
> As I understood it, that point was quite far to the pure-SDL end of things
> (ie you couldn't just use 10 meshes from modellers, they made it quite 
> clear
> it was to show off POV's features).  Also, I understood that the idea was 
> to
> generate a world class image, so the judges would be judging the images, 
> not
> the code.  Of course they would check the code afterwards to ensure it 
> was't
> just a bunch of meshes and texture maps, but this wouldn't influence the
> ranking unless an image was disqualified for not being past the point.
</cut>

Yes, I understand the point of the competition. Show off the renderer and
the tools that comes along with it. I have no problem with that.

Still..

I do have a hard time understanding the point of the comment
"just a bunch of meshes and texture maps". For several reasons:
1. What is the most important thing: The product or the process?
As I see it, the product is the only thing that matters. How you did it
is irrelevant. Sure, you can spend 200 hours creating #macros for this and
for that and I can understand the fascination in that too. But, if you can 
do
the same job, with a bit of experience, with a modeller in 20 minutes and
come up with atleast the same result, then what's the point?
And if you think a bit about it, this competition said itself that is was
the product that mattered.

2. "a bunch of meshes" is not as simple as it sounds.
I am in the process of learning 3ds MAX 7. I chose between MAX and
Maya but since MAX seemed to have a more forgiving learning curve
I stuck to that. I can tell you if you haven't tried it; it's no magic tool.
First of all there are numerous things you have to adjust and tinker with
to get a god result. Secondly, mesh creation is an art form in itself.
Go to 3dcafe.com f.i. and have a look at some of the tutorials how
things are done. Then come back and say "just a bunch of meshes" again.
That sounded a bit more harsh then I meant it, but I think you understand
what I mean.

3. Texture shading is also a kind of an art. Not throwing a jpeg at a 
sphere..
that's not my point. But to master UV-mapping is definately not as simple
as that. Have a look at newer games where they use low-poly models and
use the texturing to enhance the graphical effect. I mean, most of the games
nowadays produce better graphics in real-time then I do with POV-Ray.

But, yes, I understand the point of the competition. I truly love to see the
work of you guys that master POV. My hat of to you.
And POV-Ray can with experience produce results as good as the
professional rendering packages. But I don't like comments that
look down on how things are done in the professional world because I think
it's ignorant and silly and just sounds envyous.

Just MHO ;)

Regards,
Stefan

I've avoided commenting in this thread because I didn't feel I should have to
justify the reasons for my voting or have to defend my integrity as a judge (and
therefore as a person in this community).  However, there have been many
comments in this thread that have concerned me, so I'm going to respond just
this once (since these are the facts and there's no point restating them over
and over) to try to help clear up these misunderstandings.

The single biggest problem I see is this notion of "process versus product" and
"meshes versus other objects".  The statements by the judges regarding meshes
were primarily aimed at meshes that weren't created by the author of the image,
or which were poorly created.  For example, using meshes excessively from, say,


To say that *any* mesh use was viewed as a bad thing is simply incorrect.  Take
a look at how "Twin Girls With A Pearl Earring" ranked for proof of that:  the
image is basically 100% mesh with texturing, however the meshes and the textures
were created by the author, and more importantly, the end result was extremely
good.  Had that model been a Poser model then things probably would have been
very different - if the author expended little effort in creating the scene
because they simply took an existing model that someone else created, then it's
hardly fair to rank that higher than someone who went to the effort of creating
the model themselves (regardless of the method used, mesh, CSG, etc), especially
if the end result wasn't as good as an image where the author had created more
highly detailed models themselves.  However, using many mesh models that someone
else created doesn't instantly make an image "bad" either, for example,
"Victoria's World" ranked very well despite it containing many meshes created by
other people.  The reason it ranked so well was probably due to the end
result/overall visual appeal of the image and also due to the clever use of
POV-Ray's features in order to place the objects and create the scene (it also
showcases POV-Ray's ability to handle huge amounts of instanced mesh data).

To contrast this, take a look at "Evie Evolves".  The image, despite being very
good from a visual perspective, didn't rank as well.  There are a number of
reasons for this (these reasons are *my* reasons and don't represent the voting
of the other judges): the image primarily uses a Poser model (but this isn't the
sole reason as I'll explain).  Had the author created the model, rather than
using one from Poser, it probably would have ranked a lot higher.  However,
that's not the only reason - the use of a Poser model or a mesh model doesn't
necessarily make an image bad, there were other issues that made it (in my
opinion) not as good as other images.  For example, the hand of the model cuts
through the sofa.  This is something that would have been very easy to fix
(simply translate the entire model a small amount through the y axis), and
similarly the ring cuts through the finger.  These are details that the average
non-technically-minded person can look at and see, and think "that doesn't look
right, it looks like the hand is in the sofa", so that had a big negative impact
on the image for me.  The faceting of the model also didn't help.  I can also
say that other judges had differing opinions - that's the point of having
several judges, to ensure that there are different views of each image being
considered.  Many of these small image details and the overall ranking were
discussed at length by the judges before a final decision was made - not one
part of the process was taken lightly by anyone involved in the judging; we
wanted to be as fair and unbiased as possible, and I think we achieved that.

So I hope that clears up a few misunderstandings.  A basic summary is that using
mesh models didn't instantly make an image bad (an opinion that was incorrectly
stated as fact by some people), however using a mesh model (or any other type of
model, e.g. CSG) for the primary part of an image, which the *author didn't
create*, would usually have a negative impact, particularly if the *final result
wasn't visually as good* as it should have been because of it.  Ultimately, it
came down to how good the image looked and how well it represented what POV-Ray
was capable of.  This is clearly evident when you look at the top 5-6 entries:
these images are visually superior to the rest of the images (and what do you
know, several of them made extensive use of meshes).

Cheers,

Lance.

thezone - thezone.firewave.com.au