My cityrich.jpg submission to the IRTC for Imaginary Places has a random
block generator.  You create the buildings you want placed in blocks and
then layout the blocks.

I use the same code to place people on the streets, boats in the water,
trees along the bank, and the tents in the marketplace.

It uses a "sparse" factor that allows you to adjust how dense the buildings
get laid out on a particular block.

See other cities I've generated with this technique by following the links
on the city gallery page:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6080/citygall.htm

Robert J Becraft
aka cas### [at] aolcom

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Matt Giwer <mgi### [at] giwersworldorg> wrote in message
news:377B0EE0.7D92E08E@giwersworld.org...
> I know it is presumptuous of me to say but Mr. Colfax appears to
> create things for those who can not do for themselves, perhaps
> just showing off.

I would hardly have called him a show-off, more like someone with the skill,
imagination and generosity of provide his good quality and often unique
include files to the public.  Though who knows...

/\/\/\//

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Matthew Bennett <ben### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:
: I would hardly have called him a show-off, more like someone with the skill,
: imagination and generosity of provide his good quality and often unique
: include files to the public.  Though who knows...

  I think that the (pov)world would not be the same anymore without Chris'
include files. It would be a whole lot more boring...

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Matt Giwer wrote:
> 
>         I know it is presumptuous of me to say but Mr. Colfax appears to
> create things for those who can not do for themselves, perhaps
> just showing off.
> 
>         Taking the city for example, that would have made a great city
> around 1920 or even 1940 maybe in some places but it still misses
> the surrounding farmlands. And for today it certainly misses the
> suburbs. If I wanted an Oakie city under a bubble in space I
> would use it or the other. But as is, no. It is not realistic in
> the least today.

Oh, the slander... (and you misspelt my name to boot!).

Well, Mr. Giuer/Giwer, I do believe this is the first time someone has
actually taken offence at my offerings.  With my honour thus slighted,
perhaps I could grant myself the right of reply?  It is indeed true that
many of my projects are the result of other POV users' suggestions,
requests, and/or challenges, although in my defence might I say that my
efforts in documenting and distributing the files show I'm seeking a
little more than "ooh's" and "aah's"?

Case in point, I started the City Generator after suggestions by, and
collaborations with, Scott McDonald well over 18 months ago.  Oddly
enough, the original version I created for POV-Ray 3.0 included a
selection of red-roofed, white-picket fenced suburbs, and Scott designed
a series of high-rise buildings for his own scenes (see
http://www.canuck.com/~jimm/graphicp.htm).

Once POV-Ray 3.1 was released with macros, file I/O, etc., I rewrote the
file and redesigned the technique used to assemble the city.  My
intention by splitting the system into Include, Macro, and Object files
was to allow users to design their own custom cities at various levels. 
The "out of date" building objects you derided were simply created (as
all my sample images/animations are) to illustrate various features of
the system in order to give users some idea of what might be possible. 
They certainly are not meant to indicate the full extent of the files.

If you wished, you could create building object files (as others have
already done) for futuristic, contemporary, or period cities, and if you
really wanted to you could create a modified city macro file that
created buildings at various levels of complexity depending on their
distance from the camera, or to change the type of buildings as you got
further from the city centre.

Oh well, what with this and the current Yahoo-GeoCities furore it's
probably best I pack up my files and retire under a rock somewhere...
(not bloody likely!)  But thanks anyway for keeping me on my toes - now
I'll just have to work on something to really show off!

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Chris Colefax wrote:

> I'll just have to work on something to really show off!

I can hardly wait. Keep showing off! The more, the better :)

Margus

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Chris Colefax wrote in message <377CCF9C.E5CDBC17@ledanet.com.au>...
>Matt Giwer wrote:
>>
>>         I know it is presumptuous of me to say but Mr. Colfax appears to
>> create things for those who can not do for themselves, perhaps
>> just showing off.
>>
>>         Taking the city for example, that would have made a great city
>> around 1920 or even 1940 maybe in some places but it still misses
>> the surrounding farmlands. And for today it certainly misses the
>> suburbs. If I wanted an Oakie city under a bubble in space I
>> would use it or the other. But as is, no. It is not realistic in
>> the least today.
>
>Oh, the slander... (and you misspelt my name to boot!).
>
>Well, Mr. Giuer/Giwer, I do believe this is the first time someone has
>actually taken offence at my offerings.  With my honour thus slighted,

Maybe he's just jealous ;-)

OK, no need to start a flame war it was JUST A JOKE!
Now back to on topic stuff here... I was looking through your includes
libraries etc etc and noticed something about particles systems.  I was
thinking... have you thought about making a particle media system based on
combining the particle systems you currently have with spheres of media for
the particles?  I talked to Peter Popov about this a while ago and
unfortunately haven't had the time to get the spcifications to him (sorry
Peter), but MAX has a really good system based on this... My question is, do
you think this would be too slow in POV-Ray?

--
Lance.


---
For the latest 3D Studio MAX plug-ins, images and much more, go to:
The Zone - http://come.to/the.zone
For a totally different experience, visit my Chroma Key Website:
Colorblind - http://listen.to/colorblind

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On Sat, 3 Jul 1999 01:11:58 +1000, "Lance Birch" <lan### [at] usanet>
wrote:

>Maybe he's just jealous ;-)
>
>OK, no need to start a flame war it was JUST A JOKE!
>Now back to on topic stuff here... I was looking through your includes
>libraries etc etc and noticed something about particles systems.  I was
>thinking... have you thought about making a particle media system based on
>combining the particle systems you currently have with spheres of media for
>the particles?  I talked to Peter Popov about this a while ago and
>unfortunately haven't had the time to get the spcifications to him (sorry
>Peter), but MAX has a really good system based on this... My question is, do
>you think this would be too slow in POV-Ray?

Hey, no sweat :)

It could be rendered really fast, in fact, if POV's media didn't mess
up with intersecting container objects that much. I'll try to make a
speed (and quality) comparison test using 1000 media in one container
vs. 1000 separate containers... guess which one'll be faster. If the
latter works, the particle system might as well be done. BTW this is
one of the major items on my to-do list for this vacation (after July
15), as long as a .df3 creating utility and a fractal patch for POV
(anyone working on any of those?)

And Chris, I have had some thoughts about this particle system that I
haven't discussed with Lance (sorry, Lance). If you consider the
project worthy we might as well share some ideas.


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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I've tried to model smoke with multiple containers (not that many, a few 1000s)
but it was pretty slow. A particle system might need many more. I have doubts
about the speed of this method. Perhaps you can give a few stats?

Margus

> 
> It could be rendered really fast, in fact, if POV's media didn't mess
> up with intersecting container objects that much. I'll try to make a
> speed (and quality) comparison test using 1000 media in one container
> vs. 1000 separate containers... guess which one'll be faster. If the
> latter works, the particle system might as well be done.

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On Fri, 02 Jul 1999 20:19:35 +0300, Margus Ramst <mar### [at] peakeduee>
wrote:

>I've tried to model smoke with multiple containers (not that many, a few 1000s)
>but it was pretty slow. A particle system might need many more. I have doubts
>about the speed of this method. Perhaps you can give a few stats?
>
>Margus

Preliminary tests show that multiple particles is faster than multiple
media, and with better quality. For 100 particles render times were
like 2 vs. 5 minutes. Of course there's the problem with the high
max_trace_level and max_intersections that you might need...

I'll post more precise stats, test code, example images/anim tomorrow
(gimme some time to trace them)


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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I especially liked City Richmond. You going to remain at geocities
despite the TOS there Robert B. (and Chris C. too)?
As was said a person can certainly make ones own customizations to C.C.s
CityGenerator Include, not a deadend sort of thing in the least.

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