Let's put this creative effort used on sigs to use!

SHORTEST CODE CONTEST

Povray has many strengths.  On one hand it can compete with some of the best
professional packages in the production of photorealistic images with
radiosity from the DXF output of a modelling program. On the other hand, it
IS amazing what the thoughtful amateur can do with just a few lines of ASCII
text. IMHO, this second quality of povray is a better "poster boy" for the
program and much more *fun*.

Many pov'vers like to celebrate this second quality of povray with
innovative signature files: making something really interesting with just a
few bytes of text.

Let's have a contest.

HOW TO ENTER:
Send an email to Greg M. Johnson at gre### [at] aolcom with two attachments:

1) your submission in the form of a XYZ.pov file.

    a) Please don't have any personal info in the image as the contest will
be judged blind. For example, if you currently have text that says, "BILLY
POVUSER", change it to "POV 3.5" or "POVVERS RULE" or something else.

    b) Make it compatible with povray 3.5.

    c) no #includes or #reads or #writes or #fopens are permitted.

    d) MAX size: 500 bytes (arbitrarily chosen as twice the size of one very
competent sig file posted to p.g.)

    e) have it end with //XYZ, where XYZ is a (hopefully) unique 3-digit
combination of your initials and/or numbers

2) an XYZ.txt file with

     a)	your name,
     b)	email adresss,
     c)	web page,
     d) and any other comments you want to make about the image.

3) Please make the title of your email distinct from typical junk mail,
something like, "[Shortest Code Contest]"

HOW IT WILL RUN:

1) An 800 x 600 jpg of your pov file will be prepared.

2) A web page will be prepared where all of the image are visible, BUT NO
personal or author information NOR any data about the scene file

3) Participants will vote on their favorite five images (or some other
criteria).  No one will know how many bytes are in the pov file during the
judging!

4) Prizes (in the form of praise) will be given to:
   a) highest score
   b) lowest bytes to still get rated as someone's favorite 5.
   c) GRAND PRIZE: most efficient (some sort of formula of score / bytes of
text).

5) Contest submission deadline:
February 28th, or the first instance that we have ten entries AFTER this
date!

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:44:34 -0500, "Greg M. Johnson" <gregj:-)565### [at] aolcom>
wrote:

Your idea sounds interesting, but ...

>    b) Make it compatible with povray 3.5.

with specification or reality ?
I mean scenes compatible with documentation but not working becouse of bugs or
changes ? For example I can prepare suprehipertransscene but beta from February
could destroy it somehow ...

>    c) no #includes or #reads or #writes or #fopens are permitted.

sure.

>    d) MAX size: 500 bytes (arbitrarily chosen as twice the size of one very
>competent sig file posted to p.g.)
>    e) have it end with //XYZ, where XYZ is a (hopefully) unique 3-digit
> combination of your initials and/or numbers

is //XYZ inside or outside 500 bytes ?

ABX

Post a reply to this message

news:mgdg4u44sesc8r1ek6bt5hv2d675o4iqlp@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:44:34 -0500, "Greg M. Johnson"
<gregj:-)565### [at] aolcom>
> wrote:
>
> Your idea sounds interesting, but ...
>
> >    b) Make it compatible with povray 3.5.
>
> with specification or reality ?

Comments anyone?

> >    e) have it end with //XYZ, where XYZ is a (hopefully) unique 3-digit
> > combination of your initials and/or numbers
>
> is //XYZ inside or outside 500 bytes ?

//xyz is part of the 500 bytes.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:55:40 -0500, "Greg M. Johnson" <gregj:-)565### [at] aolcom>
wrote:
> > >    b) Make it compatible with povray 3.5.
> >
> > with specification or reality ?
>
> Comments anyone?

Some examples:
- camera behaviour was changed but documentation not updated yet.
- something with isosurfaces'll change afaik
  (I don't know how changes influence appearance).
- sphere sweeps differ from behaviour described in documentation.
- radiosity has bugs
- splines has bugs
- there are a few of blob bugs
- and many others from Known Bugs lists

There is a chance someone can discover nice 500 bytes long scene unfortunatelly
based on bug (without his knowledge), send it , and next beta can destroy his
effort.

ABX

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:44:34 -0500, Greg M. Johnson wrote:
>     d) MAX size: 500 bytes (arbitrarily chosen as twice the size of one very
> competent sig file posted to p.g.)

sig files already have a max size: 320 bytes.  Any longer and they're not
sig files.  So if you limited participants to, say, 300 bytes (to make up for
word wrap issues) then they'd be making sig files.

Wow!  500 bytes.  Whatever will I do with all that space?

Seriously, though, no theme or anything?  It's easy to come up with an 
attractive-looking pseudo-abstract image in a small number of bytes.  An
image that actually has a point - like "neon" or "uses bicubic patches to
draw letters" or the below-included "spectrum" - is a lot more difficult. 

--
#macro R(L P)sphere{L __}cylinder{L P __}#end#macro P(_1)union{R(z+_ z)R(-z _-z)
R(_-z*3_+z)torus{1__ clipped_by{plane{_ 0}}}translate z+_1}#end#macro S(_)9-(_1-
_)*(_1-_)#end#macro Z(_1 _ __)union{P(_)P(-_)R(y-z-1_)translate.1*_1-y*8pigment{
rgb<S(7)S(5)S(3)>}}#if(_1)Z(_1-__,_,__)#end#end Z(10x*-2,.2)camera{rotate x*90}

Post a reply to this message

I think the sourcecodes should also be shown to the pics, to enable the
voters
to judge by "quality" ...


BTW: How 'bout Mutiple Entries per person?


--
[Talking about cardriving]
"People are opstacles?
Oh...I always treat them as bonus points..." [Ian Burgmyer in p.o-t]
// Jan Walzer <jan### [at] lzernet>

Post a reply to this message

"Jan Walzer" <jan### [at] lzernet> wrote in message
news:3c484668@news.povray.org...
> I think the sourcecodes should also be shown to the pics, to enable the
> voters to judge by "quality" ...

Well, that's what makes it all the more interesting.  It's a raw judge of
"quality" without knowing how small.  If some bloke decides to do a fractal,
well maybe that's cool to some, and crap to others.


> BTW: How 'bout Mutiple Entries per person?

2 raised to the power of a relatively small integer.

Post a reply to this message

news:b3eg4u0dkeatvgk5p28e8qquf4rfim241m@4ax.com...
> There is a chance someone can discover nice 500 bytes long scene
unfortunatelly
> based on bug (without his knowledge), send it , and next beta can destroy
his
> effort.

Fair enough.  COmments?
Should some just have to face the consequences if they take this risk?

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 09:44:34 -0500, Greg M. Johnson wrote:
>     b) Make it compatible with povray 3.5.

rons_really_cool_signature_file //RLP

Works with the next beta of version 3.5.  Outputs the Mona Lisa.  What do I
win? :)

-- 
#macro R(L P)sphere{L F}cylinder{L P F}#end#macro P(V)merge{R(z+a z)R(-z a-z)R(a
-z-z-z a+z)torus{1F clipped_by{plane{a 0}}}translate V}#end#macro Z(a F T)merge{
P(z+a)P(z-a)R(-z-z-x a)pigment{rgbt 1}hollow interior{media{emission T}}finish{
reflection.1}}#end Z(-x-x.2y)Z(-x-x.4x)camera{location z*-10rotate x*90}

Post a reply to this message

"Ron Parker" <ron### [at] povrayorg> wrote in message
news:slr### [at] fwicom...
> rons_really_cool_signature_file //RLP
>

Judges reserve right to reject entries using features never mentioned in the
docs.

Post a reply to this message