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From: H@@kon
Subject: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 13:50:00
Message: <web.47a217e87b8d0c8a95b8a6100@news.povray.org>
Hello!

Just discovered Pov Ray and totally amazed of what people make.
Could someone explain to me this:

The most breathtaking pictures are using a lof of hours rendering, some a whole
day.

how do you make these pictures?

do you code a lot before you render (and you visually know the result of your
coding) OR is there a preview function with a lot of testing?

I thought at first there was a lot of testing, but if a render takes 5-6 hours
then you really should "know" when to test...


Sorry if this is a very stupid question, but really nags me...
And appreciate every answer...


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From: nemesis
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 14:23:55
Message: <47a2204b@news.povray.org>
H@@kon wrote:
> Hello!

hi there!  welcome!

> The most breathtaking pictures are using a lof of hours rendering, some a whole
> day.
> how do you make these pictures?

We begin by reading the whole povray manual and included tutorial... ;)

Actually, I guess most of us do it by small steps:  add a few geometries 
to the scene, render it in low quality settings to get a hold of how 
it's turning out, then add a few more, tweak the textures, the lighting, 
the camera positioning, general settings etc.  One small step at a time.

Pictures that take hours or days are called "final renders".  We feel 
good about how it's turning out and feel confident enough to turn on all 
expensive features at the same time with the highest resolutions and 
best antialiasing... we turn it all on and then go to sleep while povray 
works... well, actually, some of us keep wake up as we contort ourselves 
to every few pixels updated on screen... :P

You should keep in mind that povray is loaded with lots of defaults and 
that a povray scene always consists of at least one geometric object, 
one light source and a camera.  One of these defaults is a camera 
located in 0 (same as <0,0,0>)) and pointing to 0.  Then, this is a 
pretty complete scene:

sphere {0,1 pigment {rgb 1}}
light_source {4-8*z 1}

which is a radius 1 sphere at origin and white (1) color, illuminated by 
a white light positioned at <4,4,4>-<0,0,8>.  Now it's up to you... :)


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 14:32:59
Message: <47a2226b@news.povray.org>
"H@@kon" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.47a217e87b8d0c8a95b8a6100@news.povray.org...
> Hello!
>
> Just discovered Pov Ray and totally amazed of what people make.
> Could someone explain to me this:
>
> The most breathtaking pictures are using a lof of hours rendering, some a 
> whole
> day.
>
> how do you make these pictures?
>
> do you code a lot before you render (and you visually know the result of 
> your
> coding) OR is there a preview function with a lot of testing?
>
> I thought at first there was a lot of testing, but if a render takes 5-6 
> hours
> then you really should "know" when to test...
>
>
> Sorry if this is a very stupid question, but really nags me...
> And appreciate every answer...
>

Hi,

I don't claim to have done anything that could be credited as 
'breathtaking', but I have done images that take a day or more and 
animations that take many days to render.

I'd be suprised if there's anyone able to just write the code and then 
render once at the end. I normally do a very large number of test renders, 
but I try to keep the times down on most of them by:

1. Commenting out bits I don't need for a particular test
2. Incorporating quick alternatives to take the place of slow-rendering 
objects like Isosurfaces
3. Rendering smaller images
4. Turning off Anti-Aliasing and other time-consuming stuff like radiosity 
until near the end

Most of the test renders that I do take just a few seconds, though they 
begin to take longer towards the end when I assemble the various components 
and start sorting out the innevitable little glitches.

You may do a full render overnight or leave it running while you're out to 
get an idea of how the whole thing is coming along.

Regards,
Chris B.


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From: H@@kon
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 14:35:01
Message: <web.47a222769cf7102995b8a6100@news.povray.org>
nemesis <nam### [at] nospamgmailcom> wrote:
> H@@kon wrote:
> > Hello!
>
> hi there!  welcome!
>
> > ...

Thanks for the welcome and thanks for the answer!

And i guess by learning you learn what functions which take ages to render and
vice versa. I see...Must be satisfying to wait those 5 hours and see the
finished result.

Better start practicing :-)


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From: St 
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 15:23:11
Message: <47a22e2f@news.povray.org>
"H@@kon" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.47a217e87b8d0c8a95b8a6100@news.povray.org...
> Hello!
>
> Just discovered Pov Ray and totally amazed of what people make.
> Could someone explain to me this:
>
> The most breathtaking pictures are using a lof of hours rendering, some a 
> whole
> day.
>
> how do you make these pictures?
>
> do you code a lot before you render (and you visually know the result of 
> your
> coding) OR is there a preview function with a lot of testing?
>
> I thought at first there was a lot of testing, but if a render takes 5-6 
> hours
> then you really should "know" when to test...
>
>
> Sorry if this is a very stupid question, but really nags me...
> And appreciate every answer...

     Hi, and welcome. I just thought I'd chip in and mention that although 
PoV-Ray is a fantastic rendering program, (and it is), the program itself is 
adaptable to using other popular modeling progs like Wings3D, Poser, and the 
like. The best tool to incorporate your models is PoseRay, a brilliant 
(free) conversion (and many other things) program found here: 
http://mysite.verizon.net/sfg0000/ if you're that way inclined. But, try all 
of the PoV primitives first and texture them in PoV because PoV is also 
fantastic for texturing.

     ~Steve~


>
>
>
>


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 15:49:39
Message: <j2d4q3tj4v9n5kcbv8gpkn3cti0s18884t@4ax.com>
On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:48:08 EST, "H@@kon" <nomail@nomail> wrote:

>Hello!
>
>Just discovered Pov Ray and totally amazed of what people make.
>Could someone explain to me this:
>
>The most breathtaking pictures are using a lof of hours rendering, some a whole
>day.
>
>how do you make these pictures?
>
>do you code a lot before you render (and you visually know the result of your
>coding) OR is there a preview function with a lot of testing?
>
>I thought at first there was a lot of testing, but if a render takes 5-6 hours
>then you really should "know" when to test...
>
>
>Sorry if this is a very stupid question, but really nags me...
>And appreciate every answer...
>
>
>
Welcome from me too.
I don't have the vision to hand code Pov-Ray script so I use a Modeller instead.
One of the advantages is that you get an OpenGL preview and front, side and top
views. And to balance things Modellers generally only use a subset of Pov-Ray
objects. But for someone like me I need to have a visual representation of the
scene I'm working on. The two Modellers I use are Moray (there is a news group
here) and Bishop3d which is only in Beta testing at the moment. 

Regards
	Stephen


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From: Alain
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 15:51:13
Message: <47a234c1@news.povray.org>
H@@kon nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2008/01/31 13:48:
> Hello!
> 
> Just discovered Pov Ray and totally amazed of what people make.
> Could someone explain to me this:
> 
> The most breathtaking pictures are using a lof of hours rendering, some a whole
> day.
> 
> how do you make these pictures?
> 
> do you code a lot before you render (and you visually know the result of your
> coding) OR is there a preview function with a lot of testing?
> 
> I thought at first there was a lot of testing, but if a render takes 5-6 hours
> then you really should "know" when to test...
> 
> 
> Sorry if this is a very stupid question, but really nags me...
> And appreciate every answer...
> 
> 
> 
> 
Usualy, a simple scene renders quickly in a mater of seconds to minutes. Those 
are the ones you create when you are still new to ray tracing. Few objects, 
simple textures, less than 5 lights, and no advanced features.

The scenes that take many hours or days are "advanced" scenes. They may contain 
1000's of objects, or use media, have several reflective or transparent objects, 
several high quality area lights, very complex objects and textures, blured 
reflections and transparance, radiosity, isosurfaces, parametrics, and more...

You will start with some simple scenes. Progressively, you'll explore the more 
advances features and, eventualy, may come up with a scene of your own that get 
rendered in a week... or maybe even more.

Just start running trough the tutorials, typing the examples, and running them. 
Experiment with them by changing one item at the time, and do a render to see 
the effect of your change. Then, read the rest of the documentations at least 
once. Whenever you are unsure about some keyword, press the "F1" key to jump to 
the help about the one the curson is on. (windows version)
Now, load and render the various sample scenes. If you want to change them, 
start by saving them under a new name so that you can easily compare the 
originals and your altered versions.

All the .POV, .INC and .INI files are human readable and can be opened as an 
ordinary text file.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
If you can’t get your work done in the first 24 hr’s, work nights.


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From: H@@kon
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 31 Jan 2008 18:05:00
Message: <web.47a2531a9cf710293352c30a0@news.povray.org>
Thank you all!



Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:

> Whenever you are unsure about some keyword, press the "F1" key to jump to
> the help about the one the curson is on. (windows version)


And that was a really helpful tip!


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From: nemesis
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 1 Feb 2008 08:30:02
Message: <web.47a31ea09cf71029adb6c5f80@news.povray.org>
BTW, you might wanna look Warp's page on tips at getting a simple scene to
quality scene:
http://warp.povusers.org/povtips/

it's very elucidative for begginers...


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From: Gilles Tran
Subject: Re: general technique?
Date: 1 Feb 2008 08:40:10
Message: <47a3213a@news.povray.org>

web.47a217e87b8d0c8a95b8a6100@news.povray.org...
> Hello!
>
> Just discovered Pov Ray and totally amazed of what people make.
> Could someone explain to me this:
> Sorry if this is a very stupid question, but really nags me...
> And appreciate every answer...

I've written a few "behind the scenes" texts that describe how I did some 
complex POV-Ray images. It's more about the general process but you may find 
it useful anyway, since in some cases the intermediate images were kept.

Direct links to the texts:
http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=590
http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=464
http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=168
http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=204
http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=163
http://www.oyonale.com/image.php?code=505
http://www.oyonale.com/iss.php
http://www.oyonale.com/variations.php

Gilles

-- 
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters


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