> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> Hmm. It's an interesting theory... Must be pretty complex to make it
> work properly though.

Not really... IIRC, it's a one-liner to load a new stylesheet (thereby
replacing all formatting, placement, coloring, background, etc in your
page).

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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> When I read the CSS spec, I didn't see anything that lets you escape the 
> fundamental top-to-bottom layout algorithm of HTML. Unless I missed an 
> entire section somewhere or something...

http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/visuren.html#positioning-scheme

Note "Normal flow", "Floats" and "Absolute positioning".

Even in the old original CSS1 you had this section:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1-961217#floating-elements

"Using the 'float' property, an element can be declared to be outside the 
normal flow of elements..."

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>>    But how many times do you open your 2D app in a year? How will you 
>> learn anything if you don't practice?
>
> Practice what? The problem here is that I lack talent.
>
> Other people can pick up a pencil, draw a few brisk strokes on a pad of 
> paper, and produce something the like of which I couldn't copy if I had 
> several hours to work on it.

Very few people have the raw talent to just pick up a new medium and be good 
at it, for most of us we have to *practise* until we get good.  Then get 
annoyed by someone who has used it for 1% of the time we have and produces 
something way better :-)

Did you just write some complex program in Haskell the first day you ever 
installed it?  You now seem pretty damn good at Haskell, because you 
PRACTISED and got good at it.

Did you just play some complex song on an organ/piano/keyboard the first 
time you used one?  You now seem pretty damn good at playing the organ, 
because you PRACTISED and got good at it.

Spend the same amount of time you have with Haskell on anything else and 
you'll be surprised how good you get.  Just don't give up after 1 day if you 
can't instantly become a genius.

> Using a computer doesn't really improve matters either. I played with a 
> copy of 3D Studio Max - allegedly "the most powerful 3D program ever". All 
> I could get it to do was render spheres and cylinders.

And exactly how many hours did you spend with it?  Did you even bother to 
search for a tutorial or did you just try to point and click everywhere? 
Complex 3D programs are not like Word where an average person can just rock 
up and start using it, I went on a 5 day training course to learn how to use 
Catia, and still there are lots of things I have to Google/YouTube to find 
out how to use.

> I've spent years fiddling with POV-Ray, and to this day I have yet to 
> produce anything high-quality. Everything I make is dull and boring, with 
> bad lighting and laughable texturing.

Again, have you even looked for some tutorials or books on lighting and 
texturing?  I remember Warp has a good simple lighting tutorial somewhere 
that can give good results.  Oh yes here it is:

http://warp.povusers.org/povtips/

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> I'm still more boggled at things like dragging boxes around from one side 
> of the other.

The BBC main page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

is quite cool where you can drag around the different sections.

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Slime wrote:
>> Not quite as visually impressive, but look at this:
>>
>> http://www.slimeland.com/
>>
>> Now click on the various "stylesheet" buttons, and watch the entire site 
>> instantly transform.
> 
> Heh, wow, I forgot about that.

...!!

LOL, owned. ;-)

> In theory it's simple: you make the HTML 
> using simple structural elements, telling it what's a header, what's a 
> section, what's a paragraph, and then you use CSS to put things where you 
> want them and make it look nice.

This is what CSS was always meant to be. I spent a lot of time at uni 
fiddling with different fonts and colours and so forth. But the idea 
that you can *move* content from place to place is pretty mind-blowing.

I mean, the plan was always that CSS was supposed to let you control 
presentation completely seperately from content. It's just a bit of a 
shock to my system to discover that the highly limited CSS standards in 
existence how *already* allow you to do this. o_O

> In practice, you have to know a lot of 
> hacks and tricks and what works in what browser. I spent a lot of time 
> learning that sort of thing in high school and college.

Yay, that sounds like trippy-fun! :-/

>> PS. Last updated in... 2005? Wow.
> 
> Somewhere along the way I got bored with it. =)

*checks*

Um... yeah. 2007.

http://www.orphi.me.uk/rev1/Root.html

>  - Slime
>  [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ] 

...but you still advertise it. How sweet. ;-)

PS. The JavaScript raytracer doesn't seem to want to work for me any 
more... :-(

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>> Other people can pick up a pencil, draw a few brisk strokes on a pad 
>> of paper, and produce something the like of which I couldn't copy if I 
>> had several hours to work on it.
> 
> Very few people have the raw talent to just pick up a new medium and be 
> good at it, for most of us we have to *practise* until we get good.  

I spent 6 months on taught drawing classes. You know what? I *still* 
suck at drawing.

> Spend the same amount of time you have with Haskell on anything else and 
> you'll be surprised how good you get.  Just don't give up after 1 day if 
> you can't instantly become a genius.

I didn't give up after 1 day. I gave up after 6 months.

You make it sound like all you have to do is practise and you can become 
good at *anything*. This isn't actually true.

>> Using a computer doesn't really improve matters either. I played with 
>> a copy of 3D Studio Max - allegedly "the most powerful 3D program 
>> ever". All I could get it to do was render spheres and cylinders.
> 
> And exactly how many hours did you spend with it?

I don't remember. Maybe a week or two? After that I uninstalled it - it 
*was* illegal after all...

> Did you even bother 
> to search for a tutorial or did you just try to point and click 
> everywhere?

AFAIK, Google didn't exist in 1995. Even if it did, I didn't have an 
Internet connection.

> Complex 3D programs are not like Word where an average 
> person can just rock up and start using it.

It didn't take me long to get a few simple images out of POV-Ray. (OTOH, 
that comes with *a manual*...)

>> I've spent years fiddling with POV-Ray, and to this day I have yet to 
>> produce anything high-quality. Everything I make is dull and boring, 
>> with bad lighting and laughable texturing.
> 
> Again, have you even looked for some tutorials or books on lighting and 
> texturing?

I presumed that none exist online (or at least, no good ones), and I'd 
have no idea where to find a book on such matters.

> I remember Warp has a good simple lighting tutorial 
> somewhere that can give good results.  Oh yes here it is:
> 
> http://warp.povusers.org/povtips/

I've read it before - and yet the stuff I produce is still dull and 
uninteresting.

It seems to matter how many or few lights I use, no matter what colour 
they are, and no matter how I position them, the result is either too 
dark or too bright or not enough contrast or a nausiating mixture of 
colours or...

At least for texturing you can just use POV-Ray's excellent texture 
libraries. (Well, if you want wood or stone anyway.)

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> I spent 6 months on taught drawing classes. You know what? I *still* suck 
> at drawing.

I've spent 3 years *living* in Germany, yet I still suck at speaking German, 
some things some people just learn quickly, and some slowly.

> You make it sound like all you have to do is practise and you can become 
> good at *anything*. This isn't actually true.

I bet it is, you just have to define "good" and how long you have to 
practise for :-)

> I don't remember. Maybe a week or two? After that I uninstalled it - it 
> *was* illegal after all...

You spent two weeks rendering only spheres and cylinders - did you not think 
to yourself that maybe there was a bit more to it than this and go look?

> AFAIK, Google didn't exist in 1995. Even if it did, I didn't have an 
> Internet connection.

I got a book from a bookshop called "3D Studio Max R3" or some such.

> It didn't take me long to get a few simple images out of POV-Ray. (OTOH, 
> that comes with *a manual*...)

And OTHO it's not terribly complex compared to 3D Studio or other commerical 
modelling/CAD software.

>> http://warp.povusers.org/povtips/
>
> I've read it before - and yet the stuff I produce is still dull and 
> uninteresting.

IIRC you posted something to the binaries group a long time ago and received 
some good pointers on how to improve - that's another good way to learn 
stuff, people are really helpful on here.

> At least for texturing you can just use POV-Ray's excellent texture 
> libraries. (Well, if you want wood or stone anyway.)

You should make your own wood:

http://home4.inet.tele.dk/ibras/povtips/povwood.htm

Combine that with some simple CSG (like the table at the bottom) and with 
Warp's tutorial and I fail to see how you can't come up with a halfway 
decent scene.  But you have to spend TIME on it, don't expect it to look 
amazing after just 5 iterations.

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Invisible [mailto:voi### [at] devnull]
> I'm not sure why everybody thinks W3 Schools is so good... I find most
> of their material to be vague and unhelpful.

True, a lot of the stuff is.

But have you read *all* the tutorials, in both the Basic and Advanced
sections?

Then there are the examples, references, quizzes... all in all, it's a
great resource, and can teach you much more than you  know now.

...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

I said "share," not "scare!"

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>> I spent 6 months on taught drawing classes. You know what? I *still* 
>> suck at drawing.
> 
> I've spent 3 years *living* in Germany, yet I still suck at speaking 
> German, some things some people just learn quickly, and some slowly.

I'm still puzzled by Benny boasting about having a German girlfriend 
even though he didn't speak German yet... How the hell does *that* 
work?? o_O

>> You make it sound like all you have to do is practise and you can 
>> become good at *anything*. This isn't actually true.
> 
> I bet it is, you just have to define "good" and how long you have to 
> practise for :-)

3 > 4 for sufficiently large 3, yes.

>> I don't remember. Maybe a week or two? After that I uninstalled it - 
>> it *was* illegal after all...
> 
> You spent two weeks rendering only spheres and cylinders - did you not 
> think to yourself that maybe there was a bit more to it than this and go 
> look?

Well, it *did* seem to have some pretty extensive texturing 
facilities... I spent most of the time playing with that. However, as 
far as shapes go, it seemed to only handle polygon meshes.

>> AFAIK, Google didn't exist in 1995. Even if it did, I didn't have an 
>> Internet connection.
> 
> I got a book from a bookshop called "3D Studio Max R3" or some such.

Our library tends to be very sparse on computer books. And I'm not going 
to *buy* a book about something that I'm not even going to keep!

>> It didn't take me long to get a few simple images out of POV-Ray. 
>> (OTOH, that comes with *a manual*...)
> 
> And OTHO it's not terribly complex compared to 3D Studio or other 
> commerical modelling/CAD software.

I'll take your word for that.

(Every day I see manufactured objects of such complexity that it seem 
completely clear that whoever designed them must be using something a 
tad more sophisticated than any of the software I've seen so far.)

> IIRC you posted something to the binaries group a long time ago and 
> received some good pointers on how to improve - that's another good way 
> to learn stuff, people are really helpful on here.

Actually, about that... I haven't poked my head in there for ages, but I 
did recently. Wow, what the hell? Apparently the IRTC has shut down, the 
POV-Ray HoF still has the same stuff it had in it 3 years ago, and the 
POV-Ray images group seems really quiet... What went wrong?

> You should make your own wood:
> Combine that with some simple CSG (like the table at the bottom) and 
> with Warp's tutorial and I fail to see how you can't come up with a 
> halfway decent scene.  But you have to spend TIME on it, don't expect it 
> to look amazing after just 5 iterations.

Heh. When I think about all the time I've spent on POV-Ray, and how 
feeble the results have been... POV-Ray renders stuff that's physically 
correct (mostly), but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will look 
"realistic" or "interesting".

My best creation so far:
http://www.zazzle.com/happy_birthday_pond_card-137647794293201138

Hardly impressive, is it?

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Hey, didn't Rune or somebody recently do a swish website redesign? Can 
anybody remember the site address?

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