Slashdolt wrote:
>I remember reading something in the IRTC FAQ that essentially said something
>like, "People who use free or low cost tools are rewarded by the judges".
>In other words, if you have a fantastic scene and used Maya to create it,
>you're likely to be judged less favorably than someone who produced the
>exact same scene with POV-Ray, or some other low-cost/free program.

I would *hope* that this only applies to the technical side of the score. I
certainly would not mark someone down on their artistic score simply
because they used Maya.


>There was a winner quite some time ago where the person used a ray-tracing
>engine that he had written by himself.  I thought the picture wasn't so
>great, but apparently others were impressed by "something".

That would impress me, but I'm not sure how much as far as scoring, since
it's not a programming competition.  I would probably give a small boost on
the technical score, but on the other hand, I percieve the technical score
as based on how well you use the tool, not whether or not you wrote it.


>Personally, I like that philosophy, though I can certainly understand why
>others may not.  It is indeed biased, imho.  Most of the judges are POV-Ray
>users, and it is easier to judge something that you understand, than
>something you do not.

This is probably a larger factor, and is often noted in comments. It's hard
to give a score to something you have no knowledge of.


>Ok, I got off my butt and found the following in the IRTC Stills FAQ:
>competition?
>You can use any computer rendering program. The competition is hosted by
>POV-Ray, but they do not make any demands on us or the participants.
>Yes. In past rounds, however, entries which were built and rendered with
>costly high-end packages have been held to very high standards. (That is,
>the judges often crap on them.)

Well, as noted above, I wouldn't consider "crapping on" an entry just
because of the software used. If it was used poorly, then yes, I'd slam
them, but if they demonstrated that they knew how to use that software to
good effect, then I'd give them a good score.  There are no high end 3D
packages that don't have a fairly steep learning curve, and if you've taken
the time to learn it then you've earned the score.


>and in the Rules for Stills:
>3.b. Any rendering program is acceptable. The competition welcomes the use
>of cheap or free software rather than packages only available to a few
>professionals. There is nothing wrong with using such software.

And there is nothing that says such software is not comparable or better in
what it can do!  Having now used both a commercial package (Bryce) and
PovRay, I can testify that Pov has many more "high-end" features than
Bryce, and is also in many respects easier to use. The only thing about
Bryce that I really miss is the deep texture editor. Creating textures is
time consuming in any package, but even more so when you can't see it while
you work on it.

RG

Post a reply to this message