"jhu" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> Not a competition, just to see what people can come up with each month to post
> in the binaries section.


I've considered the monthly image / animation project, and here are a few
thoughts that I have:

Our community is small, we all have different interests and talents, and we all
have the usual obstacles to spending long periods of uninterrupted time focusing
on a project to make an entry of suitable quality.

Perhaps an interesting way to go about it would be this:

Some general overall topic or goal is defined as the endpoint.
Then, each month, a FRAGMENT of the work is submitted, preferably in some
modular form such as a macro or an include file, or for those using modelers -
an object or a mesh or some other file.

All material is posted with source.

(I usually use POV-Ray to write SDL exclusively - only using Excel, OpenOffice,
or some other 3rd party software to help me visualize and organize my thoughts,
get a quick preview, or generate some data set that's really just too difficult
for me to generate and debug "blind" - a spreadsheet sort of calculates and
debugs simultaneously, since I can see all the values and and do conditionals...
That will necessarily show in my suggestions of the mechanics of this)

So, I'd envision the sequence would be something like:

The first round starts, and entries are submitted.
Then anyone can use anything from the first round as material in the second
round, and then that's all available to pyramid on top of in the third round,
etc until the final round.

So round 1 might be:
Generate some geometry - shapes derived from CSG, isosurfaces, parametrics, etc.


Also, there is placement - perhaps a macro to organize the objects into a
spherical arrangement, by surface normal on a heightfield, by color on an
evalpigment() imagemap, by bounding box of another object, etc.

Create textures - pigment, image maps, uvmaps, finishes

Lighting and composition (camera)

In this way:

the individual components are smaller units to work with
it's less of a commitment for people to take on
they can come and go as they need to (round 1, skip, round 3, round 4, skip,
skip, final round
Objects and textures, and tools and methods are posted for public usage and
study and inspiration.

So, there may be a very logical, readable bit of SDL that's parameterizable,
easy to follow and edit, but might be very slow.  Someone else may accomplish
the same task by matrices, differential equations, recursive macros, etc.
which, while harder to follow, debug, and alter, might be lots faster and more
elegant.

I think it would stimulate entry by contestants, foster learning, eliminate
reluctance to enter (especially for newer Povvers in the later rounds - more
existing ready-to-use material), and generate a lot more inspiration,
experimentation, and - more renders and animations.
Also, even though there may be only a few entrants, there's a greater
probability of multiple entries at each stage.




Thoughts?

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