I already have one entry, so it's a real contest!  Here's an updated rule
set:


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.
(Note: if you make use of one of the few, still-buggy advanced features of
the latest beta release of 3.5, you run the risk  that a later beta release
will require different syntax and thus your image will not run.)
[Note to POV-Team: use of features which are not  iscussed in the docs are
prohibited: don't make up your own new statements just for this contest!
;-)  ]

    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 news.povray.general.)

    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) your code pasted again, but this time with maximum use of tabs,
spaces, and carriage returns so as to enable easy reading of what  you're
doing.
     e) and any other comments you want to make about the image.
     F) The phrase, "I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD 10BEST.RAYTRACE.COM COPYRIGHT
STATEMENT."
(Well, this *is* going to be on a publicly displayed web page, and if the
response and quality are high, we could roll this into the
10best.raytrace.com project!) The statement can be found at:
http://10best.raytrace.com/10bestcopy.txt

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

4)  You can submit 3-4 entries if you like.

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 some threshold of score (to be determined).
   c) GRAND PRIZE: most efficient (voting score / bytes of text SQUARED!).

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

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