Well resizing only enhances the image if it was originally rendered at some much
higher resolution, which is something most of us avoid doing because the render
times go up so much. I see your point, but I guess what I'm saying is that a
renderer should be able to anti-alias to a reasonable level of quality, and that
the rendering overhead incurred in that is comparable to the render time needed
to do the higher res image. Obviously some renderers don't give you much control
over the anti-aliasing settings, so people like to do this post process.

I guess it's different from something like blur or lens flare, because multi
sampling an image is a very simple process that has clearly defined mathmatical
rules about how it should be done, but blur is a much more subjective artistic
thing. Any part of the image which represents creative input from the artist
should be done in the renderer, post processing should consist entirely of
adjusting the resulting image to be suitable for viewing in the irtc (hence
allowing brightness and contrast correction).

Obviously it's a fuzzy line, e.g. personally I never adjust brightness or
contrast, I don't see why I'd make a render that had that wrong in the first
place. But I don't see that resizing an image substantially alters how good it
is. I tend to judge people on their efforts, not the flaws in their renderer's
anti-aliasing.

Still, you have a point.

--
Tek
http://www.evilsuperbrain.com


"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message news:3eb1a04e@news.povray.org...
> Tek <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> > Yeah I checked that before resizing one of my entries a while ago, and
no-one
> > complained. Okay you can argue that resizing it is post-processing, but
there
> > are some 3D rendering systems that acheive anti-aliasing by simply rendering
to
> > a larger image then resizing it down.
>
>   I started once a thread about resizing of IRTC entries here and the IRTC
> admins all agreed that it's ok.
>   I disagree with them, but there's nothing I can do about it.
>
>   As far as I can understand the purpose of the contest and the rules is
> to show what a renderer can create. Post-processing is not allowed because
> then it wouldn't be solely the product of a renderer. The idea is to show
> the "raw" quality and features of the renderer, not some painting program.
>
>   The reason I disagree with the IRTC admins is that allowing resizing as
> a post-processing stage can noticeably increase the visual quality of an
> image. This means that the final image is not the sole product of the
> renderer, but it has been enhanced by other means afterwards. The final
> image is not something the renderer (by itself) is able to create.
>   In my opinion, this violates the idea of the IRTC rules.
>
>   (Naturally if the resizing trick is done by the renderer *itself* then
> it's ok, because then it *is* something the renderer itself can produce.)
>
>   For example, blurring the image as a post-processing step is not
> allowed according to the rules. It's thus odd that resizing is allowed,
> as enhancing antialiasing is not too much different from blurring (even
> the actual code to perform one is very similar to the other).
>
> --
> #macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
> [1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
> -1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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