"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message
news:4004961d$1@news.povray.org...
> Jeremy M. Praay wrote:
>
> > I just finished the belfry on my 19th century schoolhouse model.
>
> Pleasing job on the belfry.  The whole picture has a nicely crafted
> feel.  Like if loops under control instead of out of control.
>

Yes, loops, loops, and more loops.  But my code is turning into a mess.  As
a programmer, it's like writing a program by starting with a simple piece of
code, and then writing an entire system around it.  Had I planned out the
code better, I'd be much farther along, and things wouldn't be so messy.
But that's all internal and doesn't affect the resulting picture, so in that
sense, who cares?

The problem, in POV-Ray, is that it's far easier to create "perfect" things,
than "imperfect" things.  Hopefully, I'll be adding more imperfectiosn to
things as time progresses.  I still have a long way to go, and I seem to
keep re-texturing the bricks, over and over, so who knows where this will
end up.  Also, the finish on the shingles needs work, but it's generally not
noticeable.  I'm planning on overlaying some textures on some things later
on.  But overall, I'm trying to concentrate more on the model rather than
the textures and finishes, otherwise I'll never get anywhere.  I'm the type
of person that could spend 2 weeks just trying to get the right
brick-texture and iso-surface function, so I've tried not to get bogged down
in the details until the end.

Something I've learned: If you can avoid doing "difference" CSG operations
on things like the bricks and shingles (in effect, differencing-out multiple
objects), you should avoid it, or render times will suffer incredibly.  For
that reason, I had to adjust some macros, which added much more complexity.
The bricks going from the top of the wall to the center of the roof had to
have a fairly complex loop written, to avoid using my standard wall macro.
Even so, some bricks are stacked directly above others.  But from looking at
my reference photos, it appears that the builders did that in a few places,
as well.  I guess they didn't have building codes in 1873.  Even so, I've
fixed that problem in a few places. Notice the "stack" between the window
sills of the first and second windows? I fixed that last night.

Overall, this project seems to be going well, but I'm still not sure if it's
all going to come together in the end.  Maybe I'll just try throwing my
Radio Graves background, just to see how it looks, since the scenes may
likely have many similarities.  Having spent so much time on it, I suppose
I'll have to "make it work" one way or another...  ;-)

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

Post a reply to this message