On 28 Sep 2002 11:13:18 -0400 Rafal 'Raf256' Maj wrote:

>It is nice, but artictic-merit image is IMHO nicer.

  Hi, Rafal. As Jaime has already pointed out, we have the irtc.general
group on this news server that is more suited to this topic.

  Please re-direct follow-up messages to that group or irtc.stills,
thanks.

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Alan
ako### [at] povrayorg
a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g

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"Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> a écrit dans le message de news:
Xns### [at] 204213191226...
> "Gilles Tran" <git### [at] wanadoofr> wrote in news:3d9570bc@news.povray.org
>
> > For me it's simply the best picture.
> > Its concept, composition and lighting are perfect and it has a soul
> > most other pics don't have. Having more complex textures and objects
> > could very well have ruined it.
>
> Yes, but image has some basic 'mistakes' - like to low AA wisible i.e. on
> ladders.

"mistakes" like this (if they are indeed mistakes) do not matter when the
image has clearly a superior artistic quality, which is the case.
They only matter on bad pics in fact, because they just make them worse...
Believe me, when I saw this round, there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever
that this image would win.

G.


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Gilles Tran wrote:
> 
> >
> > Yes, but image has some basic 'mistakes' - like to low AA wisible i.e. on
> > ladders.
> 
> "mistakes" like this (if they are indeed mistakes) do not matter when the
> image has clearly a superior artistic quality, which is the case.
> They only matter on bad pics in fact, because they just make them worse...
> Believe me, when I saw this round, there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever
> that this image would win.

And apart from that with a bit of knowledge about how POV-Ray works or if
you read the text file you could notice that rendering this kind of scene
is quite a computational problem.  It's easy to nitpick about the
technical limitations of an image if you don't have to render it.

I don't think the technical rating in the IRTC is always optimal, but for
this picture it seems perfectly justified (if not too low).

Christoph

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To join the fray :-) - I believe a common artistic mistake made by many who
are otherwise technically competent is that they add too much 'stuff' to
their images.  A visual artist should aim for the simplest image which fully
communicates her message to the viewer.

In fact Gilles, if I may comment here on your Spirit of Asia image. When I saw
it, I marveled along with most, but I feel strongly it would have been a much
more powerful image if there had been no 'moving' vehicles and no poser people
at all. If, like here at work on September 11th of last year,  normal life was
paused for a moment.

Yes, the image would have then be less aligned to the topic at which you were
ceratinly aiming.  My opinion is certainly colored too by being an American -
changing the television image would be another way to go.

And, in the end everybody's idea of art is different.
Regards, Bill P.

> "Rafal 'Raf256' Maj" <raf### [at] raf256com> a écrit dans le message de news:
> Xns### [at] 204213191226...
> > "Gilles Tran" <git### [at] wanadoofr> wrote in news:3d9570bc@news.povray.org
> >
> > > For me it's simply the best picture.
> > > Its concept, composition and lighting are perfect and it has a soul
> > > most other pics don't have. Having more complex textures and objects
> > > could very well have ruined it.
> >
> > Yes, but image has some basic 'mistakes' - like to low AA wisible i.e. on
> > ladders.
>
> "mistakes" like this (if they are indeed mistakes) do not matter when the
> image has clearly a superior artistic quality, which is the case.
> They only matter on bad pics in fact, because they just make them worse...
> Believe me, when I saw this round, there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever
> that this image would win.
>
> G.
>
> --
> **********************
> http://www.oyonale.com
> **********************
> - Graphic experiments
> - POV-Ray and Poser computer images
> - Posters

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"William F. Pokorny" <pok### [at] attglobalnet> a écrit dans le message de
news: 3D95E4A3.F0B46E7B@attglobal.net...
> In fact Gilles, if I may comment here on your Spirit of Asia image. When I
saw
> it, I marveled along with most, but I feel strongly it would have been a
much
> more powerful image if there had been no 'moving' vehicles and no poser
people
> at all. If, like here at work on September 11th of last year,  normal life
was
> paused for a moment.

Well the initial idea was to show a vision of Asia like the one I know from
the local Chinatown here, i.e. full of life, lots of people working, eating,
walking everywhere at any hour, quite different from the most symbolic Asia
shown in other entries. The 9-11 reference was a late addition that I felt
necessary at the time, because it was (and still is)  inescapable, and I
felt that the happy folks in the pic needed a (bitter) taste of it. It
linked the picture and its inhabitants to what was going on, even though
their absence of reaction may seem a little bit off.

So it's not a 9-11 picture per se, but if it were, you're right about the
feeling that if would better if empty. I could be an alternate version,
actually, all I need is to switch off the cars and people... I'll keep that
in mind when I update my website with the 2002 pics.

G.


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I'm aware of all artifacts of the image. Actually some of them are
not artifacts, like a lack of textures. Believe me I tried to use some
bricks' and other textures but it distracts the attention and breaks
the unity of the image. Also I tried to use snow which suits fine
here but it slows down the rendering time very much.

About antialising. I asked Paul (who rendered the image) to use +a0.3
parameter in command line. Maybe he forgot to do that or it's not enough
for this image.

FYI, here is another 'wrong' or 'missed' stuff which was overlooked by
critics :)

There are no antennas and satellite dishes. But it was done intentionally
to emphasize the eternity of the situation.

That shining window was placed too far from the 'golden section'
point and from the point of intersection of all imaginative lines. It was
too late to fix that "problem". The window should be placed one store
lower and more close to the left side.

There is too bright ground spot on the right side. As a result
one building looks floating in the air. It happenned because that
building ... is really floating in the air :) Radiosity helped here to
disguise this artifact because it makes all shadows soft :)

Gena.

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Gilles Tran <git### [at] wanadoofr> wrote in message
news:3d95d946@news.povray.org...
>
> there was absolutely no doubt whatsoever
> that this image would win.
>

I am curious what type of pic will win the current round. With so many apps
available to texture and create landscapes, I believe that many entries will
be very *complete* looking, if not very artistic.

 -Shay

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"Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> a écrit dans le message de news:
3d987b9a$1@news.povray.org...

> I am curious what type of pic will win the current round. With so many
apps
> available to texture and create landscapes, I believe that many entries
will
> be very *complete* looking, if not very artistic.

True, there are lots of apps, and we can expect some nice Vue, Bryce and
Terragen/Forrester/POV-Ray images but to create realistic landscapes (as
more or less required by the current topic) is still possibly one of the
most challenging tasks in 3D. In POV-Ray, at least, I find it quite
difficult. Just take your average classic landscape painting and try to
mimic that (I'm not saying that's what people should do of course, I hope to
see some original stuff). Everything is challenging there : the lighting,
the sky, the clouds, the vegetation, the ground definition and textures etc.
Trying to find the right green for a grass cover, for instance... And
furthermore we're much less tolerant to error there. Indoors scenes and
man-made landscapes are much easier to do!

G.


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Gilles Tran <git### [at] wanadoofr> wrote in message
news:3d98d213@news.povray.org...

I think that you are looking at the idea from the perspective of a person
who is already adept at lighting and composition. A man-made landscape of
sky-scrapers, for instance, is made principally from boxes (buildings)
covered with a regular pattern of squares (windows). Interest must be
created with textures, composition, and lighting. A hf mountain surrounded
by existing vegetation macros and existing water code, and lit with global
illumination may be harder to compose and color properly, but the "artist"
will have a scene with an extremely high level of detail with only a few
lines of code. The challenge which many face of overcoming the CG look when
modeling is hardly an issue with a landscape.


 -Shay

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"Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> a écrit dans le message de news:
3d99e9dc@news.povray.org...
> A hf mountain surrounded
> by existing vegetation macros and existing water code, and lit with global
> illumination may be harder to compose and color properly,

But that's the problem ! We (hobbysts) don't have really good vegetation
macros, or really good water code, or really good cloud code or even really
good ways to create and texture mountains. Even realistic haze can turn into
a nightmare
So we have fairly nice bits of this and that which can be put cleverly
together to create actually good images
(http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2001-12-31/chasia.jpg,
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2001-12-31/halong.jpg,
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Gallery/Pictures/7-laux.jpg) , but it's really
not simple, and there's a lot of standard landscapes that I still have to
see in hobbyst's 3D (like
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/c/claude/2/11paris.jpg).
Perhaps I should only say that the current limitations in CG landscaping are
much more important than for indoors scenes or "package-shot" scenes. I've
seen a lot a photorealistic scenes of this latter kind but very few
photorealistic landscapes (and again, I'm not saying that photorealism is a
good criteria to judge an image).

G.

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**********************
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Gilles Tran wrote:
> 
> [...] but it's really
> not simple, and there's a lot of standard landscapes that I still have to
> see in hobbyst's 3D (like
> http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/c/claude/2/11paris.jpg).
> Perhaps I should only say that the current limitations in CG landscaping are
> much more important than for indoors scenes or "package-shot" scenes. I've
> seen a lot a photorealistic scenes of this latter kind but very few
> photorealistic landscapes (and again, I'm not saying that photorealism is a
> good criteria to judge an image).

I also think that most CG landscapes you see are often of lower quality
than indoor scenes, but i don't see much of a difference between hobbyist
and professional work.

To me it seems the key element is 'control' here.  Landscape elements,
both the terrain as well as vegetation, clouds and other things have such
a high complexity that creating them without significant algorithmic
elements is nearly impossible.  But the classical techniques of 3d
modelling (patches, metaballs, etc.) are totally human controlled and lack
these elements.  Purely computer generated structures without any
possibility for human influence on the other hand will also not be of much
use.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 13 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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"Christoph Hormann" <chr### [at] gmxde> a écrit dans le message de news:
3D9B6139.4017B9DB@gmx.de...
> I also think that most CG landscapes you see are often of lower quality
> than indoor scenes, but i don't see much of a difference between hobbyist
> and professional work.

Professionals have access to hardware, software, shaders, texture libraries
etc. that hobbysts don't have, and they also have the training. If you've
seen the "Time machine" (not a very good movie so you may not have missed
much) there are some landscape morphing sequences that are quite impressive,
and all the vegetation was created with xfrog. I really don't think I could
do the same.
Water textures and surfaces is also an area where pros using specific
shaders and plug-ins really have an advantage over hobbyists (I'm talking
final images, not demos).

> To me it seems the key element is 'control' here.  Landscape elements,
> both the terrain as well as vegetation, clouds and other things have such
> a high complexity that creating them without significant algorithmic
> elements is nearly impossible.

Yes, this is really the point actually. Any natural element or object is
really hard to reproduce realistically and the closer it is to the camera
the more difficult it is to model. We can only have an "impressionistic"
approach with a lot of simplifications. In a classic landscape image, the
ground, for instance, is already a problem : how to maintain realism on the
parts closest to the viewer without overloading the parts in the background
with unecessary details, and still maintain the continuity between
foreground and background ? There are techniques for that, but your typical
height-field won't be very useful (gigantic ones would be necessary), so
it's isosurfaces (slow, with difficult control of feature placement) or some
clever tiling with plants or other objects to mask the discontinuities. And
some pattern repetition will be necessary etc. Silly as it seems, it's a
difficult issue when I work on landscapes.

G.


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Gilles Tran wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> Professionals have access to hardware, software, shaders, texture libraries
> etc. that hobbysts don't have, and they also have the training. If you've
> seen the "Time machine" (not a very good movie so you may not have missed
> much) there are some landscape morphing sequences that are quite impressive,
> and all the vegetation was created with xfrog. I really don't think I could
> do the same.

I did not see 'Time machine' yet, but i saw a trailer with one of those
landscape morphings.  You are surely right about the available hardware
and software resources but to me it seems the artificial landscape
sequences from movies are commonly produced with a lot of human work and
quite few algorithmic modelling (except for the detail structure which is
often hard to distinguish from bump mapping if you view a movie) and
usually won't be suited for a high quality still render.

> Water textures and surfaces is also an area where pros using specific
> shaders and plug-ins really have an advantage over hobbyists (I'm talking
> final images, not demos).

I think water textures are really nothing where hobbyists and espacially
POV-Ray has to hide from the professionals.  POV-Ray is capable of
creating fairly realistic water materials - of course often quite slow,
but also of much higher quality than a lot of water you can see in
professional work (which has often a quite metal like appearance)  The
real problem about water is the geometry, things like breaking waves,
waterfalls, etc.  Here the available hard- and software of course plays a
significant role.

> Yes, this is really the point actually. Any natural element or object is
> really hard to reproduce realistically and the closer it is to the camera
> the more difficult it is to model. We can only have an "impressionistic"
> approach with a lot of simplifications. In a classic landscape image, the
> ground, for instance, is already a problem : how to maintain realism on the
> parts closest to the viewer without overloading the parts in the background
> with unecessary details, and still maintain the continuity between
> foreground and background ? 

You should really try out isosurfaces, controlling their shape in detail
is indeed not that easy, but it all comes back to the speed problem in the
end - if rendering was faster modelling would be easier.

Christoph

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POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 13 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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"Christoph Hormann" <chr### [at] gmxde> a écrit dans le message de news:
3D9C1FCA.489FCDA4@gmx.de...

> professional work (which has often a quite metal like appearance)

Real ocean waters can look very metallic under certain lighting conditions.
Water is a weird material indeed, I can't help noticing how solid it looks
every time I'm on a boat.

> real problem about water is the geometry, things like breaking waves,
> waterfalls, etc.  Here the available hard- and software of course plays a
> significant role.

Any water surface that it isn't 90% flat is hard in POV-Ray. Ripples are OK
but otherwise, it's more an artistic impression of water than anything else.
Every tried to make a gently rolling ocean water ? I remember trying to copy
some from photographs and never succeeded in getting both the geometry
(isosurfaces) and the texture right at the same time. The killer render
times didn't help for sure.

> You should really try out isosurfaces, controlling their shape in detail
> is indeed not that easy, but it all comes back to the speed problem in the
> end - if rendering was faster modelling would be easier.

A good solution I've been using is the function-based height field, because
one can use low-resolution versions during tests and tune it according to
distance and it renders much faster that regular isosurfaces. Regular isos
may be needed for close-up though, you cant' beat the detail.

G.


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Gilles Tran wrote:
> 
> Real ocean waters can look very metallic under certain lighting conditions.
> Water is a weird material indeed, I can't help noticing how solid it looks
> every time I'm on a boat.

Well, actually i was more referring to smaller water surfaces like lakes
or puddles.  Anyway in nearly all situations the interaction of the light
with the water plays an important role.  In my experience the solid look
is limited to looking at the water at a fairly shallow angle against the
light (like a typical sunset image).

> Any water surface that it isn't 90% flat is hard in POV-Ray. Ripples are OK
> but otherwise, it's more an artistic impression of water than anything else.
> Every tried to make a gently rolling ocean water ? 

Have you seen:

http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0013390/pov/water/water_inc.html

Of course as soon as the waves are strong enough to break it starts
looking artificial.  The major drawback is that it is a slow function,
therefore using it in an isosurface is quite a pain and a heightfield is
bad for a large water surface too of course.  A possible solution would be
creating a mesh with varying detail level.

> A good solution I've been using is the function-based height field, because
> one can use low-resolution versions during tests and tune it according to
> distance and it renders much faster that regular isosurfaces. 

But as soon as you have some steeper parts in the terrain you tend to get
quite serious problems with heightfields.  And increasing the resolution
then often makes in worse and not better.

Christoph

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"Christoph Hormann" <chr### [at] gmxde> a écrit dans le message de news:
3D9C6AA8.27264063@gmx.de...

> http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0013390/pov/water/water_inc.html

Yes of course and it's amazing... In fact I even tried it once but it's only
usable on relatively small surface of water. What I'd like is the sort of
stuff shown here http://www.areteis.com :-) but until all these companies
wise up and give me their software for free this is not going to happen.

G.
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Gilles Tran wrote:
> 
> Yes of course and it's amazing... In fact I even tried it once but it's only
> usable on relatively small surface of water. What I'd like is the sort of
> stuff shown here http://www.areteis.com :-) but until all these companies
> wise up and give me their software for free this is not going to happen.

Now that i saw the Titanic picture on the main page there - this was
exactly one of the examples i considered as looking too metallic.  The
wake in that scene is of course very impressive but the material does not
seem that good.  See also:

http://www.areteis.com/products/renderworld/gallery/cool_sun.htm
http://www.areteis.com/products/lightwave/psunami/gallery/render3.htm
http://www.areteis.com/products/xsi/psunami/gallery/phoenix3.htm

for bad examples in that concern.

Christoph

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POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
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Last updated 13 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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