Came across this interesting thread on the highway tonight.  Now it's got me
wondering, how many times HAVE a non povray render won first place at the
irtc?

http://highpoly3d.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45&sid=fd80aa6ee9475ec49ff17946
0d9edc24

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Tid_Bit <ric### [at] aolcom> wrote in message news:3eb07db2$1@news.povray.org...
> Came across this interesting thread on the highway tonight.  Now it's got
me
> wondering, how many times HAVE a non povray render won first place at the
> irtc?
>
>
http://highpoly3d.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45&sid=fd80aa6ee9475ec49ff17946
> 0d9edc24

Wow, he must have done exactly NO research to come up with that 100% POV
wins figure...  a quick look at 2002 results shows:

September-October 2002:   winner -  3DS Max 4
May-June 2002:                   winner - 3DS Max 4
                                            2nd place - 3DS Max 4

Didn't keep going, but I'm quite certain there are others.

RG

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Tid_Bit wrote:
> 
> Came across this interesting thread on the highway tonight.  Now it's got me
> wondering, how many times HAVE a non povray render won first place at the
> irtc?
> 
> http://highpoly3d.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45&sid=fd80aa6ee9475ec49ff17946
> 0d9edc24

Well, the most relevant answer to these kind of suspicions is to ask which
non-POV-Ray entry in the past should have been rated higher than which
winning POV-Ray entry.  

BTW in addition to what you mentioned there are 1st place non-POV winners
in the following rounds:

July-August 2000
January-February 1999
July-August 1999
September-October 1999

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 28 Feb. 2003 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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I remember reading something in the IRTC FAQ that essentially said something
like, "People who use free or low cost tools are rewarded by the judges".
In other words, if you have a fantastic scene and used Maya to create it,
you're likely to be judged less favorably than someone who produced the
exact same scene with POV-Ray, or some other low-cost/free program.

There was a winner quite some time ago where the person used a ray-tracing
engine that he had written by himself.  I thought the picture wasn't so
great, but apparently others were impressed by "something".

Personally, I like that philosophy, though I can certainly understand why
others may not.  It is indeed biased, imho.  Most of the judges are POV-Ray
users, and it is easier to judge something that you understand, than
something you do not.

Ok, I got off my butt and found the following in the IRTC Stills FAQ:
[1.1.7] Can I use a renderer besides POV-Ray? Isn't this a POV-Ray
competition?
You can use any computer rendering program. The competition is hosted by
POV-Ray, but they do not make any demands on us or the participants.
[1.1.8] Can I use a commercial renderer instead of a free or share-ware one?
Yes. In past rounds, however, entries which were built and rendered with
costly high-end packages have been held to very high standards. (That is,
the judges often crap on them.)

and in the Rules for Stills:
3.b. Any rendering program is acceptable. The competition welcomes the use
of cheap or free software rather than packages only available to a few
professionals. There is nothing wrong with using such software.

-- 
Slash

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Slashdolt wrote:
>I remember reading something in the IRTC FAQ that essentially said something
>like, "People who use free or low cost tools are rewarded by the judges".
>In other words, if you have a fantastic scene and used Maya to create it,
>you're likely to be judged less favorably than someone who produced the
>exact same scene with POV-Ray, or some other low-cost/free program.

I would *hope* that this only applies to the technical side of the score. I
certainly would not mark someone down on their artistic score simply
because they used Maya.


>There was a winner quite some time ago where the person used a ray-tracing
>engine that he had written by himself.  I thought the picture wasn't so
>great, but apparently others were impressed by "something".

That would impress me, but I'm not sure how much as far as scoring, since
it's not a programming competition.  I would probably give a small boost on
the technical score, but on the other hand, I percieve the technical score
as based on how well you use the tool, not whether or not you wrote it.


>Personally, I like that philosophy, though I can certainly understand why
>others may not.  It is indeed biased, imho.  Most of the judges are POV-Ray
>users, and it is easier to judge something that you understand, than
>something you do not.

This is probably a larger factor, and is often noted in comments. It's hard
to give a score to something you have no knowledge of.


>Ok, I got off my butt and found the following in the IRTC Stills FAQ:
>competition?
>You can use any computer rendering program. The competition is hosted by
>POV-Ray, but they do not make any demands on us or the participants.
>Yes. In past rounds, however, entries which were built and rendered with
>costly high-end packages have been held to very high standards. (That is,
>the judges often crap on them.)

Well, as noted above, I wouldn't consider "crapping on" an entry just
because of the software used. If it was used poorly, then yes, I'd slam
them, but if they demonstrated that they knew how to use that software to
good effect, then I'd give them a good score.  There are no high end 3D
packages that don't have a fairly steep learning curve, and if you've taken
the time to learn it then you've earned the score.


>and in the Rules for Stills:
>3.b. Any rendering program is acceptable. The competition welcomes the use
>of cheap or free software rather than packages only available to a few
>professionals. There is nothing wrong with using such software.

And there is nothing that says such software is not comparable or better in
what it can do!  Having now used both a commercial package (Bryce) and
PovRay, I can testify that Pov has many more "high-end" features than
Bryce, and is also in many respects easier to use. The only thing about
Bryce that I really miss is the deep texture editor. Creating textures is
time consuming in any package, but even more so when you can't see it while
you work on it.

RG

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Slashdolt wrote:

> There was a winner quite some time ago where the person used a ray-tracing
> engine that he had written by himself.  I thought the picture wasn't so
> great, but apparently others were impressed by "something".
> 
I remember that pic.  I scored it pretty high, not merely because he had 
written his own raytracer but because he had built into it the 
capability of modelling wave turbulence around the landform.  I thought 
that that accomplishment comtributed directly to the picture and the theme.

-Jim

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http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2000-08-31/litpdise.jpg

Actually, the picture is better than I remember, and he didn't win, he
simply got an honorable mention for technical merit.  I guess that all makes
sense.

-- 
Slash

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Slashdolt wrote:
>http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2000-08-31/litpdise.jpg
>
>Actually, the picture is better than I remember, and he didn't win, he
>simply got an honorable mention for technical merit.  I guess that all makes
>sense.
>
>Slash
>

I am quite familiar with the thread & message forum mentioned.  And yes,
there have been quite a few other non-pov entries which have pulled off the
first place.  As for human bias, I agree there is some in the contest.  But
one thing that's worse, imho, is those voters who only take a 5 to 10
second max look at each image before entering their vote then rushing
along.
I like to sit back and take a good look, seeing items that the artist spent
time on but are harder to see at first glance, etc.

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> I am quite familiar with the thread & message forum mentioned.  And yes,
> there have been quite a few other non-pov entries which have pulled off
the
> first place.  As for human bias, I agree there is some in the contest.
But
> one thing that's worse, imho, is those voters who only take a 5 to 10
> second max look at each image before entering their vote then rushing
> along.
> I like to sit back and take a good look, seeing items that the artist
spent
> time on but are harder to see at first glance, etc.
>
That's a good point.  Each new round, I generally quickly look at all of the
images and think "Wow! Some of these are the best ever!" or the opposite of
that.  But upon closer inspection of the images, I generally find missing
details or more details than I had seen the first time.

-- 
Slash

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Slashdolt wrote:
>>
>> one thing that's worse, imho, is those voters who only take a 5 to 10
>> second max look at each image before entering their vote then rushing
>> along.
>> I like to sit back and take a good look, seeing items that the artist
>spent
>> time on but are harder to see at first glance, etc.
>>
>That's a good point.  Each new round, I generally quickly look at all of the
>images and think "Wow! Some of these are the best ever!" or the opposite of
>that.  But upon closer inspection of the images, I generally find missing
>details or more details than I had seen the first time.
>

I like to go through all the entries several times, not just for details,
but to see how what kind of staying power they have. I find that there are
some that just grow on me over time, not for any specific details, but the
image as a whole.

Both of my two top picks in the last round (Modern Times & Radio Graves)
started lower in the rankings, but as I viewed and reviewed all the images
several times, my original top picks wore out, while those two kept getting
better and better.

Of course, the number of entries and the amount of free time I have come
into play there, so I'm probably inconsistent from one round to the next,
but at least my judging is consistent within the round, with every image
getting equal time.  (And as long as no one submits 4 copies of exactly the
same image...)

RG

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