> May I comment though I did not enter this round?

I can't imagine why not. :-)

-- 
William Tracy
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You know you've been raytracing too long when you see the movie credits 
going by and instead of seeing Lenses by Panaflex it always seems to say 
Lens Effects by Chris Colefax.
Ken Tyler

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Well done everybody, cracking entries. I especially like Thomas's images,
which can only be described as epic! Mike's coffee cup made me chortle too.
More detailed comments will be forthcoming soon...

Bill

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[I pressed the Send button before having finished, so here it is again, 
complete now]

For a serious lack of time I couldn't comment on the previous, TinaChep 
round, so I
want to be sure to comment on the Before and After!!

"But which came first?" by David Lewis
Of course, how obvious :-) and yet, here is a refreshing version of this
philosophical theme. It is also appropriate that this image be the first one
of the round. I certainly like the way in which the diffrent elements have
been worked out. The hen in particular has personality and looks at the
world in a totally perplexed and embarrassed way as if she were sorry to
have generated such a complex question. In terms of model, she is far
superior to those from e.g. Chicken Run.
The fence too is excellent. A reminder to everybody to study seriously Jaime
Vives Piqueres work!! The only thing I find a little bit distracting, is the
straw which imho could be a tiny bit mor irregular in shape. But that is
really nitpicking (just to have to make a criticism :-)  )

"Mild nudity" by Bill Pragnell
It is a public secret that Bill generates poetical, dreamlike scenes from
very few, simple elements. I certainly admire him for that and wish I could
do the same as I have to constantly fight against my tendency of cluttering
up my scenes. So, yes, I am very much attracted to this pair of images,
which immediately generate a number of questions about the environment (a
building, obviously, with an imprecise function, but who cares?), the girl
(obviously in perfect ease and in her own domain, in the way she carries her
nudity carelessly and yet self-consciously), the bottle of wine (something
to celebrate perhaps? Or just the simple pleasure of enjoying a drink?), the
contrast between daylight and artificial light, together with the emptying
of the bottle, subtly marking the passage of time, and the irreversibility
of the arrow of that same Time.
Technically, I admire the careful building blocks and their subtle texture.
Aiko is Aiko of course and an excellent model. The slight anime aspect of
the girl works well in this scene although in others it might become
distracting.

"The passing away" by Malcolm Findlay
Not obvious, at first, and then it hits hard. If there is a before and
after, then this is it. No need for different images, it is all there. I
particularly appreciate the reference to the IRTC here, and hope it is not a
subconscious depiction of real life.
The scene has been carefully built, with a severe, unrelenting symmetry,
only broken by the flower and the portrait. I wonder what is there, in the
round medallion?
Yes a slightly disturbing scene, and yet particularly attractive. Well done.

"A type of typewriter" by Shay
I very much wonder what the meaning is of this wonderful and intriguing
image? I imagine that the before is the typewriter itself as a metaphore for
the pre-digital creative process, and sublimated into the after as the
creative process itself. Very clever! I cannot entirely see how the image
was obtained and I am curious to hear more about it. Artistically, I would
say that this image could proudly be exposed in any modern art museum.

"yarsocp" by Tek
What can I say? Tek is a master and I am not joking. He hardly needs to
stress the point by showing a 'make-believe' image of is early attempts!
Nobody will believe him, because already then he was way ahead of everybody!
:-)
So, joking apart (after all), one can only study carefully this scene and
learn the trade.

"Aging" by William Tracy
Maybe it did not work out that well, as William says, but still it is a very
carefully built scene, and difficult to do right, despite of the deceptive
"simplicity". Both glasses and cane are well built. Personally, I do not
really see glasses as youth (perhaps because I only wear glasses since my
'old' age :-) )

"First cup" by Mike C
The difficult start in the morning. I am one of those wretched individuals
who need time ("can't you shut up, please?") to start the day properly :-)
This scene is really expressing the change that a cup of coffee ("strong,
please!") can have. Interestingly, Mike has thought about changing the
position of the cup (and only the cup), before and after, and through that
slight change, the whole, deeply felt satisfaction of the invisible drinker
becomes visible, almost more so than through the lifting up of the morning
fogs. And one should not forget the focus on that coffee cup in the before
scene, the whole hypnotic attraction for the black beverage. So, maybe, that
attraction is shifting towards the coffee machine in the after scene? Who
knows?
I like the way in which the environment has been built, effectively, from
simple, well-recognizable objects, immediately setting the stage, without
fuzz. Perhaps... no. I wanted to add some bread crumbs or other things, but
it would distract from the essential.

"Reganomics" by Brian Price
In every sense the societal changes are well-expressed in this composite
scene. It is enhanced by the rigorous symmetry of the scene, even in the
place of the cars (note the 'repairs' on the righthand one!). Everything has
become more dismal. The lots have become smaller, the colors duller, even
the light has lost its power. I think it is very well done. I would only
suggest a bit more textural detail in the road at left perhaps, and a little
lighter at right? Just because they occupy a large and essential part of the
image. Nitpicking really.

"This to that" by Steve Paget
I don't know how you do this, Steve! Still finding time to make such a 
careful and detailed scene? There is that wonderful sense of being seated in 
front of the instruments of the trade, and thinking about what one is going 
to make this time, looking alternatively at the details, choosing, 
discarding... It is just the hand that is going to start the creative 
process that is missing, but its presence is felt very strongly.
Textures are really good, like always, the wood, but especially the metals, 
tarnished or not. The only thing that distracts me a bit is the background 
that is a bit too 'noisy' for my taste. But that is nitpicking again...



Thomas

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"William Tracy" <wtr### [at] calpolyedu> schreef in bericht 
news:46379854$1@news.povray.org...
> Very nice.
>
> In my mind, the standout images are "Just a Splash" (mild nudity? More 
> like full frontal nudity, but whatever) by Bill Pragnell (love the 
> lighting--I just wish that the girl's hair didn't levitate over her 
> shoulders in the "after" frame);
Ah yes! the hair! I forgot that in 'my' comments, below  :-)

and Thomas de Groot's "Time of
> Change" (ooh, recurring characters! I could wish for some more detailed 
> textures, but, dang, two complete full-sized detailed scenes? Wow!).
Thank you indeed. I agree about the textures. I basically used Poser's, with 
little editing, except for the hair that needed serious work (not all 
entirely successful)

Thomas

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"Mike the Elder" <zer### [at] wyanorg> schreef in bericht 
news:web.463741af62a9bf11bbb988450@news.povray.org...
> Looks great.  Many thanks. I did notice one tiny issue with the new site.
> When viewed full size, images that are too large to fit on the screen at
> current resolution do not seem too offer the usual "zoom-in, zoom-out"
> function. (This is in Mozilla/Firefox - didn't test Brand X.)  This is
> really a fairly trivial issue since one can easily open the image itself 
> in
> a new window where the zoom works just fine.  Thanks again to all who have
> worked on the project.
>

the zoom-in, zoom-out do appear in IE7 though.

Thomas

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"Bruno Cabasson" <bru### [at] alcatelaleniaspacefr> schreef in bericht 
news:web.46383f2662a9bf11f5fba6ef0@news.povray.org...
>
> May I comment though I did not enter this round?
>

of course you can!! Highly appreciated, even!

Thomas

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4638fca262a9bf11f08a9dec0@news.povray.org...
> Well done everybody, cracking entries. I especially like Thomas's images,
> which can only be described as epic! Mike's coffee cup made me chortle 
> too.
> More detailed comments will be forthcoming soon...
>

<grin>
thank you indeed, Bill!

Thomas

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"Mike the Elder" <zer### [at] wyanorg> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4637b20762a9bf117fdcaa5f0@news.povray.org...
> Comments for TC-RTC March/April 2007
> "Before & After"
>
>
> "A Time of Change" by Thomas de Groot
> Once again, you have demonstrated that you one of the (if not THE) premier
> story tellers of our group.  I really wish Poser were a better program so
> that its figures might do justice to the excellent work you do by way of
> giving your characters life and personality.  As you can tell, I'm still
> not a Poser fan, but I truly admire the job you do in transcending its
> limitations.  Congratulations on another great entry.
>

oh, hum... <grin>  thank you indeed, Mike! I like stories indeed, and this 
one turned out pretty well I believe.
I agree about Poser, but I must say that the program is becoming better (I 
think) especially where skin textures are concerned. There is work to do on 
the hair, especially on the strand-based ones which do not export properly 
to Poseray/Pov-Ray, although FlyerX has started working on that I think. I 
need to experiment a lot more with Poser yet before I can say that I 
'dominate' the program. Clothing is the present challenge I am tackling, as 
this is one of the poorest issues of Poser. Most clothing is really not 
suitable for an average scene. It seems that the Poser world (and Daz world 
even more so) is only partying and living in the Game Zone. That is not my 
cup of tea.

Thomas

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"Mike the Elder" <zer### [at] wyanorg> schreef in bericht 
news:web.46388e4662a9bf119cf0aa370@news.povray.org...
>
> This is probably considered "cheating" by simulation purists, but one 
> handy
> technique for bringing out details is to use a "doctored" version of the
> texture for the object in question, in this case the fractal, in which the
> ambient component of the finish is turned down really low and the diffuse
> component is turned up high.  It also usually helps to use only the amount
> of reflection that is necessary and no more.  Additionally, if phong is
> used, avoid low phong_size values, which can contribute to the "white out"
> effect.  I hope this helps.
>

maybe the use of a light_group may help here?

Thomas

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Thomas de Groot wrote:


> "A type of typewriter" by Shay
> I very much wonder what the meaning is of this wonderful and intriguing
> image? I imagine that the before is the typewriter itself as a metaphore for
> the pre-digital creative process, and sublimated into the after as the
> creative process itself. Very clever! I cannot entirely see how the image
> was obtained and I am curious to hear more about it. Artistically, I would
> say that this image could proudly be exposed in any modern art museum.
> 

Nicely put.  For me this image is nothing short of a brain punch. I feel 
like you've at least offered me a stool to sit on after I pick myself up 
off the mat and try and think about it some more.

In an earlier thread, Shay threw down a challenge to himself:
to produce...
"an image that is on topic yet still relevant
outside of the competition."
and...
one that 'will make people think, "You know, it's not just the
kiddie pool over there, those POV-Ray guys have something interesting or
high quality to offer."'

He has done that.  Another idea he advanced was his refocused desire to 
understand when comes the point of diminishing returns in his 
entry-creating process, and act apon it.  He has answered that desire 
also.

This work challenges us conceptually, as Shay's works always do, but 
this time he has left the door open and allows us to make some easier 
connections between the image and the underlying idea.  That was not 
always so in the past.  But there are still loose ends,... still bits of 
this to ponder. This appears like a photo of a typewriter keyboard, yet 
I cannot think of a typewriter that actually looks like this.

The work also challenges us stylistically.  I had always viewed ascii 
art as a stylization based in reduction of means.  I had missed its 
inherent potential to reveal process.  But as you have pointed out, this 
is exactly what Shay has used it to do.  The result is stylistically 
sophisticated and visually delightful.  And I agree, the interplay 
between stylistic improvisation and conceptual morphing is as tightly 
drawn as in many a high-brow, museum work of art.  I love how as the 
keys file off in linear perspective, they blur into textual "noise." 
Just wonderful.

All the usual tricks are there.  The "self-reference" of a keyboard 
depicted with keystrokes, strokes of "literal" typeface, but rasterized 
into a 3d photo illusion, (the traditional objective of raytracing.) The 
illusion is obtained primarily through color, not tone, (try throwing 
this picture into an image editor and desaturating it.)  The color is 
the result of a mix. Each letter is a "primary" from the rgb palette, 
"literal" in a sense. These primaries are then mixed through overtyping 
via the raytracer. The derived color leads to a photo-like illusion, yet 
the usual way that a raytracer modulates color to produce a 3d illusion 
is bypassed and ignored.

Before and after?  Lots of possibilities here.

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