"H.E. Day" wrote:
> 
> > Oh, and I forgot to add, how many blob elements within each blob object?
> > Is there a trick to getting two or more seperate blob objects to meld well
> > together?
> 
> To the first question, anywhere from 4 to 150. To the second, the best method I
> can think of is to use a macro.
> 
Here's a couple of macros I built last night, one for sphere components
and the other for cylinders. They are designed to give solitary
components the same size as normal blob components.

I'm attaching a small image of the attached scene file ...

Bye for now,
	Mike Andrews.

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Attachments:
Download 'blobrad.pov.txt' (3 KB) Download 'blobrad.jpg' (14 KB)

Preview of image 'blobrad.jpg'

I really like the texture.

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In article <38CFA340.380157F2@reading.ac.uk>, Michael Andrews 
<M.C### [at] readingacuk> wrote:

> Here's a couple of macros I built last night, one for sphere components
> and the other for cylinders. They are designed to give solitary
> components the same size as normal blob components.
> 
> I'm attaching a small image of the attached scene file ...

You really should post the scene file in one of the scene file groups. 
It would make it a lot easier to find, for one thing.(you wouldn't 
really be looking for this type of thing buried deep in a thread on 
.binaries.images, would you?)

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

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> And how do you place them? I assume you create some patterns a use while
> loops (or something similar) to place them all?
> How do you come up with your general shapes and patterns? Are they
> mathematical in essence?

I wonder if it would be possible to create a program where the input would
be a set of points and the output would be the set of blobs that creates a
saucer bounded by the given points? Several months ago I started writing a
program that would allow Trek Saucers to be generated, given certain
parameters of the saucer section (I wanted to create another very detailed
Voyager model). I haven't finished, yet, and now am thinking I am off-base
in my approach after seeing this ship.

Incidentally, I corresponded with Rick Sternbach, Sr. Illustrator at
Paramount, about the Voyager design. Here is what he wrote back:

RS:  Yes, Voyager is my baby, and while it isn't exactly the shape I had
RS:  originally intended (slightly chunkier Starfleet utilitarian), I'm glad
I was
RS:  able to make the curvy surface work (one of the producers said, "Could
RS:  you make it look more like a Lexus?". Took 82 cross-section drawings to
RS:  get the shape right for the model makers. Fun stuff. The cool thing
about
RS:  Voyager is that it does need to be streamlined a bit to fly in the
RS:  atmosphere, so there's some justification for the form.

[then, referring to a Voyager render I did at
www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/raytace.html]

RS:  The CG render's pretty nice, though I can see you'd need to make
texture
RS:  maps and move a few polys around to get it exactly right. The fore-aft
RS:  cross sections were the easiest; at roughly 1" slices through the ship,
it
RS:  was simple to control the velocities of the curves and allow the model
RS:  guys to cut the sections in masonite, fill in the empty spaces, smooth
it
RS:  out, and use it for a vacuform mold to get the base hull in styrene to
build
RS:  details onto.

I thought y'all might be interested in the exchange. I was surprised to
learn they had a solid model, I had thought it was all CG.

Jon

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>
> I thought y'all might be interested in the exchange. I was surprised to
> learn they had a solid model, I had thought it was all CG.
>
> Jon
>
>

that's because they are a bunch of whimps!!!! (heavy sarcasm)

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On Wed, 15 Mar 2000 15:07:14 -0600 "Jon S. Berndt" <jsb @ hal - pc .
org> wrote:

>I thought y'all might be interested in the exchange. I was surprised to
>learn they had a solid model, I had thought it was all CG.

  Like ILM, they probably will use the cheapest method possible to get
the shot. If it's cheaper to use a model, they'll use a model. Same goes
for matte paintings - it may be faster and cheaper for a matte artist to
paint a background where there is little camera movement, as opposed to
modeling a CG terrain or cityscape. For television especially, they
operate under a fixed budget and time restraint. Go over-budget and a
series proposal for the future may not get a green light from the
studio.

  Thanks for sharing the exchange with us, Jon.

-- 
Alan - ako### [at] povrayorg - a k o n g <at> p o v r a y <dot> o r g
http://www.povray.org - Home of the Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer

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Wanna give me his email address?  I would like to ask what he thinks of the
Steadfast.

TIA.

--
H.E. Day

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Chris Huff wrote:
> 
> You really should post the scene file in one of the scene file groups.
> It would make it a lot easier to find, for one thing.(you wouldn't
> really be looking for this type of thing buried deep in a thread on
> .binaries.images, would you?)
> 
> --
> Chris Huff
> e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
> Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

Sorry - I have tried to cure myself of this but it still happens
occasionally ...

Anyway, I don't consider this a 'scene' as such - just a quick idea
thrown back as a continuation of the thread. The main point was made by
the image and the code was offered as an afterthought.

Still, when I post my blob-ship image in an hour or so I _will_ put the
source in p.t.s-f :-)

Bye for now,
	Mike Andrews.

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In article <38D10AE1.1FA4A3C4@reading.ac.uk>, Michael Andrews 
<M.C### [at] readingacuk> wrote:

> Anyway, I don't consider this a 'scene' as such - just a quick idea
> thrown back as a continuation of the thread. The main point was made by
> the image and the code was offered as an afterthought.

Well, even if it isn't a scene, the best place for source files or just 
pieces of code is one of the scene file groups. Those groups aren't 
exclusively for scene files, despite their names.(I think they should 
have been called something other than "scene-files", something like 
"pov-code" would have been better.)

-- 
Chris Huff
e-mail: chr### [at] yahoocom
Web page: http://chrishuff.dhs.org/

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H.E. Day:

Another attempt: did you get my email with Rick Sternback's web site
address?

Jon

H.E. Day <hed### [at] fcinet> wrote in message news:38D05FD4.CD94990D@fci.net...
> Wanna give me his email address?  I would like to ask what he thinks of
the
> Steadfast.
>
> TIA.
>
> --
> H.E. Day
>
>

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