On Sun, 31 Dec 2000 15:58:22 -0600, "Tony[B]" <ben### [at] catholicorg> wrote:

Great to see you still persisting with this scene Tony.  Landscapes must be the
utimate in difficulty with raytracing.  Mick H. has produced perhaps the best I
have seen so far but as I see it, the real problem is -  does one strive for
realism - or should one go for a more abstract view of landscape? And if the
latter, is raytracing the best medium?

Your scene has a realistic feeling to it, but the delicate suspension bridges
and the distant hills give it a "Shangri La" feeling.  My criticism is that the
distant hills are just too rounded and blobby.  Perhaps something more jaggy and
mysterious is needed.

BTW, like the grass :-)

David


----------------------
dav### [at] hamiltonitecom
http://hamiltonite.com/

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David Wilkinson wrote:

> Perhaps something more jaggy and
> mysterious is needed.

Does that mean you're aggressive? ;)

--
David Fontaine  <dav### [at] faricynet>  ICQ 55354965
My raytracing gallery:  http://davidf.faricy.net/

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> Looks rather nice.

Thank you.

> BTW, how did you do the hanging bridges?

A modified version of Chris Colefax's link.inc, with the objects supplied by
me. The modification basically allows me to specify a beginning and ending
object different from the rest of the links.

> are they individually adapted
> to fit the terrain?

Carefully located beginning and ending points placed with utmost precision,
manually.

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> As someone who has spent a good part of his life wandering around
mountains,

Lucky you... I dream of living somewhere were I can have the pleasure of
doing so...

> I think your next step should be to add some outcrops and half buried
rocks,
> using trace and eval pigment combined.

Care to point out some areas (in this image) that you think would have this
sort of outcroppings?

> I've been watching the growth of this pic for
> some time and I feel it's
> really getting somewhere now.

Wonderful! I hope I can finish it some day. I really has been a long, and
interesting process. First, I started with the mountains, then I added some
water, and clouds. Then I added the bridges, and we went on and on about how
the scale was wrong (I'm still not sure to this day). Then I added some
grass, a waterfall, and a castle (to give the bridges a purpose). Then I
removed the castle, waterfall and clouds while I perfected them*. Now I've
had the pleasure of adding better clouds, and improving on the grass part (I
really feel there is little I can do, other than better texturing, to
improve on how the grass works now). I picture the final having more
realistic texturing (especially of the mountain), a nice castle on the
mountain there, and a few trees (one at least, in the foreground), and maybe
even a couple Poser figures too (an eagle or two wouldn't hurt... ooh, and
some horses). :)

*Chris Huff, if you're reading this, please continue your work on your
particle_system thing. I would like to use one to make the waterfall.

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> Great to see you still persisting with this scene Tony.

It's one of the few I've invested so much time into. I really want to see
the final image. :)

> Landscapes must be the
> utimate in difficulty with raytracing.

It's way up there on the difficulty level, yes.

> My criticism is that the
> distant hills are just too rounded and blobby.
> Perhaps something more jaggy and
> mysterious is needed.

As Luke would say: "You ask for the impossible"... Just kidding, but anyway,
this would sort of change my intent. This is supposed to look like an
ancient mountain range, so I think it would be "rounded and blobby" as you
say. Also, I want this to be a happy part of the world (Sauron-free <g>). If
I were to make parts of it "jaggy and mysterious", it would look evil/cold
(as I intended, in the beginning before changing my mind), and we wouldn't
want that now.

> BTW, like the grass :-)

Congratulate Gilles Tran for that, I just added trace() and better bounding
(limiting the growth to a specific area, with the "grass_map").

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On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 22:28:40 -0600 Tony[B] wrote:

>Now I've
>had the pleasure of adding better clouds, and improving on the grass part (I
>really feel there is little I can do, other than better texturing, to
>improve on how the grass works now).

  I think your grass has given your scene a greater sense of scale. Any
chance of seeing a stereogram version sometime?
-- 
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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>   I think your grass has given your scene a greater sense of scale.

That's true, I suppose.

> Any chance of seeing a stereogram version sometime?

When I'm ready for the final render, I'll do one. OK?

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On Tue, 2 Jan 2001 01:37:07 -0600 Tony[B] wrote:

>When I'm ready for the final render, I'll do one. OK?

  If you have the time to spare, that would be great. Thanks.

-- 
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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The first thing I think of when I see this image is that it is very nice!

But there's also something that seems wrong with those hills.

I think the problem is that hills of soil are more smooth than the hills in
this image I think, and you usually don't see hills of soil have as steep
slopes as the hills have some places in this image.

Cliffs on the other hand are more jaggy and less smooth than the hills in
this picture, and grass doesn't grow on them.

It may be difficult to make, but I suggest you make the hills rocky, jaggy
and "grassless" on the steep areas and on the less steep areas make them
like now, but more smooth. I also think the soil should be darker.

Another thing that looks strange is the grass going all the way down to the
water.

Anyway, overall a nice image. I look forward to see the progress!

Rune
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In article <3a514c48@news.povray.org>, "Tony[B]" <ben### [at] catholicorg> 
wrote:

> *Chris Huff, if you're reading this, please continue your work on your
> particle_system thing. I would like to use one to make the waterfall.

Funny you mentioned this now...I've been working on some OpenGL particle 
stuff over my vacation. Nothing that applies directly to the particle 
system patch, though...
Maybe I will make a temporary fix for the inter-particle force 
problems...just something to get it working. But it should work fine for 
a waterfall as it is...

-- 
Christopher James Huff
Personal: chr### [at] maccom, http://homepage.mac.com/chrishuff/
TAG: chr### [at] tagpovrayorg, http://tag.povray.org/

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