> > Less than a week till the voting starts and the entries are coming in.
>
> Yes. As always, there are interesting images there! I am missing Robert....
> Robert! Where are you?!  :-)
>
> Thomas


WIP here last year. This strikes me as far superior to what I remember from back
then. The trees and the alien seem much improved. The cloth is amazing. I really

book cover (and yes, I love science fiction and have quite a collection).

I know you requested (no - demanded, LOL) a "WOW" image from me for the "Bridge
Builders" competition ... Well, I just started my (hopefully) final render for
"Bridge Builders." Conceptually this topic was really rough for me, but I
finally got the "aha!" moment and started my coding early last week. As seems
to be my norm, I'm working feverishly near the end of the competition to try
and get the scene finished before the deadline.

At first I was using isosurfaces for cliffs, but I abandoned them a few days ago
because rendering times are FAR too slow and I'm out of time (Wings3d to the
rescue!). I spent the last few days tweaking my radiosity and media settings
and doing WIP comparisons on the quality. Anyway, it will be ready for posting
in the next day or two, yay!

Good luck to all who enter,
-Rob

"There is no spoon."

Post a reply to this message

"Robert McGregor" <rob### [at] mcgregorfineartcom> schreef in bericht 
news:web.4851b7e8f97e4e8bd1b3ad10@news.povray.org...
>
> Hello Thomas, here I am! I remember seeing your original "Why don't you go 
> home"
> WIP here last year. This strikes me as far superior to what I remember 
> from back
> then. The trees and the alien seem much improved. The cloth is amazing. I 
> really
> like this, it's artistic and stylized and inspirational; it could even be 
> a real
> book cover (and yes, I love science fiction and have quite a collection).

Thank you Robert! The changes concerned indeed the trees (much higher mesh 
resolution to close the *breaks* in the branches), the alien which had to be 
modelled again, and the cloth (much higher resolution for a better fold 
render, and a more interesting image_map for the print).
I am working on a fur or hair render (particularly the old man's cape) using 
Maggot's surface macros to be found in the Object Collection. Very promising 
but not yet entirely satisfying. It could however, be a particularly 
interesting application to use in conjunction with Poser, and would solve 
(for the time being) the dynamic hair export problem to POV-Ray.

>
> I know you requested (no - demanded, LOL) a "WOW" image from me for the 
> "Bridge
> Builders" competition ... Well, I just started my (hopefully) final render 
> for
> "Bridge Builders." Conceptually this topic was really rough for me, but I
> finally got the "aha!" moment and started my coding early last week. As 
> seems
> to be my norm, I'm working feverishly near the end of the competition to 
> try
> and get the scene finished before the deadline.

Excellent! I am looking forward to it!!

>
> At first I was using isosurfaces for cliffs, but I abandoned them a few 
> days ago
> because rendering times are FAR too slow and I'm out of time (Wings3d to 
> the
> rescue!). I spent the last few days tweaking my radiosity and media 
> settings
> and doing WIP comparisons on the quality. Anyway, it will be ready for 
> posting
> in the next day or two, yay!

Yes, I know what you mean. I have met exactly the same cliff problems a 
couple of years ago, which made me a bit weary of isosurfaces used in large 
scene settings. I wonder now if Bill Pragnell's Mesh Approximator macro 
could do a good job here. Hmmm... [note to self: look into isosurface cliff 
mesh translation].

>
> Good luck to all who enter,

I second that !

>
> "There is no spoon."
<grin>

Thomas

Post a reply to this message

> Yes, I know what you mean. I have met exactly the same cliff problems a
> couple of years ago, which made me a bit weary of isosurfaces used in large
> scene settings. I wonder now if Bill Pragnell's Mesh Approximator macro
> could do a good job here. Hmmm... [note to self: look into isosurface cliff
> mesh translation].

I've been playing with the Bill's mesh relief macros for several days. It's a
brilliant piece of work. Nice job there Bill!

I know Tor Olav posted a rewrite of the old isosurface-to-mesh-approximation
macros a few months back - somehow I'd forgotten and your response jogged my
memory. Ah, I just found it here:

http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.scene-files/message/%3C47be20ab%40news.povray.org%3E/#%3C47be20ab%40news.povray.
org%3E

Oh well, too late to use it for this round, but hopefully I'll have better
success than I did with the original Loney version (not much, that is) years
ago.

Well, my bridge builders render had stablized at about 35 pixels/sec and after
15 hours I just noticed that I forgot to turn on the switch for rendering the
little boat, bah! Okay, starting it again... TGIF

-Rob

"There is no spoon."

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