stbenge wrote:

Looks excelent :)

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stbenge wrote:

 > Thomas de Groot wrote:
 >
 >> What can I say.....?
 >
 >
 >
 > How about, "now try a real scene, with more than one point of focus." 
I really do need to make something more complex...




The 'macro photographic world' *is* complex and fascinating.  And 
creating an image that sustains that type of observation is not trivial. 
  It goes to why we do art at all, and this type of art (raytracing) in 
particular.

You are hiking in some landscape.  You are, in some moment, overtaken 
with the sublime. You grope for a focus.  Taking your gaze away from the 
horizon, you stoop and pick up a pebble.  It is tactile and observable, 
and a part of the beauty that has just overwhelmed you.  It gives you a 
place to start.  And just as did Leonardo, you observe in the pebble, 
traces of the same consuming forces that you sense in the expanding 
landscape.

Mimesis, in art, has often an incomplete feeling about it, that it is 
merely a means to a greater end.  Yet more than a few have made it a 
vehicle for meaning in an of itself.  Mimicking patterns from nature has 
always been one of the primary, even unique, fascinations of POV-Ray. It 
exists, in an unspoken way, as an end in itself.  One strategy to move 
it from the unspoken to the spoken is to produce a 'study' which alludes 
to a more 'ambitious' use for the pattern.  But you have done something 
  more confrontational.  Your one possible dodge is that this is merely 
a study in lighting/diffusion and the piece of stone an indifferent 
subject.  Fine, but it does not really blunt the fact that we are 
directed to observe the raw, immutable nature of a rock.  That is 
inescapably the subject.  It is far from a trivial accomplishment.

-Jim

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I too am out of suitable words, but I have to post something. Amazing will have
to do! This is a very interesting series, too, it would be great to see all
these geological beauties collected together at some point.

:)

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Jim Charter wrote:
> I think we're pretty much run out of superlatives at this point.

That states it well, I'll need to find my thesaurus...

Has anyone used "splendiferous"? :)

-- 
-The Mildly Infamous Blue Herring

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stbenge wrote:
> How about, "now try a real scene, with more than one point of focus." I 
> really do need to make something more complex...

Complexity can be overrated, and is not necessarily a greater 
accomplishment.  Others have said it far better than I ever could:

"You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity."
   - Richard Feynman

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when 
there is nothing left to take away."
   - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
   - Leonardo da Vinci

-- 
-The Mildly Infamous Blue Herring

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I totally agree with Blue Herring and Jim Charter.

Thomas

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Thibaut Jonckheere wrote:
> 
> Mmmmhhh, it's lacking ....
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> your signature :-)
> 
> It's so amazing it would be a pity to see it on the internet with 
> someone else name on it.

Perhaps I should append my signature during the glare pass...

Sam

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Rafal wrote:
> stbenge wrote:
> 
> Looks excelent :)
> 
Thank you Rafal :)

Sam

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> I too am out of suitable words, but I have to post something. Amazing will have
> to do! This is a very interesting series, too, it would be great to see all
> these geological beauties collected together at some point.
> 
> :)

I'm glad you liked it! I'll probably post all these on my website, 
whenever I get around to updating it.

Sam

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stbenge wrote:
> 

Excellent. The texture you have used gets me thinking about something I 
have long considered: a CG take on Sam Francis's 'Tokyo Blue' or 'Blue 
Balls.' I think you if anyone could pull off something like this.

  -Shay

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