Spectacular.

I especially like this because I honestly can see no way of doing it myself!
Obviously we're all here because we know (at least a bit) about using POV-Ray
to generate interesting imagery, but it does take some of the magic away when
you look at someone's image and can see exactly how they've made it, even if it
is stunning.

Bill

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Shay <sha### [at] nonenone> wrote:
> I don't share code.

Your prerogative, but...

> It would take me weeks to clean it up, and I'd only be subjecting myself
> to more crap from guys like the POV tag member who told me in p.o-t that
> I shouldn't bother trying to code something complex because I don't know
> what a "stack" is.

The stack is your friend--unless there's not enough of it.

> More importantly, I feel that sharing to much of the "how" robs the
> magic from the "what."

I disagree. (Usually.)

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Cousin Ricky wrote:
> 
> The stack is your friend--unless there's not enough of it.
> 
>> More importantly, I feel that sharing to much of the "how" robs the
>> magic from the "what."
> 
> I disagree. (Usually.)

Fascinating.
_______________________________________________________________

I worked really hard on those couple of paragraphs. I feel privileged 
that they (above that picture I just *threw* together) warranted a 
response from you. They're still a WIP until I work out some of the 
render issues (notice how the 'too' in "too much" is mis-rendered as 'to').

  -Shay

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
> Either way you go, best wishes to you.

And to you.

Thank you very much.

  -Shay

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Thomas de Groot wrote:
> I take of my hat and bow low, Shay.

Thank you.

> Your effort reminds me of a Chinese 
> story:

I wonder how the story ends. Does the patron buy the painting or walk 
out of the painter's studio shaking his head?

  -Shay

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> Spectacular.
> 
> I especially like this because I honestly can see no way of doing it myself!
> Obviously we're all here because we know (at least a bit) about using POV-Ray
> to generate interesting imagery, but it does take some of the magic away when
> you look at someone's image and can see exactly how they've made it, even if it
> is stunning.
> 
> Bill
> 

Thank you very much.

I will give away just one little bit to share the fun that can be had 
with these types of models: so much can be done on paper. There are many 
"special" (like 30/60/90) triangles to be found within the shape. Much 
of this model, including all transformation matrices, was "figured" with 
a Bic pen while I was at work and away from any computer.

  -Shay

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john wrote:
 >
 > Have you seen what Goerge Hart has done with a very similar sort of
 > sculptures ?

Yes. Our "sculptures" are "very similar" in the way that all paintings 
on canvas are very similar. The finite number of forms around which 
"polyhedral art" can be built are visually distinctive as a group (more 
so than canvases) because most artists do not have the interest or 
aptitudes to work around these forms.

George Hart and I are wired in such a way that working on these forms is 
as straight-forward as working on a canvas; It is the paint applied to 
the canvas that matters. In this respect we are dissimilar. George Hart 
is making polyhedron art, I am using polyhedral symmetries as a 
mechanisms of iteration. What does that mean? Well, it means that George 
Hart's non-polyhedral works are foam "prints" of mathematical functions 
while mine are print works which employ other forms of iteration. 
Sculpture wise, it means that my sculpture would be heavier than his and 
that I'm not interested enough in the form itself to feel it "carries 
itself" as a shitty-looking piece of acrylic.

  -Shay

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Thomas de Groot wrote:
> I take of my hat and bow low, Shay. Your effort reminds me of a Chinese 
> story:
> 
> A rich patron visited a famous painter and asked him if he could draw a 
> life-like copy of a bird (I think it was a cock, but I do not remember 
> exactly) with one single brush stroke. The painter told him to come back a 
> week later. That day, the painter took a virgin piece of paper and painted 
> the bird in one single brush stroke. The patron was duly impressed and asked 
> the painter the price of this painting. The price was a very large sum of 
> gold. "What? said the patron, so much for a single brush stroke?". The 
> painter took him to another room which was stuffed full with countless 
> rejected trials of the bird. "It is not that single brush stroke that you 
> pay, but all the days and nights I have spent to reach perfection."
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
Nice take on Shay's larger story about this piece.

But the story bothers me.  The painter should have called the patron an 
idiot and left it at that, imo.  I mean suppose he'd painted it in a 
single stroke first time then and there!  Would that be more, or less, 
impressive/valuable?

More purely in the art realm, either it is beautiful/stirring/etc. or it 
is not.  Does it matter if takes Mozart second, a week, or ten years to 
come up with a beautiful musical motif?  If two hundred years later 
hearing it played gets us out of our seats cheering madly,... then it does.

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Shay wrote:
> Much
> of this model, including all transformation matrices, was "figured" with 
> a Bic pen while I was at work and away from any computer.
> 



Yes, one of the VERY saticfying experiences you can have with POV-Ray, 
is to pull that off.

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On Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:00:31 -0400, Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:

>But the story bothers me.  The painter should have called the patron an 
>idiot and left it at that, imo.  I mean suppose he'd painted it in a 
>single stroke first time then and there!  Would that be more, or less, 
>impressive/valuable?

That's not the point of stories set in far-a-way lands. It is like
deconstructing a parable IM(ns)HO :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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