A few spheres, some CSG and hey presto, it's Kirby!

Source:
https://archive.org/download/19100-povray/dream.zip

P.S: Does anyone have any tool recommendations for modelling with bicubic
patches? Writing them by hand is rather tedious and I haven't found anything yet
that fits the bill!

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'dream.png' (120 KB)

Preview of image 'dream.png'

hi,

"19100" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> A few spheres, some CSG and hey presto, it's Kirby!

not to mention the textures ;-).  I think the trees are superb.  the scene does
have that "Nintendo charm" for me, v nice.  (what is it that so surprises the
tree ?  I think we should be told :-))


regards, jr.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/14/24 18:52, 19100 wrote:
> A few spheres, some CSG and hey presto, it's Kirby!
> 
> Source:
> https://archive.org/download/19100-povray/dream.zip
> 
> P.S: Does anyone have any tool recommendations for modelling with bicubic
> patches? Writing them by hand is rather tedious and I haven't found anything yet
> that fits the bill!

Ah! I quite like this image. :-)

As for modeling bicubic patches, I'm not aware of tooling to do it.

IIRC, Bald Eagle (Bill Walker) had a write up for the feature a few 
years ago which might help. He, in fact, taught me how it was actually 
working - as opposed to how I thought it was working! I have early 
versions of the document somewhere, but I'm unsure if it was posted 
anywhere public.

Bill P.

Post a reply to this message

> P.S: Does anyone have any tool recommendations for modelling with bicubic
> patches? Writing them by hand is rather tedious and I haven't found anything yet
> that fits the bill!

I only know of very old Windows programs for this purpose. Years ago, I 
played a bit with sPatch but abandoned it soon. So I can give you the 
links here only.

Mike Clifton's official sPatch website has been down for years, and 
there's nothing of substance on archive.org either. However, a copy can 
still be downloaded under the link

https://www.eatonhand.com/images/spatch.htm

You should find a subdirectory "docs" with a short manual.

 From the list

https://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:POV-Ray_Modelling_Programs

an exe-File of the Bicubic Patch Modeller can be found at archive.org

http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Gaien/4415/bc31.lzh

and the HamaPatch-Link is still online. Both programs seems to be from 
Japan and can be made to run after a little resistance from Windows 
Defender. However, I have not yet been able to find any instructions on 
how to use the programs.

Best regards
Michael

Post a reply to this message

William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

> IIRC, Bald Eagle (Bill Walker) had a write up for the feature a few
> years ago which might help.

The monograph covers the basics of how Bezier surfaces are constructed, along
with the practical aspects of using them in POV-Ray.  Things like uv_mapping and
using Bernstein polynomials to locate points that are actually on the surface of
the patch - rather than the intermediate control points which do not coincide
with the surface.

> He, in fact, taught me how it was actually
> working - as opposed to how I thought it was working!

Wow.   Thanks Bill.  It did take me a bit longer than I expected to sift through
all of the features, do the code experiments, and try and get it all to flow and
make sense.

> I have early
> versions of the document somewhere, but I'm unsure if it was posted
> anywhere public.

Now posted:
https://wiki.povray.org/content/User:BillW

- BW

Post a reply to this message

"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:

> Now posted:
> https://wiki.povray.org/content/User:BillW

I had sent a copy of this to Freya Holmer for review and comments, didn't hear
anything back, and that apparently got developed into a video on the channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVwxzDHniEw&pp=ygUGYmV6aWVy

There were one or two things at the end of the video that went beyond what I
covered, which I found very interesting.

After I recovered from overexertion / burnout, I picked up a major dangling
thread that I really wanted to wrap up, and worked out how to encode the
curvature of the surface into a pigment:

https://news.povray.org/povray.advanced-users/thread/%3Cweb.635dc186688805b11f9dae3025979125%40news.povray.org%3E/

I think that there's probably a CAD/CAM program out there that would allow the
modeling of at least Bezier _splines_ in 3D, and if you just snap/glued the
appropriate control points of the splines together, you might be able to use
that as a wireframe mesh modeler.  Try FreeCAD.

You might also directly contact Freya and ask about such a piece of software,
and see if that might be a project that could get coded in Unity or something.

Also, there's the possibility of making/finding something on Shadertoy, Desmos,
or javascript.

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/ebdtbxgbq0

Sketchup:
https://community.sketchucation.com/topic/100775/plugin-bezier-patch-v1-1?lang=en-US

https://sourceforge.net/projects/digitalorigami/


Ucalgary has an editor that apparently needs permission to access.
Perhaps contact them and see what they say.
pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca
Bezier Surface Editor

patches can exist sepatately, or joined with various levels of continuity. All
the work is done in a single view which can be rotated about the xy-axes to view
and edit the surface from any angle.

https://visualizationlibrary.org/docs/2.0/html/pag_guide_bezier_surfaces.html

Try GameDev, StackExchange, StackOverflow, Sebastian Lague YT channel, or anyone
else that uses povray / does computer graphics coding.

Post a reply to this message

"jr" <cre### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> hi,
>
> "19100" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> > A few spheres, some CSG and hey presto, it's Kirby!
>
> not to mention the textures ;-).  I think the trees are superb.  the scene does
> have that "Nintendo charm" for me, v nice.  (what is it that so surprises the
> tree ?  I think we should be told :-))
>
>
> regards, jr.

Thank you! I referenced a lot of official Nintendo art to make sure I was on
model. That's something I'm also wondering, Whispy has clearly seen some things!

Post a reply to this message

MichaelJF <fri### [at] t-onlinede> wrote:
> > P.S: Does anyone have any tool recommendations for modelling with bicubic
> > patches? Writing them by hand is rather tedious and I haven't found anything yet
> > that fits the bill!
>
> I only know of very old Windows programs for this purpose. Years ago, I
> played a bit with sPatch but abandoned it soon. So I can give you the
> links here only.
>
> Mike Clifton's official sPatch website has been down for years, and
> there's nothing of substance on archive.org either. However, a copy can
> still be downloaded under the link
>
> https://www.eatonhand.com/images/spatch.htm
>
> You should find a subdirectory "docs" with a short manual.
>
>  From the list
>
> https://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:POV-Ray_Modelling_Programs
>
> an exe-File of the Bicubic Patch Modeller can be found at archive.org
>
> http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand-Gaien/4415/bc31.lzh
>
> and the HamaPatch-Link is still online. Both programs seems to be from
> Japan and can be made to run after a little resistance from Windows
> Defender. However, I have not yet been able to find any instructions on
> how to use the programs.
>
> Best regards
> Michael

Thanks for linking those programs, I'll have to investigate to see what they can
do!

Post a reply to this message

"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> "Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
>
> > Now posted:
> > https://wiki.povray.org/content/User:BillW
>
> I had sent a copy of this to Freya Holmer for review and comments, didn't hear
> anything back, and that apparently got developed into a video on the channel.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVwxzDHniEw&pp=ygUGYmV6aWVy
>
> There were one or two things at the end of the video that went beyond what I
> covered, which I found very interesting.
>
> After I recovered from overexertion / burnout, I picked up a major dangling
> thread that I really wanted to wrap up, and worked out how to encode the
> curvature of the surface into a pigment:
>
>
https://news.povray.org/povray.advanced-users/thread/%3Cweb.635dc186688805b11f9dae3025979125%40news.povray.org%3E/
>
> I think that there's probably a CAD/CAM program out there that would allow the
> modeling of at least Bezier _splines_ in 3D, and if you just snap/glued the
> appropriate control points of the splines together, you might be able to use
> that as a wireframe mesh modeler.  Try FreeCAD.
>
> You might also directly contact Freya and ask about such a piece of software,
> and see if that might be a project that could get coded in Unity or something.
>
> Also, there's the possibility of making/finding something on Shadertoy, Desmos,
> or javascript.
>
> https://www.desmos.com/calculator/ebdtbxgbq0
>
> Sketchup:
> https://community.sketchucation.com/topic/100775/plugin-bezier-patch-v1-1?lang=en-US
>
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/digitalorigami/
>
>
> Ucalgary has an editor that apparently needs permission to access.
> Perhaps contact them and see what they say.
> pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca
> Bezier Surface Editor
>
> patches can exist sepatately, or joined with various levels of continuity. All
> the work is done in a single view which can be rotated about the xy-axes to view
> and edit the surface from any angle.
>
> https://visualizationlibrary.org/docs/2.0/html/pag_guide_bezier_surfaces.html
>
> Try GameDev, StackExchange, StackOverflow, Sebastian Lague YT channel, or anyone
> else that uses povray / does computer graphics coding.

I appreciate the write-up as well as all those other resources, plenty to dig
into! I have looked at FreeCAD before and it seems that it can only produce
NURBS surfaces, though combining separate splines sounds does sound like an
interesting possibility.

Post a reply to this message