Something I didn't know of before:

One of the things that you should get most attention to is when you add more
details, they might come out very small in the big picture, or totally
invisible. This problem applys mostly to structures, and scenes that you
don't know exactly where to place your camera.

The very most of the discussions here are about small, yet important
technical matters, while few are about scene design and architecture.

In my opinion, the Design and Architecture of the scene are at least as
important as the techincal matters. I can find a lot of documentation about
technical problems, but few seem to talk about architecture.

Question: Will it be a good idea to decide first where the camera is placed
what what is it looking at?

I'll write some documents about architecture when I'll get to the university
for you, but untill then I may need some more help.

---

Online discussions have proven to be very effective!
- Eitan Tal.  ICQ: 1515298

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Eitan Tal <eit### [at] netvisionnetil> wrote:
> Question: Will it be a good idea to decide first where the camera is placed
> what what is it looking at?

  Usually when you make a complex model, you want to render it from different
viewpoints, so every side is important.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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"Eitan Tal" <eit### [at] netvisionnetil> wrote in message
news:3d6a920a@news.povray.org...
> Something I didn't know of before:
>
> One of the things that you should get most attention to is when you add
more
> details, they might come out very small in the big picture, or totally
> invisible. This problem applys mostly to structures, and scenes that you
> don't know exactly where to place your camera.
[snip]
> Question: Will it be a good idea to decide first where the camera is
placed
> what what is it looking at?
>
Indeed.  It does not mean that you will not move the camera anymore (this is
an advantage). I think that in the beginning, a scene is pretty much like a
drawing. If you take a seat and start drawing a landscape, you'll lose your
perspective if you move.  There are things that you know are there, but
cannot be seen (unless you move the camera and change you point of view) and
therefore, can't be depicted.

I started to write some notes in that regard. Maybe the first three pages
are of interest to you:
http://www.emediez.com/notas01.html
And also, a few basic concepts about composition:
http://www.emediez.com/notas2_01.html


Regards,
Marjorie Graterol

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Eitan Tal wrote:
Question: Will it be a good idea to decide first where the camera is placed what
what is it looking at?

short answer:  IMHO  YES!

long answer:
 There are as many ways to start a scene. One might make a set like a movie
studio with
all the objects in place then move the camera and lighting around to get the
best view.
Me, I start with the subject and mood I want to convay. I usually have a rough
background
and not so rough subject object. Or visa versa. Then place the camera and lights
to get the
feel I want. Then comes the work of refining the subject and adding objects and
textures.
While refining the scene I'm not above changing the camera position or where it
looks a little
to better 'frame' the scene.


--
Have Fun!

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You will likely find Gilles Tran's site of some help. You can find it at:
http://www.oyonale.com/oy_en.htm
Bill P.

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Marjorie,   Regarding your web pages - A very promising start!  I believe we
need much more work like yours which reaches out to the traditional artist and
offers them a bridge from their world to this one. I think this ray
tracing/rendering community, though already evolving artistically,  is still
very techish and insular. Many of us truly enjoy figuring out or seeing others
code tricks and techniques.  Further many of us have minimal formal artistic
training (in my cases talent too) and are simply unable to build these bridges.
I hope you work more on this material and that it makes it's way into the hands
of more artist.  I think there is great potential for great class!
Bill P.

>
> Indeed.  It does not mean that you will not move the camera anymore (this is
> an advantage). I think that in the beginning, a scene is pretty much like a
> drawing. If you take a seat and start drawing a landscape, you'll lose your
> perspective if you move.  There are things that you know are there, but
> cannot be seen (unless you move the camera and change you point of view) and
> therefore, can't be depicted.
>
> I started to write some notes in that regard. Maybe the first three pages
> are of interest to you:
> http://www.emediez.com/notas01.html
> And also, a few basic concepts about composition:
> http://www.emediez.com/notas2_01.html
>
> Regards,
> Marjorie Graterol

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Eitan Tal wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> In my opinion, the Design and Architecture of the scene are at least as
> important as the techincal matters. I can find a lot of documentation about
> technical problems, but few seem to talk about architecture.

I think technical aspects will always come before the artistic issues, you
can start making a scene without any idea of composition and design, but
not without knowing the technical basics.  None the less i agree design
and composition are something very important, the fact this is not a topic
dealt with that much in discussions here is probably because there are no
fixed rules and measures what is good and what not.  But when reading in
p.b.i. you will find quite a lot of comments in that field.

The most interesting aspects about designing 3d scenes IMO are the
differences compared to convential painting and drawing.  There are
certain things that are quite difficult to change after starting a picture
with convential techniques but are very easy to modify in a POV-scene.  On
the other hand the technical possibilities when drawing with a pencil are
quite well defined while you are continuously in struggle with the
technical limits when working on computers.

> Question: Will it be a good idea to decide first where the camera is placed
> what what is it looking at?

That of course depends on the scene.  Anyway most more complicated scenes
are designed for one camera perspective.  In such a case larger camera
movements are usually limited to the beginning of scene design.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 13 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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"Christoph Hormann" <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote in message
news:3D6B7369.9FCA6894@gmx.de...

> I think technical aspects will always come before the artistic issues, you
> can start making a scene without any idea of composition and design, but
> not without knowing the technical basics.  None the less i agree design

Hmm, from a personal viewpoint, I'd disagree. I almost always start with an
image/composition in my head - I then set out to work out the technicalities of
creating the image in POV.

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Tom Melly wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > I think technical aspects will always come before the artistic issues, you
> > can start making a scene without any idea of composition and design, but
> > not without knowing the technical basics.  None the less i agree design
> 
> Hmm, from a personal viewpoint, I'd disagree. I almost always start with an
> image/composition in my head - I then set out to work out the technicalities of
> creating the image in POV.

That does not seem to contradict my statement.  You can make up any
composition in your head, but you will probably agree you can only
sucessfully implement it if you have the technical abilities.  On the
other hand you can start placing objects in a scene without knowing
anything about composition, just using random values.  

In other words i meant technical abilities are a requirement for creating
a scene at all while artistic abilities are only required for making a
good scene.  

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 13 Aug. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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"William F. Pokorny" <pok### [at] attglobalnet> wrote in message
news:3D6B6C23.4FCC2804@attglobal.net...
[snip]
> I hope you work more on this material and that it makes it's way into the
hands
> of more artist.  I think there is great potential for great class!
> Bill P.

Thanks. I'm already working on that part :-)

Regards,
Marjorie

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