It seems to me that the 'object' collection really wants to be a 'macro' 
collection. This would serve a somewhat divergent purpose from an 
'object' collection in my mind.

Strictly an 'object' collection, it seems to me, acts like a trove of 
antiques in a shop.  You rummage there for oddities, particular things, 
to be used more or less as found.  In that paradigm, the idea of 
'thousands' of items makes sense.

But right now, it seems, submissions need to occupy a sort of 
intersection set. They must be objects, but objects built procedurally 
from macros, and ideally using csg techniques. This can put a submitter 
wanting to create interesting objects at cross-purposes.  Such an 
intersection set of requirements can be restrictive. Modularity does not 
usually lend itself to particularity.

It would be better to define and recognize the true nature of the 
effort. This would be to build macros of all kinds, including csg-object 
macros, and which serve manifold purposes. The classic example here, 
would be the MakeTree macro. One little macro, trees, bushes, coral, 
blood vessels,...lots of variety. The sense of variety, and more so, the 
sense of usefullness of the collection, lies precisely in the level of 
usefulness, the manifold scope, of the core macros in the collection. 
Then requirements of modularity become the strength rather than a 
restriction.

This would also remove a taint of hegemony.  The hegemony that an 
'official POV object' must be a csg object, or at the outside, something 
procedurally produced.  I admire a useful macro.  I resent having to 
conform to a particular method of producing objects.  And I just can't 
shake the feeling that such a hegemony of conformity is the true thrust 
behind the 'object' collection as it is now defined.

Post a reply to this message