I've spent an entire day maxing out my CPU with POV-Ray, and so far I've 
produced absolutely nothing worth seeing.

Man, I'd forgotten just how frustrating this stuff is... :-(

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I've spent an entire day maxing out my CPU with POV-Ray, and so far I've
> produced absolutely nothing worth seeing.
>
> Man, I'd forgotten just how frustrating this stuff is... :-(

it demands inspiration.

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>> I've spent an entire day maxing out my CPU with POV-Ray, and so far I've
>> produced absolutely nothing worth seeing.
> 
> it demands inspiration.

Never mind that - it demands *skill*.

I'm no graphic artist, and I don't think I ever will be. :-(

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Invisible wrote:
>>> I've spent an entire day maxing out my CPU with POV-Ray, and so far I've
>>> produced absolutely nothing worth seeing.
>>
>> it demands inspiration.
> 
> Never mind that - it demands *skill*.
> 
> I'm no graphic artist, and I don't think I ever will be. :-(


looking at the images too long and see it differently than others would 
see it.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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>> I'm no graphic artist, and I don't think I ever will be. :-(
> 

> looking at the images too long and see it differently than others would 
> see it.

If I use a point-light, the image looks like it's inside a dark, spooky 
cave. If I turn on radiosity, all the lighting is dead flat. (Except for 
some large black patches of unknown origin, which are completely 
unaffected by any radiosity settings.)

But more than all that, the image is *boring*. I guess that's the 
trouble; I spend hours tweaking radiosity settings trying to get the 
best quality, and completely overlook the fact that the image isn't 
worth bothering with in the first place.

Now a *real*, trained expert would know about things like composition 
and so forth, and could come up with something interesting. But me? I 
just look at a blank screen and think "hmm, maybe throw some procedural 
geometry at that?" and the result is naff.

Then again, I also fail at composing music. I can take a piece of music 
and tell you exactly why it's cool. But I can't write cool music. I 
can't think of anything original, I can only copy other people.

I guess, fundamentally, I'm just too rigidly logical to be creative. :-(

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> But more than all that, the image is *boring*. I guess that's the trouble; 
> I spend hours tweaking radiosity settings trying to get the best quality, 
> and completely overlook the fact that the image isn't worth bothering with 
> in the first place.

OOC what are you trying to model?  It seems to me like you are creative 
enough to have the idea, it's just you lack the skill needed to convert 
those ideas accurately into POV.  If so don't worry, you can learn those 
skills if you put the effort in (eg posting to pbi and listening to what 
people say, reading up on various POV tutorial sites, looking through the 
pbg and pbi groups here, etc).  People who are "expert" at POV are not 
experts because they were born knowing how to use POV, but because they put 
in a lot of time with the program and learned from their experiences.  There 
is no reason why you can't do the same, but don't expect to become an expert 
in a few weeks.

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scott wrote:

> OOC what are you trying to model?

"Something that looks cool."

Unfortunately, I lack the graphic designer skill to know what would 
"look cool" *before* I stumble across it.

I've been using POV-Ray for years. I know quite a lot about it. What I 
lack is ideas. Creativity. Originality. That kind of thing.

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> Unfortunately, I lack the graphic designer skill to know what would "look 
> cool" *before* I stumble across it.
>
> I've been using POV-Ray for years. I know quite a lot about it. What I 
> lack is ideas. Creativity. Originality. That kind of thing.

Type some random words into Google image search and browse through the 
pages, you'll probably find something that looks cool and is worth trying to 
model.

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Invisible wrote:

> If I use a point-light, the image looks like it's inside a dark, spooky 
> cave. If I turn on radiosity, all the lighting is dead flat. (Except for 
> some large black patches of unknown origin, which are completely 
> unaffected by any radiosity settings.)
> 
> But more than all that, the image is *boring*. I guess that's the 
> trouble; I spend hours tweaking radiosity settings trying to get the 
> best quality, and completely overlook the fact that the image isn't 
> worth bothering with in the first place.
> 

As Scott pointed out, very few people are born with the ability. It 


http://warp.povusers.org/povtips/
Even the simplest objects can look interesting with a little help.

> Now a *real*, trained expert would know about things like composition 
> and so forth, and could come up with something interesting. But me? I 
> just look at a blank screen and think "hmm, maybe throw some procedural 
> geometry at that?" and the result is naff.
> 

Have a Google for studio lighting tutorials, you may find something 
useful. And maybe you can find a tutorial on photography composition to 
help with the scene. I use a modeller so I can have an idea what the 
scene will look like before rendering.

> Then again, I also fail at composing music. I can take a piece of music 
> and tell you exactly why it's cool. But I can't write cool music. I 
> can't think of anything original, I can only copy other people.
> 
> I guess, fundamentally, I'm just too rigidly logical to be creative. :-(


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Stephen wrote:
> Have a Google for studio lighting tutorials, you may find something
> useful. And maybe you can find a tutorial on photography composition to
> help with the scene. I use a modeller so I can have an idea what the
> scene will look like before rendering.
Strobist is a great lighting resource. It is more geared to
photographers, and getting them to use off-camera flashes, but the same
ideas for separating the subject from the background by changing light
distances and intensities is just as usable in POV. Their image pool on
Flickr is good inspiration as well.

I work from an engineering mindset when building a scene. Either I know
what the end result is going to be, and just keep tweaking the pieces
until it gets there; or I know what the pieces are and I just play with
random numbers until something ends up where I like it.

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