Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

POVRay Short Code Contest Results In

Posted by michael on from the minimalism dept.

PateraSilk writes "The Results for the POVRay Short Code Contest are available here. This contest looks for the best images to be generated in POVRay with the smallest amount of code--in this case, under 256 bytes. Definitely 'less is more'."

9 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Correction... by andreMA · · Score: 4, Informative

    That should be 256 bytes, not K.

    1. Re:Correction... by Yrd · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was just about to say that! 256K is a LOT of POV code, in my experience at least.

      Although of course you need a lot of POV code to get some of those glorious images on the IRTC.

      --
      Miri it is whil Linux ilast...
  2. Re:Wow, a sphere by MindStalker · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you read the rules, the first place entry was determined by (votes total/bytes)
    while second place was (votes total)
    and third was (votes total/(bytes^2))
    screwy really.

  3. Less vs. More by nacturation · · Score: 4, Informative

    Less can be more, but more is often so much more. The Chado Hall of Fame image is stunning. I'm still trying to convince myself that it's not a photograph.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
    1. Re:Less vs. More by qbwiz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not sure about the math, but that's one of the reason that human skin looks so lifeless in CG. Skin is translucent (that's why your hand glows red when you hold a flashlight up to it). Currently CG skin is only a surface -- it doesn't show light reflecting from within the skin.

      Actually, they have found ways to do this now. For example, there's PovMan which is an add-on to Povray that lets you make shaders that describe how a surface reflects and transmits. There's a skin shader on the website that lets you create more realistic skin.

      --
      Ewige Blumenkraft.
  4. Re:Wow, a sphere by Monsieur_F · · Score: 4, Informative

    Okay, I just found that it was impossible, because of this rule:
    A valid entry will consist of a single text file containing between 16 and 256 bytes

    --
    McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
  5. Re:Higher Resolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    POV-Ray's command-line options are weird:
    povray +Iyournewdesktop.pov +Oyournewdesktop.png +A +W1024 +H768 +FN

    Replace the numbers with your screen resolution. Warning: some of these will take a *while*.

  6. Re:Very cool... makes me wanna learn by doublebackslash · · Score: 2, Informative

    I learned from reading the included help files.
    Best documentation out there.
    After I muddled though the tutorial, I went wild, and just used the help as reference. Wish i hadn't lost my old files before I had backup systems in place ;(.
    I'm sad now.

    --
    md5sum /boot/vmlinuz
    d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e /boot/vmlinuz
  7. Re:explain by Quill · · Score: 4, Informative

    (Take a look at the verbose version of the code for an easier read.)

    The buildings are actually just one big isosurface. This is a surface in 3D space that is described by a function, similar to describing a line on a 2D graph. For example (warning, I'm been out of school for a while!), the formula y=x would describe a straight line at a 45 deg angle, whereas y=x^2 describes a parabolic curve. You can make the formula more complex and make us of functions (like sin(), cos(), max(), etc...) to end up with some really funky lines that wobble all over.

    The authors of "City" and "The Agate Face" both use isosurfaces effectively.

    I cannot.

    --
    My religion forbids the use of sigs.