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Show HN: A collection of algorithmic art generated with POV-Ray

90 points by mscharrer 11y ago

glaberficken 11y ago
Anyone know other nice visualizations of prime numbers? I was particularly struck by this one: https://mscharrer.net/povray/primes/2/ https://mscharrer.net/povray/primes/2/
- jrosenbluth 11y ago
  http://mathlesstraveled.com/2012/11/05/more-factorization-diagrams/ http://mathlesstraveled.com/2012/11/05/more-factorization-di...
  - glaberficken 11y ago
    great! thanks
mscharrer 11y ago
The POV-Ray source files are included. Example: https://mscharrer.net/povray/liquid_fire/2/liquid_fire_v2.pov https://mscharrer.net/povray/liquid_fire/2/liquid_fire_v2.po...
spankalee 11y ago
Reminds me of some of the work of Ryan Geiss (the author of several WinAmp visualizers like Geiss and Milkdrop): http://www.geisswerks.com/ http://www.geisswerks.com/
- mscharrer 11y ago
  Cool stuff.
- robin_reala 11y ago
  I’d forgotten all about Ryan; was obsessed by Milkdrop in 2001. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Sharlin 11y ago
Hee, nostalgic! I used to play around with POV-Ray a lot in the 00s; at that time there were quite a few extremely skilled artist-coders in the community [1]. Shame that the software has since fallen into relative obscurity - I wasn't even aware the dwindling developer team actually managed to get a final 3.7 release out in 2013 after years of betas and release candidates. [1] See eg. Gilles Tran at http://www.oyonale.com/3D.php?lang=en http://www.oyonale.com/3D.php?lang=en
- Rapzid 11y ago
  To bad this is defunct: http://www.irtc.org/stills/ http://www.irtc.org/stills/ POV ray and IRTC got me into 3D. Once upon a time I thought I was going to have a career in it. Became absolutely obsessed; Modo beta tester, SIGGRAPH trip in '07. Now I'm a systems engineer, go figure. Ah the memories though :)
  - IanCal 11y ago
    Wow, that brings back memories. I came 79th once in one of those! I've just gone and found it and I was 14 at the time. 3D art was going to be my thing too, then I got into programming. It was actually through programming python scripts in Blender that I became interested in programming generally. I'm digging back through old forum posts to see if anything I've made is still about but so many image hosting sites have disappeared. I'm not sure what it looked like but one comment about a head I'd modelled was "personal opinion, but I think he'd look better with eyelids". Thanks for jogging those memories! :)
    - usrusr 11y ago
      Pretty much the same here. I even got two top-20 results, but I was a few years older at the time. POV-Ray scene description language was how I made the jump from Pascal and visual basic "begin end" syntax styles to the world of curlies. And after having spent so much time with the imitation, learning the C preprocessor was so much easier.
      - 11y ago
Dragon256 11y ago
About 20 years ago, I did something similar with PolyRay, it even allowed you to do animations.
- valera_rozuvan 11y ago
  PovRay allows you to do animation too.
sjdegraeve 11y ago
... and here I thought the landscape art bot I started yesterday was good. I've got a long way to go. https://twitter.com/LandscapeArtBot https://twitter.com/LandscapeArtBot
- ArekDymalski 11y ago
  I actually like many of them beacause of the colours and that cartoonish vibe.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  It is good! What do you have in mind as the next step?
  - sjdegraeve 11y ago
    The goal is to get the landscapes to resemble sci-fi/fantasy environment concept art. Rough plans include adding clouds, vegetation, buildings, human figures, and foreground elements.
    - valera_rozuvan 11y ago
      Check out work done by Hatsumi Kanayama - http://homepage1.nifty.com/hakka/edo/3dedo/index1.html http://homepage1.nifty.com/hakka/edo/3dedo/index1.html . Her style might be what you are looking for.
- mintplant 11y ago
  I really love the stylized look of the bot's output. How does it work?
valera_rozuvan 11y ago
Anyone know of new, 201*, awesome examples of PovRay usage out on the Internet?
mscharrer 11y ago
I put the source files on Github for easier browsing: https://github.com/mscharrer/povray_scenes/tree/master/abstract_scenes https://github.com/mscharrer/povray_scenes/tree/master/abstr...

90 points by mscharrer 11y ago

Anyone know other nice visualizations of prime numbers? I was particularly struck by this one: https://mscharrer.net/povray/primes/2/ https://mscharrer.net/povray/primes/2/

jrosenbluth 11y ago
http://mathlesstraveled.com/2012/11/05/more-factorization-diagrams/ http://mathlesstraveled.com/2012/11/05/more-factorization-di...
- glaberficken 11y ago
  great! thanks

mscharrer 11y ago

The POV-Ray source files are included. Example: https://mscharrer.net/povray/liquid_fire/2/liquid_fire_v2.pov https://mscharrer.net/povray/liquid_fire/2/liquid_fire_v2.po...

spankalee 11y ago

Reminds me of some of the work of Ryan Geiss (the author of several WinAmp visualizers like Geiss and Milkdrop): http://www.geisswerks.com/ http://www.geisswerks.com/

mscharrer 11y ago
Cool stuff.
robin_reala 11y ago
I’d forgotten all about Ryan; was obsessed by Milkdrop in 2001. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Sharlin 11y ago

Hee, nostalgic! I used to play around with POV-Ray a lot in the 00s; at that time there were quite a few extremely skilled artist-coders in the community [1]. Shame that the software has since fallen into relative obscurity - I wasn't even aware the dwindling developer team actually managed to get a final 3.7 release out in 2013 after years of betas and release candidates. [1] See eg. Gilles Tran at http://www.oyonale.com/3D.php?lang=en http://www.oyonale.com/3D.php?lang=en

Rapzid 11y ago
To bad this is defunct: http://www.irtc.org/stills/ http://www.irtc.org/stills/ POV ray and IRTC got me into 3D. Once upon a time I thought I was going to have a career in it. Became absolutely obsessed; Modo beta tester, SIGGRAPH trip in '07. Now I'm a systems engineer, go figure. Ah the memories though :)
- IanCal 11y ago
  Wow, that brings back memories. I came 79th once in one of those! I've just gone and found it and I was 14 at the time. 3D art was going to be my thing too, then I got into programming. It was actually through programming python scripts in Blender that I became interested in programming generally. I'm digging back through old forum posts to see if anything I've made is still about but so many image hosting sites have disappeared. I'm not sure what it looked like but one comment about a head I'd modelled was "personal opinion, but I think he'd look better with eyelids". Thanks for jogging those memories! :)
  - usrusr 11y ago
    Pretty much the same here. I even got two top-20 results, but I was a few years older at the time. POV-Ray scene description language was how I made the jump from Pascal and visual basic "begin end" syntax styles to the world of curlies. And after having spent so much time with the imitation, learning the C preprocessor was so much easier.
    - 11y ago

Dragon256 11y ago

About 20 years ago, I did something similar with PolyRay, it even allowed you to do animations.

valera_rozuvan 11y ago
PovRay allows you to do animation too.

sjdegraeve 11y ago

... and here I thought the landscape art bot I started yesterday was good. I've got a long way to go. https://twitter.com/LandscapeArtBot https://twitter.com/LandscapeArtBot

ArekDymalski 11y ago
I actually like many of them beacause of the colours and that cartoonish vibe.
theseatoms 11y ago
It is good! What do you have in mind as the next step?
- sjdegraeve 11y ago
  The goal is to get the landscapes to resemble sci-fi/fantasy environment concept art. Rough plans include adding clouds, vegetation, buildings, human figures, and foreground elements.
  - valera_rozuvan 11y ago
    Check out work done by Hatsumi Kanayama - http://homepage1.nifty.com/hakka/edo/3dedo/index1.html http://homepage1.nifty.com/hakka/edo/3dedo/index1.html . Her style might be what you are looking for.
mintplant 11y ago
I really love the stylized look of the bot's output. How does it work?

valera_rozuvan 11y ago

Anyone know of new, 201*, awesome examples of PovRay usage out on the Internet?

mscharrer 11y ago

I put the source files on Github for easier browsing: https://github.com/mscharrer/povray_scenes/tree/master/abstract_scenes https://github.com/mscharrer/povray_scenes/tree/master/abstr...