Gilles Tran

Welcome!

Hello, Gilles Tran, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Karmafist 15:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Good to see you around

I've been an avid follower of your work since the early days, assuming this is indeed the same Gilles Tran of Oyonale. It is good to see you here, contributing your wisdom to the Wikipedia. -Fuzzy 21:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sean, thanks for the welcome. I'm indeed the same person! --Gilles Tran 09:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

sure he is the one! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glasses_800_edit.png is the proof! :)

Seconded! —Tamfang 01:10, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Anton. It looks like a POV-Ray Addicts Not-So-Anymous meeting here :) --Gilles Tran 15:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You're onymous, Sean and I are hemi-onymous (our names can be found with a smidgen of effort) ... —Tamfang 05:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have also been a follower of your work since round about 2000, when I happened to notice that you'd won the Internet Raytracing Competition about 6 months out of the 12 in that year, if memory serves. Its great to see you on Wikipedia. Pity Oyonale.com hasn't been updated since 2004! Are you still actively producing work? It would be a real pity if you, in my opinion one of the great artists of our time, decided to stop! The Ostrich 03:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for the praise! There's an update planned with new stuff but it just takes a lot of time to get everything organised and coded. --Gilles Tran 09:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

POVray

Your picture is amazing; it really shows the abilities of ray tracers. It looks completely realistic! smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 22:32, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope people like it and use it (I put it in Public Domain). I'll release the code when I find the time to update my website. --Gilles Tran 15:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Any chance you could put the povray source up sometime soon? The image is amazing and I'd love to have a play with it myself. -- Alan 16:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Here it is! (zip, 6 Mb) Have fun. Gilles Tran 17:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

FPC

I have nominated your awesome "Glasses 800" for Featured Picture. Let's hope it will be featured! PS: On the FPC page, a question wqas asked: How long did it take you to create this image (coding + rendering)? Can you answer here, please? --Janke | Talk 06:18, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

• Is it possible to regenerate your image at a higher resolution? I am afraid some people will vote oppose due to the relatively small size. Current requirement seems to be higher than 1000px. Thanks in advance Glaurung 06:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I've put a resized version on line to smooth out some of the graininess in focal blur and some of the poor antialiasing, but the original version is available here.

Gilles, as you can see, your work of art has so far earned an unconditional 100% support, and many more votes than is usual for a FPC. This image will be featured, for sure, probably in the larger version now being rendered by MDD, provided he can get the gamma in the right ballpark. Congratulations, ahead of time! --Janke | Talk 07:40, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

• Hello Janke! Thanks a lot for your efforts. I really didn't expect this image to be nominated! --Gilles Tran 08:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Félicitations

Amazing job with Image:Glasses 800.png! How long did it take you to make it? It's simply awesome!! deeptrivia (talk) 22:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Rendering took 2 days. Creating the scene itself was quite fast. It was just a demo scene so not a lot of work went into it as most of the models had been created previously (for this scene) --Gilles Tran 08:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Featured picture promotion

An image created by you has been promoted to featured picture status Your image, Image:Glasses 800.png, was nominated on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate an image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Thank you for your contribution!

~ Veledan • Talk 17:29, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Help with AC3D and Pov ray

Hi Gilles Tran!
I was so impressed with your glass pov ray that I came straight to you for help with my 3D problem! I'm working on my school magazine and I want to make a collage which looks a little like this: Image:AC3D 3d window.jpg, except in the final version the objects will have a texture of a collage which has been overlaid in it's respective color. But for the sake of this question we can ignore all that and use the pix I've got on the objects there. I'm making it with AC3D because it's easy to use (for a complete novice like myself!). What I want, and can't do, is to render that scene at A3 size (4961x3508 preferably, but I can live with 3307x2339) with some soft shadows. Just fiddling with pov ray I made this: Image:Povray output.jpg, which is close to what I eventually want except the positioning is a bit out (I also changed the order of the objects) and I want the shadows much softer. Sorry if I'm not making my self very clear, here's want I want to ask if you could do for me:
- Tell me how to get soft shadows
- Tell me how to customize the render size
Also I find the positioning system in Pov Ray really hard to use. I really like the "3D window" in AC3D, is there anyway to save the position/orientation that I get in the 3D window for use in Pov Ray? Because I want it looking like Image:AC3D 3d window.jpg, but when I export in AC3D to a pov ray file the camera position is moved. I've uploaded the AC3D file and Pov ray file to here. Thanks, and I hope you can help me! --Fir0002 12:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• Hi Peter

The problem with AC3D apparently is that it doesn't export properly the camera (unless there's an option for that). Since I don't have AC3D I rewrote the scene from scratch here :

- POV-Ray scene

- POV-Ray image

I've added radiosity and some specular highlights to make the picture more pretty. Feel free to remove that of course. About the soft shadows, POV-Ray only supports "true" soft shadows, not the false ones that are often found in 3D apps. They are more accurate and realistic, but tend to give longer render times (and there's an issue with graininess too). In the scene file I added rather large soft shadows. To modify the shadow softness increase the size of the area_light vectors (for instance x*100, z*100 should be changed to x*150, z*150). For more information about area lights in POV-Ray see the manual Section 3.4.7.5 Area Lights. To customize the render size, give the size on the render command line +W4961 +H3508. Note that you should theoretically change the image ratio ("right" vector in the camera definition) but it's done automatically in this particular scene. Note that you may need to change the assumed_gamma value if the image is too dark or too pale. Better, change the display_gamma value in the povray.ini configuration file (it's in the "renderer" directory where you installed POV-Ray) to match your monitor's gamma. Gilles Tran

		The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
		I Fir0002 hereby award Gilles Tran this barnstar for his amazing expertise which he so freely provides to Wikipedia Fir0002 23:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Oh dude! That' just so perfect! Oh I'm must so happy with that! Thank you so much and here's a barnstar for your trouble! The objects in the image do look a little pale, I'm concerned that if I change the gamma value it will also darken the white background? Coz the tones of the background are just perfect. Also, and this is a little quibble which I'm not really that fussed over, is it possible to recover the back verticle corner of the background? I just want it to be slightly visible. Also in the final render I'll be changing the images which on the objects, so if I just override "red.bmp" and "blue.bmp" etc it will still work? Other than I can't thank you enough, that's made my day! --Fir0002 23:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Well that's strange, I just d/loaded your rendered PNG and looked at in irfanview and it looked heaps darker (and better) than what it looked like (lighter) in firefox. Also I did a render of the pov scene you made and it looked like the image I got in firefox. Any ideas? --Fir0002 00:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Update: Ok, I've changed "assumed_gamma" in global settings from 1 to 1.8 which has improved the darkness (couldn't find "display_gamma" in the povray.ini file - I'm using ver 3.6), also I changed "brightness 1.5" to "brightness 1.4" which has brought back that corner. So everything is going great. Last point, is anti aliasing worth turning on, and if so what "section" is best suited? In the drop down list I've got values ranging from "[160x120, AA 0.3]" to "[1280x1024, AA 0.3]" --Fir0002 00:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's a larger res render I just did: Image:Collage POV scene.jpg. Looks good, but the shadows have gone a bit funny. Do you know how to fix that? --Fir0002 01:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. About display_gamma: you need to add it (sorry I forgot to tell you). Just put Display_Gamma=x at the end of the file (where x is your monitor's gamma). About the differences between the PNG in FF and Irfanview: PNG stores gamma information, but this information isn't always decoded. About the strange shadows: these are radiosity artifacts. You can increase the "count" value in the radiosity settings (it's 200 now, max is 1600) until they disappear. You can also increase the "nearest_count" (up to 20). However, it's going to increase the render times and in some cases it's not possible to remove the artifacts so be prepared to do some smoothing in Photoshop. About replacing the images : just override the images or replace the image names in the texture definitions. About antialiasing: 1280x1024 AA 0.3 means an image rendered a a 1280x1024 pixel size with the default theshold value for antialiasing. And yes, antialiasing is necessary to avoid jagged edges (but it increases render times too). Tip: to speed up your tests you can render partial images by using the command line to restrict the area to be rendered : try "+sc0.571429 +sr0.652741 +ec0.745597 +er0.827676" for instance (s=start, e=end, c=column, r=row and the values are the relative positions of the row or column). Thanks for the Barnstar, and keep up with the great photographs!--Gilles Tran 09:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. How do you render as a PNG? I'm currently rendering as a BMP. Also is there any advantage of having a PNG? So for the "Display_Gamma=" should I use the same value which I used in "assumed_gamma"? --Fir0002 10:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I've used the small render selection you gave me (which is really handy!), and I bumped up the count values. I think part of the lumpiness is caused by reflections off the surface of the objects onto the white floor. You seen distinct greens etc from the green lillies on the cubiod. Can we make the white surface more matte? --Fir0002 10:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

To render as a PNG, use +FN in the command line. The main advantage of PNG is that it's a lossless (unlike JPEG) format that allows good compression (unlike BMP). About the gamma: to be frank the gamma settings are a little confusing, even for me. I believe that you should set the display gamma to your monitor's gamma and use an assumed_gamma value of 1. About the artifacts: as I said they are a by-product of the radiosity feature. Radiosity is what creates the colour bleeding that you noticed, but of course this (physically correct) effect is exactly why radiosity is used in the first place. If you think that the effect is not needed, just remove the radiosity block. However, without radiosity, you will need a stronger light and possibly use ambient light or a shadowless fill light to compensate for the missing radiosity light (actually this is what AC3D did: it added a fill light located at the camera position).--Gilles Tran 12:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Congrats

Todays Featured Picture is your piece of art, congrats!--Andeh 10:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, congrats! The image you created is incredibly realistic. One graphic designer's barnstar is great, but for your mind-blowing featured picture...

		The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
		This Graphic Designer's Barnstar goes to Gilles Tran for amazing work on a featured picture. Gray Porpoise 18:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

		The Graphic Designer's Barnstar
		Nice picture dude. Ilikefood 22:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

...you should get another! --Gray Porpoise 18:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the image is amazing. Congratulations! -- Puffball 21:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm giving you a ribbon to replace your barnstar

Your glasses, ice, and wine glass picture

Is that all completely computer generated!?! It looks so real. Reading what you wrote, it seems like you completely made it in the computer...but IT LOOKS SO REAL!

==Glass Picture==--Gilles Tran 10:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Hello! I was greatly amazed by the glass picture and wanted to re-render it myself at a much higher resolution. I new to raytracing, and was wondering how long it took you to render it? For me it renders at bout 10 pps(pixels per second). Is this normal?--BorisFromStockdale 06:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, it's ***slow***, thanks to focal blur and reflections/refractions. The large size version took 560 hours to render. On a dual/quad core machine, it could be possible to launch several separate renders (on different zones of the image) to speed up things and assemble the parts later, but better test this before on a small size render as I don't know if it really works (POV-Ray 3.7 will support multiprocessors but 3.6 doesn't) --Gilles Tran 09:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Gilles. I now have your Glasses picture set as the wallpaper on my “17 pouces, 1,25 GHz” iMac. Amaaaaazing job! Of course, I've had a very long time now to examine it. I've zoomed in on many of the window reflections and can see that there are curtains in front of one of them. Beyond the windows are rich scenes with clouds and what appears to be mountains. Please tell me that these are just a pixel map applied to a cylinder outside of all the windows. No? And finally… I note that the right-hand wine glass that's nearly empty has a miniscus around the edge of the liquid that isn't colored like those atop the liquid in the four other glasses. My conjecture is that you did this on purpose to prove that the image is a computer-generated one. Yes? Greg L / (talk) 04:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the comments. Interestingly, there's no scene outside, just a vertical colour gradient, white to light blue. The "mountains" are probably artifacts due to the low triangle count in some areas. I'm not sure what the "curtains" are, possibly some visual effect created by the thickness of the glass and the focal blur. And the miniscus, well, it's really the same colour as the other (full) glass. Really, this picture was created firstly as a demo/training scene for POV-Ray users (which is why the source code is available). I'm pleased that it found a larger audience at Wikipedia but it's still a simple technical demo. Sorry :) --Gilles Tran 13:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, whatever the reason it was made, the image demonstrates very well how the addition of complex, elaborate lighting and surroundings provide the subtle visual clues necessary for a computer-generated scene to look ultra-realistic. The “curtain” I'm referring to was just guy-talk for what in America is technically a “drape.” Actually, it is a shear drape, sometimes known simply as a “shear.” I know all this because my wife just told me so a few minutes ago. It appears as a reflection on the glass that has an ice cube in it. The reflection is on the right hand side of the lip at top. On the left hand side of the window reflection, is what appears to be a white shear with a tie-back (rope) around it. It appears similar to what is on the right hand side of the largest window in this picture. To me, this indicates that the still life was added to what originally started out as an architectural exercise. I assumed drapes had been added into the room during that phase. No? Greg L / (talk) 02:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• No, really, there's nothing there. The environment is just a box with holes in it and a gradient outside (you can see it by yourself in the source code). Elaborate surroundings are often necessary to create the illusion, but in this case what happens is that the many reflections appear to create an environment that looks much complex that it really is. Just smokes and mirrors! --Gilles Tran 10:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Unproductful reverts on POV-Ray

You reverted an edit, which I explained both on Talk:POV-Ray and in my edit summary. In the future, please both use more explanatory edit summaries and comment on talk pages. See WP:TALK and WP:EQ if you need information. Thanks! --Karnesky 00:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Gilles

Don't know if you recall me from the pov-ray newsgroups in the past, but I was either tomandlu or Tom Melly there, and Tomandlu here. Anyway, noticed your recent comments on the pov-ray article talkpage, and just thought I'd wave my head above the parapet. BTW, here's an article wot i wrote about wikipedia that might amuse

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/15/tom_melly_wikipedia_comment/

Tomandlu 20:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Failed render

Heyo. I wish to render your fabulous Glasses work at a LARGE resolution, however a test render failed miserably. The textures on the dice and pitcher are off-colour. I'd like to send the render to you, do you have an emial? --gles.abv@gmail.com

Oyonale!

Hey Gilles! Trying not to sound too much like a stalker, it's good to see you're still around now and again. Any updates on when we can expect the latest instalment of your 3DCG masterpieces? I'm sure I'm not the only one eagerly and hopefully waiting for more! If it's just a case of getting the material to web, as I believe you mentioned once, maybe I could lend a hand... BigBlueFish 19:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Hi, thanks for asking. I've been working on it for a few months now, and it's almost there. I'm currently adding content in fact, but no matter what it will probably go live in a few weeks. --Gilles Tran 08:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• It's updated now ! --Gilles Tran (talk) 15:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

PC Pro November

Hi Gilles, just thought I'd mention that your glasses image is in the november issue of PC Pro (I can't find any mention of the feature on the PC Pro website, but it was a feature on ray tracing in general, but with an emphasis on pov - if you want me to send you the issue, please let me know).

BTW I was in France earlier in the year and noticed, when in a shop, a poster for a local production of a play about Gilles de Rais. With my pidgin French, I attempted to engage the shop-girl in a conversation about this "ah, le homme que mange les enfants". I gather her history wasn't that hot, since she assumed that I was either *really* bad at french or mad. She called the owner, I suspect for protection rather than clarification, but he was able to clear the matter up. Lesson learnt: do not try to discuss canabalism with strangers in a language you barely speak... Tomandlu (talk) 12:58, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

• Hi Tom, sorry for the late answer and thanks for mentioning the picture in PCPro! --Gilles Tran (talk) 15:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

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