It is called the Book of Beginnings because the stories do not have any endings. They stop after a few lines, right in the middle of a sentence.
I'm too lazy to go on. All the fun is in writing the first lines. A real writer could probably make something of them. There won't be a "Book of Endings" (which sounds like a downer anyway).
There is no strong relation between the picture and the story. The story is a spin-off inspired by the picture, or sometimes by the context in which the picture was made. They are indeed quite independent, though one may shed occasionally some (dim) light on the other.
Of course, you can use the images as wallpaper, or print them for your private enjoyment ! If you want to put them on a web site I'll probably agree, but I'd appreciate that you ask for permission before, unless it's just a thumbnail with a link to these pages.
About source code and larger images, I don't provide anything that could be used in a commercial way without me knowing it (I'm open to sensible business proposals, though...). Images of mine have been already used (without my consent) to endorse causes that I don't support, so this is not 100% theoretical. l do provide some material such as objects, macros, "making of" and tutorials here. Also, if you have some particular question about how something was made, I'll be happy to answer. In the future, I may put larger images on line but since no decision has been taken yet, only close-ups of recent images are available (look for [Detail] below the images, for instance in Mouseless).
The second reason is that organising sources/images etc. to be used by someone else takes a lot of time: not only the files are usually very messy, but they all have to be rewritten for the latest POV version, official or patched. Another problem is that the most recent scenes take 40-50 MB of disc space, due to large meshes and image maps.
The last reason is that almost all the scenes use Poser models, which are copyrighted by their respective makers and cannot be disseminated, even in a converted form.
The first version of Book of Beginnings in 1996 didn't have stories. The 1997 version had some stories in French, and people started asking for translations (some even kindly offered to help). In 1998, I introduced a totally bilingual version of the Book, so that non-French speaking readers could enjoy the stories or, at least, make use of the links and various comments. Since I'm not a native English speaker, this was quite a challenge. There are now more than 80 pseudo-literary fantasies in the Book. Asking for free help would be unfair due to the amount of work necessary (even for a professional translation service that I can't afford). So, after translating the original stories myself (from French to UK English), I started writing the new stories directly in English and made the French versions afterwards. This is very time-saving, since I don't have to translate contorted Gallic puns anymore. Instead, I write in English according to my own level in this language. Since the 1998 edition was out, I haven't received negative comments from English or American readers. Some people corrected my spelling in a few cases and a few others actually encouraged me to continue. However, I still want to apologise in advance for all the (numerous I fear) occurences where my use of the English language will seem awkward, inappropriate, unintelligible or just wrong. The English versions are here to give you an idea of what the stories are about, and are not supposed to be written in the good, literary English I enjoy so much.
Due to my low productivity (less than 20 pictures a year), the site gets updated once a year. The next update is due in somewhere in the middle on 2001.
The main tool used to create the pictures in the Book of Beginnings is Persistence of Vision (POV, Povray or POV-Ray™ for short), a free 3D renderer that generates high quality computer graphics. The POV-Ray images are hand-coded in the programming language specific to it. Most objects are created through a modelling technique called Constructive Solid Geometry, that consists in combining, substracting or intersecting simple shapes like spheres, cylinders or boxes. Other objects are modelled with specific tools, and other ones are found in the Internet. As a rule, the pictures are not digitally altered after the initial rendering, though in some cases the contrast and colour saturation have been enhanced. In the edition 2000, one image was rendered in Bryce 3D and 2 animations were rendered directly in Poser.
POV-Ray is a free ray-tracer that generates still images and animations. Big thanks go to the POV-team and to its present co-ordinator Chris Cason, and to the previous one Chris Young for developping this extraordinary tool.
To use POV-Ray, you need to learn a rather simple (at first) programming language that describes all the elements that will be present in your scene : objects, textures, light sources... You can download scripts examples in the Macros & sources page. The resulting text file, like a music score, is then executed by POV-Ray and rendered into a picture. POV-Ray is a very powerful and versatile tool, mainly aimed at amateurs, though it can also be used in professional situations, like scientific illustration or teaching. You can achieve a lot with POV-Ray. Keep in mind, however, that complex scenes and animations will require time and patience. In terms of sheer productivity, POV-Ray cannot compete with professional tools like 3D Studio Max, Lightwave, Maya or Softimage, but the "market" is different.
All POV-Ray versions from 1.0 (1993) to 3.1 (1999) were used to create these pictures. One specific POV-Ray feature is that some advanced users develop customised versions, or "patches", to add functionalities that do not exist in the official version. In fact, since 1997, most of the images have been made with one patch or another : first the isosurface patch of Ryoichi Suzuki (between 1997 et 1998), then the Superpatch of Ron Parker (1998 and 1999), and finally Megapov by Nathan Kopp (1999-2000).
POV-Ray can be downloaded at http://www.povray.org. This web site contains also the program sources and a bounty of POV-Ray related information, particularly a gigantic library of graphic-related links maintained by Linkmaster (and overall nice guy) Ken Tyler. Also worth mentionning are:
Poser is a commercial programme by Larry Weinberg (CuriousLabs) which lets you pose and animate realistic human and animal characters. Unless indicated otherwise, human and animal characters in this site were created with Poser (versions 1 to 4) and exported as meshes to be used in POV-Ray. Note that many Poser creatures are actually from Zygote Media. Here is a good Poser resource page : http://www.renderosity.com.
I used Bryce 3D (found on the Poser CD-ROM !) for one scene. Setting up this particular scene would have been very difficult in POV due to the amount of memory necessary.
Thomas Baier's 3DS2POV converts 3DS files to the mesh2 format (in Megapov) and keeps the uv-mapping info, which is essential when working with Poser meshes, for instance.
Crossroads is a conversion tool for 3D files created by Keith Rule. Crossroad converts the main 3D formats (DXF, 3DS, OBJ...) to POV-Ray meshes (without the uv information). Crossroads is mandatory when you use a modeller that doesn't export to POV-Ray. Crossroads can be downloaded at http://www.europa.com/~keithr/Crossroads/index.html.
Steve Cox's UVMapper lets you add uv-mapping to objects (in Wavefront *.obj format), or change the uv-mapping info. It produces the uv-mapping template (later to be painted over) and, if necessary, a modified *.obj file. You'll need to convert this file to a mesh format, and to use a version of POV-Ray that recognise uv-mapping (such a POV 3.5 and Megapov). For more info about uv-mapping, see the UVMapper page or see the tutorial here for uv-mapping meshes in POV-Ray.
There are many tools available that work with POV-Ray. Here is a short selection of some popular ones:
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