Sort of…
Model is made mathematically via BAG (see cvs.blender.org, bstar repository) the rest is plainly an area light with AO,
just to say I still blend sometimes 
Stefano
:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o
First reply ???
(I wonder why ugly pictures always get more posts than the good ones like this)
Amazing results Stefano! :o
/me adds BAG to my list of things I absolutely must check out 
RobertT
Cool stuff Stefano.
Nice to see you actually rendering with an area lamp instead of a sun lamp too. 
I knew I would convince you eventually.
BgDM
Can you post a direct link to what BAG is because it sounds good. Simple, but has a great result.
Nice job man. I love your work! My favorite render of yours is the “Meeting”. Very inspiring style.
What exactly is BAG? I will have to check this out.
TraceR
P.S. How did you make the shadow fade out and get fuzzy at the end? I have been trying to figure out how to make raytraced shadows do this. The one thing I don’t like about raytraced shadows, is, that they often are just to hard edged to be realistic. You managed to give the edges of the shadow here a nice and soft edge. How did u do this?
Nice image, (it somewhat makes me think of a stack of ropes).
And that “Blender Analytic Geometry” stuff looks cool… I just tried a few things, playing with the various parameters (but not the kind of equations… gah… remind me of school, maths, bleh )
Right now I made a lot of strange “seashells” with BAG, but maybe I should read the doc too, eh 
Anyway, I think I’m going to love this script, thank you Stefano 
mhhhmmm … bag’o’trickz …
8)
Stefano is very clever person. I don’t remember when he did something without his speciall “fireworks”:).
I wonder if geometric robots are the right way of using blender. … Anyway looks very nice. I didn’t see something like that anywhere.
How does it work? You have to type in your own function ?
Indeed. It reminds me ropes too.
It looks like a dog turd or a huge cow-pie.
just use an area lamp. that is what they are for. they are just an array of small point lights. To get it soft turn on raytracing and raise the lamp’s samples. turn on dither and noise for better quality.
and that is some very nice work.
what is the equation? (is that the right thing to ask?)
:o that is very cool
Thanx malefico, robertt, tedi, extol and BgDM… hehe… yes, area light are quite nice :)…
kansas direct link is http://projects.blender.org/viewcvs/viewcvs.cgi/bstar/BAG/?cvsroot=bstar
.:[email protected]:. BAG is a script to generate parametric surfaces… i’m trying to get curves too, but 2.36 API has some flaws, so I’m waiting 2.37 for that …
For the fading shadow… that’s an area light , as BgDM said. A fairly big one indeed.
rore stack of ropes? My wife said something different %|
Burt.S. Well, you cannot blend only with “geometric robots” but they can be of great use 
Anyway BAG works on two levels. A user level, where you can play with the parameters of an equation to change the results (make it thinner-longer etc. but without changing the basic shape, wich is dictated by the equations, and a Wizard level, where you can define your own equation. Python is not bat for flexibility so it was fairly easy to implement a mathematical interpreter.
In the link given above there is DOC too
cmtlover This is much closer to what my wife said
SamAdam The equation is the spiral one in BAG demo, slightly modified. parameter r1 is not constant but modulated by a sinusoidal function… I don’t have the .bag file here with me but I can post it later.
Stefano
well to me it looks like a sculpture.
I like it.
.b
Heh. Ok. I’v got it, i’got both of them :). First doc than pleasure and playing with script ;).
I’m broken. I wondered what i can do with Maya. Go closer to your window and look trough it. Sic…it’s so easy, fast with alias … blender, here everything depends on you, that is why work with blender is such pleasure. Maya is not painfull enough haha
just use an area lamp. that is what they are for. they are just an array of small point lights. To get it soft turn on raytracing and raise the lamp’s samples. turn on dither and noise for better quality.[/quote]
I thought how it worked was just to increase the size of the square using it’s value box so it makes soft shadows how soft depending on the scale of the scene.