EMAIL: gmccarter@hotmail.com
NAME: Glenn McCarter
TOPIC: Night
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: "Serenade"
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/2006/
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.0
TOOLS USED:
  Paint Shop Pro (create heightfield; convert image to JPEG)

RENDER TIME: 1h 11m
HARDWARE USED: Pentium-90

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

 A quiet evening by the bay.
 Walking along the shore, you come upon a gap in the trees.
 Moonlight is reflecting in the gentle waves.
 Do you notice?
 Or do you just continue walking?


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

Not many objects in this scene, rather, it is an exercise in texturing
and lighting.  All modelling was done directly in POV-Ray.

The moon is the most detailed object.  It is a large sphere with 400
random spheres subtracted from the surface, forming craters.  The texture
is a texture_map with two parts: smooth, dull "maria", and bright, jagged
"mountains".  These are combined in a rough bozo pattern.

The water texture is a normal_map combining bumps and marble bump patterns,
and is slightly reflective.  The rocky land is a heightfield, with an
earthlike brown texture.

A halo object covers large areas of the sky, suggesting whispy clouds
and nebulae.  The stars are distant white spheres.

The sky_sphere has a gradual fade from deep blue near the horizon, to
black at the zenith.  Also, it has a small, dark gradient right at
ground level, to eliminate a sharp line at the horizon of the water.

Four types of light sources with subtle light colors are very
important to this scene:
- Sunlight on the moon is extremely bright yellowish white.
  The sun itself is below the horizon, illuminating only the moon.
- Earthshine on the rest of the moon is very dim blue/green
- Moonshine onto the scene is dim yellowish white
- Lit windows are dull yellow light sources