TITLE: The Edge
NAME: Ron Gow
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: rgow@lanset.com
TOPIC: Spectacular Landscapes
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: edge_rg
RENDERER USED: 
    Pov-Ray 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    Paintshop Pro 7 used for image maps and conversion to .jpg

RENDER TIME: 28 min 20 sec
    

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium IV 1.8gz
    512 mg RAM


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Who'd believe it, the most spectacular view on the planet, a million and 
a half tourists a day spend gazillions to stare for twenty minutes, and I 
get to see it every day!  And they pay me!

Although, somehow... it seems wrong... I mean sure, the tour's great, you 
get to see the wreckage of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, a few 
flying saucers, occasionally a dragon shows up, but it's not as inspiring 
as when I was a kid...

I think it changed when they put in the first mall and the apartment 
skyscrapers.  Or maybe it was when they passed the state sponsored suicide 
law to try and ease the overpopulation and opened up Lover's Leap. I 
don't know. Sometimes, I can't help but wonder... what if Columbus had 
been right?

Oh well... I guess I should be glad I got this job... I'd better get back
to work, it's almost dawn. 
 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

I started playing with Povray in August and had told myself I would try a 
Povray image this round.  When the topic was announced I started racking 
my brain for something that would fit the topic and still be within my 
limited POV skills. After one particularly hard wrench, this idea fell out. 

This is my first real "scene" beside the tutorials.

The streetlamp is my personal tutorial on lathe and sphere_sweep objects 
(and my first include file).

The sky is an accident.

The ground is my playing around with #while loops and rand() in the 
superellipsoid tutorial.

The fence is my very first macro, takes the overall length and number of 
posts and gives a simple CSG fence centered on the origin.

Telescopes are CSG with prisms and cylinders, set by another #while loop and 
another macro that randomly rotates the head of each one.

Garbage can is CSG.

Signs are image maps made in PSP.

Textures are sweat and eyestrain (oh for a POV texture editor like Bryce's 
DTE! I do like the streetlamp and telescope textures, they just take too 
long to do.)

I like POV lighting. Very easy to get what I want, especially with light 
groups. The streetlight is a lightgroup with global lights and so is the 
top sign. Radiosity was used.

Source is a disaster, if I get around to cleaning it up I'll post it.