TITLE: Fairy Tale NAME: Sonya Roberts COUNTRY: Canada WEB PAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Soho/Lofts/1022 EMAIL: Sonya_Roberts@geocities.com TOPIC: Glass COPYRIGHT: I submit to the standard raytracing competition JPGFILE: fairytal.jpg ZIPFILE: fairytal.zip RENDERER USED: POVRay 3.01.watcom.Win32 Pentium Optimised , POVRay 3.01.msdos.wat-cwa TOOLS USED: Adobe Photoshop 3.0 to add file info and convert to JPG. John Beale's HF-Lab for creation of height fields. Texture Magic 0.95 for creation of the different jewel textures. 3D Studio Max and the MetaMax plugin to create the mesh for the swan boats, WCTV2POV was used to translate it to POV smooth triangles. My own nested-loop "tree.pov" files for the foreground trees. POVRay 3.01 Windows interface (with customized insert menu) for all coding and test renders. My unassisted and overworked brain to layout and plan objects. RENDER TIME: Rendered in seven sections over three days using both the Windows and DOS versions of POVRay (DOS version renders in approx. 73 of time needed by Windows version). Total time, including being parsed seven times, is roughly 51 hours, 28 minutes. HARDWARE USED: Pentium Pro 200 w/64 meg memory and Matrox Millenium 2mg Graphics Card IMAGE DESCRIPTION: There was a king with seven daughters (though some say it was twelve). Every day a new pair of dance slippers was made for them. Every morning when they woke up, the slippers were worn out. If the slippers were withheld, they'd wake with their feet blistered and sore. In desperation, the King offered half his kingdom and the hand of any of his daughters in marriage to whomever solved the mystery. Anyone who wished to try would be allowed to stay in the princesses' chamber for three nights to see what happened. Many princes, lords, dukes, earls, barons, knights, etc., tried, but they all failed. Came a poor soldier to the kingdom. Coming across an old woman in distress, he helped her out - she was of course a fairy, testing mortals to see if they remembered to be kind and good to all living things. In gratitude for his help, she told him to go try his luck with the mystery, and give him a ragged cloak: "Wrap this around your shoulders, and you'll be invisible. But take care not to eat or drink anything offered you after the door is closed for the night". The poor soldier went to the castle, and asked to try to solve the mystery. The King was so desperate by now that he allowed the soldier to do so - "But," he said, "It is not right that someone as lowly as you should spend the night with my daughters. If you fail, you will be killed. Are you still so sure that you would like to try to solve the mystery?" The poor soldier insisted that he was still willing. The king was pleased by his bravery, and secretly regretted his harsh promise. That night he was brought to the princesses' room, and led to a pallet in the corner. Then the door was closed and locked for the night. The eldest daughter (or perhaps it was the yougest - who can tell?) came over and prettily offered him a warm drink before bed. Forgetting the fairy's advice, he drank, fell into a stupor, and slept the night. Waking the next morning, he saw the worn-out slippers hanging from the foot of each princesses' bed, remembered the fairies advice, and cursed himself as a fool. The second night he remembered not to drink, but stupidly accepted a sweetmeat from the youngest princess (or perhaps it was the eldest). Again he slept the night away, waking to find the slippers worn to rags, and himself a fool yet again. The third night he was better prepared, and when offered the cup only pretended to drink, pouring the drugged wine onto a cloth he'd previously hidden beside his pallet. When offered the sweetmeat, he only pretended to eat it, and hid it beneath his pillow. Pretending to be asleep, he watched through slitted eyes as the princesses leaped out of bed, hurriedly dressed in fine gowns and jewels, and put on their dancing shoes. Wrapping the ragged cloak about his shoulders, he followed them as they snuck away through a hidden trapdoor in the corner. Down, down, down they went along a near-endless staircase - staying close to the princesses so as not to lose the light of their candles, he accidently trod on the hem of the oungest princesses' dress. She cried out in fright "We are being followed! Someone just trod on my hem!" but as he could not be seen the eldest princess said that she was imaging things and they continued on their way. Finally the staircase ended at a vast cavern. They now followed a lighted path through an orchard of fabulous trees, trees of gold and silver with leaves and fruits of finest gemstones. "I must have a souvenir of this", thought the soldier, and reaching up he broke off a small twig. The youngest princess cried out again "A branch just cracked! We are being followed!" but again she was told that she was imagining things, for no one could see the soldier in his cloak of invisibility. Now they came to a lake in the center of the cavern, and on an island in the lake was a castle of terrible aspect, and at the side of the lake waited seven boats (or perhaps it was twelve) with a dark prince in each - some say they were the demon sons of the witch that was the princesses' stepmother. Others that they were Lords of Hell. No one, of course, really knows. Each princess stepped in a boat and was brought across the lake. The poor soldier stepped into a boat with the youngest princess, who by now was so terrified that all she did was shiver when she felt the boat sink deeper into the water. Across the lake they went, and at the island the princesses left the boats and entered the castle, where they danced and danced and danced until their slippers wore out. Before they left, each was offered a draught out of a fine golden goblet by their dance partner. The poor soldier stole a cup, and followed them back to the surface. Scarecly had they fallen into bed when it was morning. The soldier gathered up the cup, branch, sodden cloth, and sweetmeat, wrapping them in his cloak of invisibility and thereby carrying them beneath his arm without anyone noticing. He was brought before the king, and told his story of the trapdoor, the endless stairway, the orchard of fabulous trees, and the castle of dark aspect on the island in the lake where the princesses' danced with dark princes all night long. The eldest princess scoffed at his tale. "What proof do you have," she asked, "that this is not just some wild story?" Without a word, he flung open his ragged cloak, displaying the jeweled branch, the golden goblet, the cloth soaked in drugged wine, and the drugged sweetmeat. Each of the princesses was made to drink from the golden cup. The spell was broken - the princesses would dance no more. Some say the stepmother shrieked and sunk into the earth, her pact with Hell broken. Some say the dark princes were ensorcelled themselves, to dance a year beneath the earth for each night they'd danced with the princesses. Some say the poor soldier married the youngest princess. Some say he married the eldest. Some say he went on to have further adventures. Who can know? Who can tell? It's just a fairy tale, after all. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: I wanted to create a scene that illustrated what the cavern and the trees of the fabulous orchard looked like. The cavern itself was easily created using a height field generated with HF-Lab, while I used my own nested-loop tree generation routine to create the two trees and bushes visible at the front of the picture; they are, clockwise from upper left, as follows: - A silver tree with amethyst fruit and peridot leaves - A gold tree with blue topaz fruit and light emerald leaves - A brass bush with ruby fruit and peridot leaves - A copper bush with amber fruit and dark emerald leaves Two swan-shaped boats made of white opal are floating in the lake. The mesh for the swans was created in 3D Studio Max using the freeware "MetaMax" metaballs plugin, and the resulting mesh translated into POV format (smooth triangles) with the WCTV2POV utility. The white opal texture (along with all the other jewel textures) was created using Texture Magic. There is a railing around the edge of the lake and the island; the rail itself is obsidian (volcanic glass), with spindles of faceted diamond. The lamps lighting the cavern are glowing crystal eggs raised up on stanchions. The bonfire inside the castle also casts light, though it's yellow rather than gray like the other lights are. I wanted the "castle of terrible aspect" to have an "evilly organic" look, which I felt the taffy-like shapes of julia fractals were easiest to use for. The castle is therefore made of a single julia fractal object, rotated and unioned with itself three times. I found it interesting to discover that the julia fractal objects does NOT look quite like three different views of the same object; instead, it looks like three slightly different versions of similar objects. I gave it the standard "Glass1" smoked glass texture, as I didn't want it to be as dark as the obsidian.