TITLE: Night Light NAME: Dale E. Cieslak COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: dcieslak@yahoo.com WEBPAGE: http://members.tripod.com/~DCieslak TOPIC: Landmarks COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: pharos.jpg RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.1 for Windows TOOLS USED: Moray 3.1, Photoshop 4.0 RENDER TIME: 02h 01m 15s HARDWARE USED: Homegrown Pentium 100, 32 MB RAM, 2MB Matrox Millenium IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The Pharos of Alexandria was the very first lighthouse, and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Built in 1000 BC, it sadly no longer exists today, but this is what it may have looked like. At night a large flame burned, visible for many miles. During the day, a large mirror or lens reflected the sun's rays. Legend has it that the focused sunlight could actually be used to burn enemy ships while they were still far off. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: Well, I made several unsuccessful attempts at this topic, but while waiting to eat at a local dinner w/attached gift shop, I picked up a book on lighthouses. I happened upon a drawing of this ancient lighthouse, and it struck me as a great idea. So when I got home I looked it up on the Web, and found a few pics to work from. The tower itself was created entirely in Moray, as were the boats. The height field for the hills was created in Photoshop, using the "Clouds" filter, then smoothed at one side to create a valley for the water to be in(I can explain further if anyone is curious). The image map for the hills was hand colored from the height map with some noise and other stuff thrown in. The boats were placed by hand in the POV editor. The sky was created with a sky sphere gradient and a image map of stars. The "moonlight" effect was achieved using a blue area light from the front left of the scene for the shadows, with a light gray point light on the right. The flame is my first attempt at "media" so please be kind. :) Sorry for no source, but I was in a hurry to submit. If anyone wants the source, I will gladly e-mail it to you.