TITLE: Baltimore Neighborhoods
NAME: Stephen M. Farrell
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com
WEBPAGE: n/a
TOPIC: The City
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: bmore01.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.1

TOOLS USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.1; Paint Shop Pro 3.12 (for image
compression)

RENDER TIME: 
    38 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium II 266; 64 mg RAM
FONTS USED: Arial; Lucida Calligraphy; Marker; Times New Roman


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

  After some thought, I decided to go with urban renewal as my concept for this
round.  My picture concentrates on a single block in the process of renovation,
contrasting older, shabbier rowhouses with the newer, fancier townhouses
they're being replaced with. 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

  (First, I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my last entry.  I found
the comments very insightful and helpful to me in avoiding some of the mistakes
I made last time around.)

  I started with the two main buildings.  I decided to try using heightfields
this time around, so I created a brick object and used a double while loop to
place them, added texturing, and then rendered them as heightfields.  I had
some problems figuring out how to cut holes out of the heightfields, but
managed to work around it and create the door and window openings.  The door
and windows are simple CSG for the most part, except for the broken window on
the right, which uses prisms for the shards of glass.

  After getting the exteriors of the main buildings looking decent, I fleshed
out the scene by adding the other buildings.  Since I wanted to keep the focus
on the two in the foreground, I used less detail on the rear buildings...
they're simple boxes with brick textures on them.

  The next step was the main lighting... I wanted to try to make the lighting
interesting, so I decided to go with a night scene, and adjusted the exterior
lighting accordingly.  Obviously, I then needed a night sky, so I created a
skysphere using six different pigment layers... four for the clouds (each layer
is scaled slightly larger, slightly brighter, and more transparent), one plain
dark-blue layer, and a final starfield layer.  (The starfield could use some
work, I know... I think the number of stars is about right (very few show up
due to the reflected light from the city), but the placement could use some
more work.)

  Then it was just a matter of adding some finishing touches... the interior
walls and lighting, plus some simple objects for furniture.  Sidewalks, street,
alley, and miscellaneous items (trash barrels, hydrant, parking sign, soda can,
etc) are all simple CSG.  Oh, and the graffiti is a very simple example of
polygons, and the signature is a text object (meant to represent someone
scrawling on the street with blue chalk).  

  Again, I'd like to say that I'd really appreciate any constructive criticism
and comments people care to make.  And that's it, I guess... See you all next
round!