TITLE: Ray of Hope
NAME: Mick Hazelgrove
COUNTRY: UK
EMAIL: mick@mhazelgrove.fsnet.co.uk
WEBPAGE: www.mhazelgrove.fsnet.co.uk
TOPIC: Sea
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: rofh.jpg
ZIPFILE: rofh.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    MegaPov 0.5a

TOOLS USED: 
    Leveller, Hammapatch, Poser, CorelPaint, 3dWin v3.2, OBJuvPOV

RENDER TIME: 
    Sky approx 12 hours, Sea approx 30 hrs.

HARDWARE USED: 
    800mhz Athalon 256mb Ram

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


Based on a real incident, two fishermen battle to repair the damage to their
dismasted boat. One steers to keep the boat off the rocks while the other hauls
in the sails. The sun suddenly burst through the clouds raising their spirits,
giving them hope.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


Firstly due to the very long rendering time(3 months) the picture was rendered
in two halves and then joined in Corel Photopaint.

The sky is media - the rays of light are simply the consequence of beaming a
light 93million pov units away through media clouds and a media atmosphere,
they are not faked in any way. It is an effect I've been after for a long time,
so long that I wondered if it was possible! The clouds are a little flat I had
to use more than one interval and a fairly high sampling rate to avoid nasty
artifacts, this, combined with fog has flattened them more than I would have
liked. But attempts to give them more interesting destroyed the light effect,
as ever what you see is a compromise.

The sea is based on a suggestion of Marc Schimmler's of using a marble pigment
for water. Having generated a 2000x2000 Heightfield I then modified it in Corel
PhotoPaint. The Hf was created so large because I wanted to avoid joining
artifacts.

The seagulls are from stock, an inc file I wrote some time ago. As is the basic
boat. I have added a mast, bowsprit and chain, assorted ropes, a rear
compartment and seats to the boat. I would have added more but every tiny
detail seemed to add a disproportionate amount of time to the render. The sails
were created in hammapatch as were the oilkins on the Poser figures. It took a
long time and alot of fiddling to get them to fit! I don't think I'd make a
good tailor! The figures have jumpers, jeans and once had boots but I removed
those during an attempt to reduce render time. The faces, beards etc were UV
mapped onto the figures with OBJuvPOV. The Rocks were, I think created in
Leveller. The shells are Isosurfaces and are placed on the rocks using trace.
The starfish are a bit of fun and are simple CSG constructs.

Not all the files are incuded in the Zip File I am more than happy to supply
them on request.

Mick Hazelgrove