TITLE: War Games
NAME: Mark Wagner
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: mark.wagner17@gte.net
WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Rengaw03/
TOPIC: Warfare
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: wargames.jpg
ZIPFILE: wargames.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.5 beta 6

TOOLS USED: 
    The GIMP, "Display", HF-Lab, BlobMan, 3dWin 4

RENDER TIME: 
    8 minutes 54 seconds

HARDWARE USED: 
    400MHz AMD K6-II

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

"The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men...who deal death
wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming
emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future.  But the crimes
they hope to prevent are imaginary.  The ones they commit in the present - they
are real."

-- _Shards of Honor_

Yes, I deliberately arranged this scene so that the faces of the people standing
around the map are out of the scene.

Owing to time constraints and this thing called "Real Life", I was unable to
complete this image to my satisfaction.  So, you'll just have to imagine the
walls in the background covered with maps.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


The heightfield for the mapboard was created using HF-Lab.  I just kept
modifying the generation parameters until I had a map with the right amount of
height variation: neither a level plain nor a mountainous landscape.  I then
rendered a top view of the resulting heightfield with a y gradient, and loaded
the resulting file into the GIMP, where I painted the roads.  I then exported
the road layer into a separate image file, and layered it over the other map
textures. 

To keep the zipfile size down, the version of "map2.png" included is at 1/3 the
resolution of the original.

The Humvee, M1A2 tank, and T80 tank are based on 3DS models downloaded from the
internet.  These models had been created using commercial textures, so the
image maps the original designer used weren't available to me.  Instead, I used
a procedural camoflage texture I created.

Both the "soldier" figures on the map and the soldiers looking at the map were
created using BlobMan.  All costumes, props, etc. were created specifically for
this image.

How to create a soldier costume file:
Borrow the boots from the "croft.cdf" costume file.  Modify them to fit a
BlobMan.  Give each soldier a cheap gun.  And I do mean cheap -- I'm glad none
of the soldiers looking at the mapboard felt like carrying a rifle.  Copy the
camoflage texture used for the vehicles and apply to certain portions of
BlobMan's anatomy.  Stir well.