TITLE: Early Morning Friend NAME: Ron Gow COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: rgow@lanset.com TOPIC: Great Inventions COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: early_rg.jpg RENDERER USED: PovRay 3.5 TOOLS USED: QtPoveditor, Wings3d, Jpatch, Povtree GIMP used for signature and conversion to .jpg RENDER TIME: 17 hrs 46 min HARDWARE USED: Pentium IV 1.8gz 512 mg RAM IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Some would say that the great inventions are those amazing breakthroughs, like the wheel or the printing press, yet inventors come up with new ideas every day. Few are earthshattering, most are incremental progressions of ideas that have come before. So what makes an invention great? To me, the greatest inventions are the ones we use everyday, the ones that, if suddenly taken away, would alter our daily lives. For me, that has to be the wonderful combination of clock and coffeemaker. Clocks and drip brewers were already invented, but the person who thought of combining them was a genius. No more stumbling around the kitchen with marginally open eyes, trying to brew a pot of coffee, tripping over chairs, spilling things and improvising new swear words while the dog cowers under the table. Now I wake to the aroma of fresh brewed coffee, stumble only as far as the kitchen, where I pour, sit, and suddenly the world stabilises. The dog actually sits next to me unafraid. Now that's a great invention! DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: Carafe modeled in Wings3d. Curtains modeled in Jpatch. Tree outside done in Povtree. Everything else is pure Pov SDL. The table & chairs were already made, from my entry in the Surrealism round. This is actually a very complete kitchen, since my original tests were not looking right without something reflecting in the side of the carafe, so I made a full set of cabinets, stove, oven & refrigerator. Unfortunately, by the time I had finished, the camera had moved and the lights had changed, so you can't see any of it anyways. The reflection now is kitchen window, and if you look very hard, some cabinets. There is also a partially furnished family room to the right which also is not visible in the final. I had originally used an area_light for the sun to soften the shadows, but the combination of area_light, focal_blur & radiosity was not going to finish rendering in time to submit, so I dropped the area light, and reduced the radiosity and focal_blur settings for maximum speed. No source file, its a mess. If anyone wants any of it they can e-mail me. Good luck to all!