TITLE: Mekka NAME: Stephen M. Farrell COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com WEBPAGE: n/a TOPIC: Great Inventions COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: mekka.jpg RENDERER USED: POV-Ray for Windows 3.5 TOOLS USED: POV-Ray for Windows 3.5; Paint Shop Pro 7 (for signature and jpg conversion, and part of monitor image map) RENDER TIME: 1 days 13 hrs 25 mins HARDWARE USED: Pentium 4 2.53 GHz; 1 GB RAM IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Playing off the phrase "build a better mousetrap", the inventor has tried to do so, creating a mechanical cat designed to eliminate mice. But the mice have heard about his plan, and after the inventor has retired for the night, they set about making sure his great invention will never see the light of day.... DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: There's really not much to say this time around... about ninety percent of the scene consists of simple CSG. The hardest part of the scene was definitely the mice, which consist of simple blob components covered with triangles for the fur, along with CSG for the eyes, ears, and other small details. I spent a lot of time trying to get the fur to look good, and I'm reasonably happy with how it came out... the more distant mice look pretty good to me, and the closer ones look all right, at least... not great, but not bad. While loops create "spheres" of triangles, with randomization to make the triangles different lengths and slightly different colors. Other than that, the only objects which aren't CSG are the post-it note (a bezier patch with a text intersection), and various sphere_sweeps (the mouse tails, all wires and cords, the wirecutters, the drawer handle, and the red sine-wave readout on the testing unit (just below and to the right of the rightmost outlet)). Oh, and a simple prism was used for the pieces of the LED display on the clock radio. The screenshot on the monitor was creating by rendering the right side within POV-Ray, and then creating the left side and the error message box with Paint Shop Pro 7. I think it's worth talking about the lighting for a moment, since I think it really helps make the scene what it is. Most of the light comes from a conical light fixture just above camera range, with several other dim lights scattered about. Light from the main source has a slight yellowish-orange cast, while the others have a very pale blue coloring. This helps to increase the contrast between the lighted areas and the more shadowed ones, I think, and really adds to the reality of the scene. And radiosity helps bring it to life. That's about all for this round, I think. As always, any criticisms/comments are definitely appreciated.