TITLE: Desert of the Hex Maze

NAME: Brian S House
COUNTRY: United States of America

EMAIL: b_house_42@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: Non at this moment. I may make on soon, or never.

TOPIC: July - August 2004 DESERT
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: bshexfld.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Linux - Povray 3.6


TOOLS USED: 
    The only outside tool used was KPaint 0.6.2 for conversion from .PNG
to .JPG


RENDER TIME: 
    About 35 minutes


HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD Tbird 850 running at 935Mhz, 256Mb Ram
  

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

      This is my first realy attempt at using POV-Ray, and my first attempt at
  entering the competition.  It may be a slightly boring immage, however it
  accomplished most of what I was looking for.  I may not have my .txt file
  formated completly either, if so I apologize.
      When I looked at the IRTC about two weeks ago to see what the competition

  was, I was originally struck with the thought of a vast plane, which I 
  quickly decided was boring.  Then I decided that if I could make a maze out 
  of boxes  it could make the desert vastness more extreme, the thought of 
  having to work your way through this huge maze.  I actually got that scene to

  render, and it looked good, but I wanted more.  After some playing with the 
  boxes it struck me that hexagons can create a plane.
      The first thing I would have to do is make a repeatable hex-box, which 
  with the use of a little math was easy.  Next was to figure out how to put it

  into a maze grid.  Using the same basic random placement from the box maze, 
  and applying new translations I was able to make the first Hex maze.  I liked

  the look of this better, however it lacked several things.  I decided it 
  would look better if I could make the hex-boxes hallow and in the empty spots

  put in smaller hex-boxes.  I liked the way this filled out, but I still 
  wanted more realism from it.
      I gave each hex a random Y-displacement which gave it that look of each 
  block being independent.  I liked the look of this, however in the horizon 
  now I was noticing that it formed a point instead of a straight line/ slight 
  curve that a horizon is suppose to have.  I over came this by applying an if 
  statement that only let the hex's with in a given radius to be created.  That

  helped a lot however now it gave the horizon a funny jagged edge, I helped 
  solve this by adjusting the Y-displacement to be slightly more negative as it

  the farther it got from the horizon.  That worked, I had more ideas which I 
  haven't been able to apply.
      Now my hex-boxes are all in a good location, making nice jagged edges and
  the works, the only problem now is that the edge of a box is smooth, sharp, 
  unnatural.  I spent several days working on a new box type that produced 
  rough edges based off of a 3d-point-field adjustment, and small bicubic-
  patches.  I was able to get the hexes built, give the walls random edges, a 
  little more natural looking.  Unfortunately, I was unable to render the scene
  with enough to make it look "real," a 10 X 20 rough-hex-field just didn't do 
  it for me.  So I have decided to put that part of the project in the back 
  burner and just send in the scene I know I can send in.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

      The scene was build with a sphere for the sky, lighting and camera setup. 

  The hex-maze was created using a union.  The union was created to lay out the
  hexesin an "x-z" pattern giving each hex a random choice for being either 
  hallow or solid, and a random and adjusted height variation.  First the in a
  nested whileloop a test was run to see if the hexes were with in a certain 
  radius.  If theywere with in the radius the first hex was randomly chosen as 
  hallow or small, and given its locations.  Then the second offset hex was 
  randomly chosen and given locations.  After this the loop adjusted, and
ground
  was formed and given its texture.
  
      Radiosity options were used to help give the picture a brighter more 
  ominous look to it.  I wanted it to feel big, and like you could feel as 
  though you could walk across if you followed the right combination of turns, 
  maybe you can maybe you can.