TITLE: A Roome for Playing Sweet Musick
NAME: Caleb Hines
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: bachmusic1@netscape.net
TOPIC: Music
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: aroome.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    MegaPOV 1.0/PovRAY 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    Gimp 2.0, SpilinEditor 1.2

RENDER TIME: 
    ~47 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium III, 900 MHz, Windows ME (shudder)



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Musical instruments were a popular topic for still lifes in the Renaissance Era,
and lutes and recorders were two of the most popular instruments to portray.
This particular image boasts an extnsive collection of Renaissance-style
recorders, along with a virginal (or clavichord), a lute, and a tambourine. A
consort has just finished a practice session, and left their instruments out.
Or perhaps they're just taking a quick break for some food.

This round began in March, which is "Play the Recorder Month" according to the
American Recorder Society; thus as a member of this organization, I had no
trouble in deciding to portray a room full of recorders. And what a collection
of them! The large stand in the background, next to the virginal, holds two
Bass Recorders in F, Two ContraBass Recorders in C, and a nearly-8-foot-tall
Great Bass Recorder in F (an octave lower)! These gargantuan recorders (and
their stand) were modelled after some real specimins created by a recorder
builder I know. The table holds a Tenor, two Altos (aka Trebles) and two
Sopranos (aka Discants).



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

Alot of research went into this image. I knew I wanted an interior still life
with instruments, mostly recorders. I did some research on the Web Gallery of
Art <http://www.wga.hu/> and observed what other Renaisance artists had done
with the theme of music. Then I drew a sketch and began hand-coding everything
in POV-Ray. Everything is simple CSG, with the exception of the fabrics, which
were made with the simcloth feature in MegaPOV.

I began with the walls and floor (and the "wainscoat") then went on to the
virginal. I discovered that online catalogs are great sources for reference,
especially if they give dimensions and pictures of their products. I had a hard
time finding good pattern images to use for the fabric (tablecloth, curtains),
and for a while, I thought I would have to draw my own, so I checkd out Owen
Jones' "The Grammar of Ornament" from the local library. It was a fascinating
book, but I eventually found some free useful textures at
<http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/texture/>.

Most of the coding went quite smoothly, and I was able to try several "new" (for
me, anyway) techniques, such as:
- A non-standard aspect ratio for the final image. I like the way this turned
out!
- Major use of radiosity and area lights. I'm still practicing... it takes soooo
loooong!
- Use of simcloth. (same comment as above.)
- Use of free textures from the internet.
- Using PNG's with transparency (created in GIMP) as image_maps.
- Use of previous IRTC entries in image_maps (see acknowledgements below).
  (The inside cover of the virginal and the painting on the wall)
- Use of heightfields (also created in GIMP) to create and/or shape images with
CSG.
  (The "rosette" inside the lute, and the leg of the music stand, though I'm not
entirely pleased with it)
- Use 3rd party software to create some lathe and prism shapes.
  (The music stand and the legs on the clavichord)

I think my main problem is the lighting. The area lights and radiosity help it
alot, but I didn't have the time to experiment with different settings. One of
the other few problems I encountered was losing fine details in the image, such
as the strings on the lute, the pages on the books, and the notes on the sheet
music. I rendered at a larger size, and then scaled down slightly when I
converted to jpg in GIMP. I should also mention that the music shown on the
table is the first half of the soprano part of a Pavanne I wrote a while back
(in Renaissance style), but it is too difficult to read, even at extremely
large resolution.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First off, I'd like to give a *HUGE* thanks to Mick Hazelgrove and Ian MacKay
for letting me use their previous IRTC entries "Lord of the Hunt" (July/August
2001: Fantasy and Mystic) and "16court" (March/April 2003: Architecture)
(respectively) in my submission. My image would not have looked nearly so good
without them. Many thanks to my family for putting up with me spending so much
time on this, and for their helpful critiques. I'd also like to thank Paul
Bourke for his free textures website, and Alessandro Falappa for SpilinEditor,
both of which made my life alot easier. Of course, I shall always be eternally
grateful to the developers of POV-Ray and The GIMP for providing such terrific
free software!!! And last but certainly not least, thanks to the IRTC
administrators for providing such a fun outlet for my artistic endeavors.
Thanks!