"Kithrup" by Steve Sloan

EMAIL: sloan@geosim.msfc.nasa.gov

NAME: Steve Sloan

TOPIC: Science Fiction

COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.

RENDERER USED: Povray for Windows Version 3.0 (PovWin 3.0)

TOOLS USED: "Terrain Maker" was used for the heightfield, and "Wc2pov" by
    Keith Rule was used to convert the 3DS dolphins (from 3D Cafe) to POV
    2.0 format. I have lost the name of the artist who made the dolphin
    models, but thank him/her for their use.
    
RENDER TIME: 3h 53m 09s

HARDWARE USED: 486 DX4-100, Windows 3.1 with Win 32s

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:  This image is based on a scene from the novel
   _Startide_Rising_ by David Brin. According to the cover blurb:
   "The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed on the uncharted
   water-world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in
   galactic history. Above, in space, armadas of alien races clash in a
   titanic struggle to claim her. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin
   crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her
   secret-- the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded
   wisdom throughout the stars."

   The damaged Streaker landed on the ocean floor of Kithrup, so the
   "crewfen" (the dolphin members of her crew) could make repairs while the
   ship was in hiding. Each fin has a work harness, with manipulator arms for
   repair work, and water-jet impellers for fast propulsion.

   In this scene, Captain Creideiki (a fin) inspects one of the ship's
   detector bouys, while a school of metallic-scaled native fish swims by.
   Streaker looms in the background.

   Note the two JPEGs included in Kithrup.ZIP. They were my inspiration for
   this scene. Fin_Sled.JPG, a picture of a dolphin wearing a work sled, was
   scanned from an illustration by David Cherry, and Streaker.JPG, a line
   drawing of Streaker, was scanned from the book.
   
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:  I coded everything but the
   dolphins directly into POV, using CSG functions like union, difference,
   etc., and primitives like spheres, cylinders, boxes, and tori. Individual
   parts were constructed, tested, then placed into the final scene.

   Note the school of fish. I used while loops to create a regular 3D grid
   of individual fish, to simulate the natural orderliness of fish in
   "formation", but added a slight random offset to each fish's position, to
   keep their "ranks" from looking too perfect. I used metallic textures for
   each fish, like "New_Penny" and "Soft_Silver", because the world of
   Kithrup has much more metal than Earth, and its seas are full of metal
   salts, which are incorporated into the scales and bones of all its
   creatures.