TITLE: FIRST CHECKERED FLAG NAME: MIKE CHERRY COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: MIKE.CHERRY@STPAUL.COM WEBPAGE: NONE TOPIC: FIRST ENCOUNTERS COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: wheel.jpg ZIPFILE: wheel.zip RENDERER USED: POV-RAY 3.1 FOR WINDOWS TOOLS USED: MORAY MODELLER, PHOTOSHOP 5.0 FOR WINDOWS TO ADJUST BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. RENDER TIME: 3 HOURS HARDWARE USED: PENTIUM 200MHZ WITH 64 MEG RAM. IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The image shows three futuristic (I like to think electric-powered) formula one type race cars crossing the finish line on a very 'high-tech' race track made from colored glass, or some other similarly smooth, reflective surface (I love ray-tracing for its reflective personality !!). DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: This is my first attempt at using BEZIER PATCHES to create a complex structure. The image was created using the Moray shareware modeller, which I've been experimenting with only for a very short time. Moray has been very easy to learn and use, yet very powerful. Although I usually create POV-ray files from scratch in the editor, bezier patches are much easier to do with a modelling program. Most of the car's body parts were created using BEZIER PATCH OBJECTS that need to be EDITED to get to the correct 3d shape. This involves shifting control points, which can be selected individually, or in groups by dragging a box around them. Notice that the cone-shaped body panel just in front of the windshield is actually a slanted CYLINDER. The cylinder is tilted in such a way as to make it come to a point on the car's front area, which makes it look like it's a cone, but it's not. I like doing things this way because it seems to allow for more flexibility in design; by moving things around just a little bit, you can get a totally different look. The most difficult part of the process is to get all of the newly created parts (BEZIER PATCHES, BOXES, CYLINDERS, etc. ) to line up in the modelling windows. I needed to constantly check all of the views and then perform test renderings until it looked right. I always do test renderings at a low resolution (160x120 usually), with no anti-alias, and preview_start set to 4. Once I had a car built, I then needed to create the track, wall and background building, and the lights, which are SPOTLIGHTS shining down onto the track. The light-housings are just SPHERES with ambience set to 1. The second and third cars were created by first copying the original car, then assigning new textures, and TRANSLATING the additional cars to new positions in the modelling windows.