EMAIL: slashdolt@hotmail.com NAME: Jeremy M. Praay TOPIC: Old Technology COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Radio Graves COUNTRY: USA WEBPAGE: n/a RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.5 TOOLS USED: Win-Gimp, Windows(TM) Paint, POV-Tree RENDER TIME: 1d 17h 36m HARDWARE USED: AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 512MB RAM IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Cathedral and tombstone radios were very popular in the 1930's. Philco, in particular, made many varieties in the mid 1930's alone (over 100?). The beautifully made radios were often quite expensive, especially for that time-period, sometimes priced at several hundred dollars. But as time wore on, the technology inevitably became cheaper, the components became more standard, and many of these beautiful old radios became too cumbersome and problematic, especially when compared to transister radios. But such beautifully crafted antiques should not just sit in someone's basement to eventually rot away, even if the technology is dead. In the distance is an old farm. The windmill, once vital to the operation of the farm, now stands as a decoration. The rusting silos are empty, since improved transportation means there is no longer a need to store grain for long periods. The farmhouse, which was home to a family of 10, is now only the home of an elderly couple, who often reminisce of the times when the farm was full of activity. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: I knew almost nothing about these radios when I started, but working with this project gave me an appreciation for them. My original idea was simply to create a "1930's room", with various objects from the 1930's. But once I began creating my first radio, I thought "Gee, that looks like a tombstone", and thus the "Radio Graves" idea was born. Later I found that some types were actually referred to as "tombstones". I guess I see why. Creating my first radio took quite awhile, but once I got the process down, I found I could create them much more rapidly. To create a radio, I would first create the basic shape using POV-Ray CSG. I would then create an orthographic map looking straight at the radio, with perhaps some of the very basic features. At that point, I would take the maps and convert to black and white. The faces of each of the radios is one or more heightfields based on these orthographic maps, which I created in Windows Paint and then modified and blurred with Win-Gimp. I then stuck the height-fields onto the front of the radios, and added any textures, dials, knobs, screws, etc. I spent lots of time getting the wood textures to look good, but unfortunately, much of that was lost at this resolution. (I plan to create a super hi-res version later) The radios were based on images I gathered from various sources on the Web. Sometimes I was working with more than one picture, and I really don't recall where they all came from. Some were as a result of Google's image search. However, color pictures of many of these radios can be found at http://archives.radioattic.com, if you want to check them out. The background farm is entirely CSG, including the windmill, as is the road, and the iron fence. The foreground grass was created by using Gilles Tran's MakeGrass macro set (http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/sources01.htm). However, it was "double-layered", meaning that I created the green grass with one set of parameters and textures, and then created the brown (dead) layer using another. It seemed to add a great deal more realism to the grass. The taller grass (weeds) which are barely visible near the radios and around the fences, was created by simply wrapping blades of grass (from MakeGrass) around a cone, and putting it into a macro, adding some variation. The corn was a similar procedure, only on a larger scale. I plan to improve on the corn and the weed creation in the future, as outdoor scenes appeal to me the most. The trees are a result of POV-Tree (I LOVE IT!), Authors: Tom Aust (tree algorithm), Gena Obukhov (Java programming). Gena posted a faster modified version of TOMTREE in the newsgroups, which was used here (TomTreeM.inc). TomTree: http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austv2x.html POV-Tree: http://propro.ru/go/Wshop/tools/tools.html The hills in the far background are a simple isosurface on a cylinder, using Cristoph Hormann's isoCSG library (http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0013390/pov/ic). The texture is from 3D Cafe (www.3dcafe.com/textures/plants12.jpg), although I did adjust the colors slightly using Win-Gimp (less green, more red). But the texture is barely visible at all at this resolution. The image map textures for the grille cloths were used by permission from www.grillecloth.com. (Thank you!) I blurred most of them slightly, using Win-Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32). I briefly tried creating them manually and procedurally, but couldn't make them look as realistic. The clouds were created by using "fast clouds", created by Gilles Tran, Chis Colefax, and others, who posted the source in the POV-Ray newsgroups last year.