TITLE: Decay
NAME: Thomas de Groot
COUNTRY: Netherlands
EMAIL: t.degroot @inter.nl.net
WEBPAGE: none
TOPIC: Decay
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: tdgdecay.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    Moray 3.5

RENDER TIME: 
    2 hours

HARDWARE USED: 
    Compaq Presario 7000T- Pentium III


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, a place can fall into decay. A once important
cross road is suddenly abandoned. Perhaps, the destination town was destroyed
by war, plague, or some natural disaster; perhaps, simply, the river and the
ford flooded the once praticable road. In any event, no one comes here anymore.
A curious traveller that has lost his way, may perhaps look through the dirty
window panes and discover to his amazement that the table is still dressed for
the last meal, as if the inhabitants fled in a hurry some long forgotten
thread.
Decay comes slowly. A lost wayfarer throwing a stone at some window, alarmed by
the loud shattering of the glass in the still air. A winter storm tearing at
the tiles on the roof, the tall, cold chimneys. Nobody is around to repair the
damage. Birds and small animals slowly take possession of the quiet, hollow
place.
Decay is beautiful. It merges back into nature the handywork of man. Slowly,
history is forgotten.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

The scene was entirely composed in Moray 3.5. The InsertCode plugin was used for
different elements: POV-tree (Gena Obukhov/Tom Aust); sky and reed macros (me);
the ruined wall in the background (Ian Shumsky). Different heightfields were
made with Leveller 2.3, in particular the tracks. The water surface is a
texture by Gilles Tran.
The house was build in an earlier stage as part of a series of five Medieval
houses. Starting "deconstruction" proved to be as fascinating and difficult
sometimes, as constructing it.