TITLE: Le Temple du Verre
NAME: Tor Andersson
COUNTRY: Sweden
EMAIL: nerion@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6888
TOPIC: GLASS
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: glschoja.jpg
RENDERER USED: povray 3.01 for msdos
TOOLS USED: hf-lab, form, geodome and text editor.
RENDER TIME: Schoooeeee.... way too long (10:25 hrs 486dx75 800x600 +a0.3)
HARDWARE USED: 
486DX75 and a crappy LCD-monitor.
               (Ok. I admit.. I used an old 486SX66 to preview the images)


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 
It is early spring in the mountains. The buds on the trees are just
bursting out into fresh leaves.
The clouds are parting to let the sun shine through and burn away
the mists flowing heavily like syrup in the deep valleys.

A muddy road leads over a grassy hill with some odd milestones from an
ancient time raised by the sides. The are old pillars have some
crystal spheres hard as diamonds topping them. The globes are remarkably
untouched by the winds of time for their age.

Over the hill a glittering temple comes into view. A hemisphere of
glass rods encasing a crystal innard. A metal spire shoots up into the
sky, twisting about itself three times as if symbolising something
ancient, forgotten.

The temple is guarded by eight twisting spears surrounding it on a hilltop
bathed in mists. The spears are replicates of a golden structure nearby.
A tall thin mountain coated with gold raising from the mists.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 
I started out wanting to make an image sort of like the one on the
cover of the paperback version of "Mistress of the Empire" by
Ray Feist & Janny Wurts. A yellowish, warm, image bustling with the life
of both chojas and plants.

I started out by making the city. A lot of towers, bridges and domes
were bustling through my head. I used geodome.c to make the geodome mesh and
changed all the unions to merges (so you don't see the internal surfaces).
Form to generate the twisting towers. Realizing that it shouldn't be too
complicated since it is far away in the distance I simplified it down to
a temple.

Then I made the mountains with HF-Lab.
The foreground hill was made with bezier patches in Moray.

However, things never turn out the way you want them. After many
test renderings adjusting positions I added the trees (guess where they
came from *grin* -- take a hint: summer competition). I used a camera
looking down from high to place the mountains.

Then I found out... when rendering the Form objects in glass,
the tracer takes about 30 seconds per pixel or more. Heh. I need a Cray!
That's why they are metal.

Then I wanted an effect often seen in the Alps -- a valley filled with
clouds. Easy. Just do a ground fog. However... the image was cold,
not warm as I first intended. Oh, well... Face the facts, this is
not what I wanted... but it sure looks great!

Anyway, that's about it. Two full days worth of burning the math copro :)
Feel free to rip anything out of it, since I did just the same when
making it ;)

END

