TITLE: I Wish... (I could POVRay) / POVRay in 20 minutes / *sigh*
NAME: Tijmen Stam
COUNTRY: The Netherlands
EMAIL: tijmen@stamadvies.nl
WEBPAGE: http://members.home.nl/tstam/ -- not working yet
TOPIC: Dreaming
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. *
JPGFILE: iwish.jpg
ZIPFILE: iwish.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    povray 3.1g for Linux

TOOLS USED: 
    POVRay, GIMP, emacs

RENDER TIME: 
    3 13 (3 minutes that is)

HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD k6 II 400 - 384 MB RAM - 8+8 GB hd (still not enough) -
non-multimedia (no sound card ;-) - keboard, mouse, my hands  

* I submit to the standard copyright, with the note that parts of the image are
not my but Gilles Tran's work... but I've got his permission... 


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


I wish I had more time...
I dare to bet there's no image ever submitted to the IRTC with less time
 invested... I started about 12 o'clock, worked till 4, then went to Borger
 where I ate part of the world's largest Wiener Schnitzel (8.5 KG in one piece
 - we ate it with 15 people) and I was back at 12 so ow it's 1 o'clock so total
 time is 5 hours... (all on 29 june, last day possible)

But the image is full of irony... On the wall is Gilles Tran's "The Wet Bird"
 and on the monitor (19.68" LCD Flatscreen!) is an attempt to recreate it - 
 a totally failed attempt - On the desk is a book with the title: "POVRay in 20
 minutes". Everyone knows that the best you can make in 20 minutes is a ball
 with a shadow or something, POVRay is more a question of 20 days.

The Image on the monitor is an actual screenshot of how I work, emacs on the
 left, povray on the right and two small terminals on top, and an image of a
 pretty girl (in this case: Lauren Ambrose) in the background ;-)

I later added the bridge model, this is an exact model of the Erasmusbrug
 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. This was because the image was a bit empty... The
 best thing was to add a wad of paper, but I didn't know how to do it in the...
 "1 day, 6 hours, 44 minutes, and 22 seconds" (source: IRTC website) remaining.

*BUT* What does this have to do whith dreaming and why Gilles' image? 
Well, my dream is to be a bit better in POV than I am now, even to make images
 as nice as "The Wet Bird". I don't POV enough right now to accomplish that,
 and I want to type everything myself, and this is something I will have to
 unlearn before I can get better... *sigh*

I always wanted to be able to draw in a 3D program, I tried VRML but it wasn't
 versatile enough. Then I got a freeware cdrom with POV on it, and I searched
 a bit for some results and The Wet Bird had just won the IRTC and at first I
 wouldn't beleive that it wasn't a photograph. Thus my interest in POV was
 born, and I still think tWB is one of the best POV images I've seen (Though
 not the best raytraced one. I have one wich even a photographer wouldn't
 beleive it wasn't a photograph.)

BTW, this is *not* my best image, on the contrary... One of my images
 (The Medicine, you can find it in the zip) just uses some 69 lines (even
 counting 12 blank/comment lines) and is very nice, an variuos other ones I
 am happy with.

BTW 2: This image is absolutely IRTC-unworthy. I hope to get an originality
 award, but I'm sober enough to know that I'll probably enter lowest of all
 images ;-) I just think that it's a pretty cool image for just 5h work...


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


At first I recreated "The Wet Bird". This is all just plain boxes, cylinders,
 cone and torii (and a plane, and one clipped_by). I also used the bird from
 the original tWB to sit on the lamp-post using a transperant image_map.
I then made a screenshot of it (still in the POV-window with the sourcecode
 in emacs next to it)
Then I made a new .pov, started with the monitor (putting the screenshot on a
 box with a high ambient value).  
tWB and a frame was added to the wall, a book (a box) on the table (I'm pretty
 happy with the ring binder. It's just a cylinder with a rgbt gradient on it.

Later I added the Erasmusbrug, an earlier project. This is a Mesh file, because
 I got the original plans wich had the coordinates of all corner points...
 Though I haven't come to make the bridgedeck. The bridge adds a full extra
 minute to the render.

I chose the weird format (1024x575) because i got a large empty area when it
 was standard 3x4 ratio...

For any questions: mail me

Tijmen Stam
tijmen@stamadvies.nl 

In the zipfile: the raw sourcefiles (you'll need screenshot.tga, make it
 yourself) and the Medicine








