TITLE: "Asteroid Miner"
NAME: Robert J Becraft
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: castlewrks@aol.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6080            http://user.aol.com/castlewrks/metaphaze/frisco/frisco.htm

TOPIC: NIGHT
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: astminer.jpg
ZIPFILE: astminer.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POVRAY 3.02 for DOS running under OS/2 Warp

TOOLS USED: 

           POVRAY for render, sPatch for asteroid, 
           Paint Shop Pro for copyright and title

RENDER TIME: 
    Just under 18 hours, 61meg

HARDWARE USED: 
    233mmx

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

_________________________________________
 An Introduction
_________________________________________

"Date: October 9, 2160, 0200 hours GMT --  Location: Asteroid Sector 0298 --
Ship's Log:  Delta-T 09-84E

Scooter patrol Zebra-9 reports a slow-rotation boogie (asteroid) on approach to
the mothership's warning zone and is dispatched to investigate.  The crew is on
night shift and unaware of the immenent danger they may be called on to deal
with.  Scooter patrol Alpha-1 is on approach for docking maneuvers and turns up
the communication tower spotlights to aid in navigation.  All in all it is a
quiet night on board."

________________________________________

ASTMINER is a ray-trace of a ship designed from modules associated with a Space
game I designed many years ago called "SYSTEM".  The basis for the game is the
"gold-rush" to the asteroid belt. The concept is that man has yet to accomplish
inter-stellar travel, but has mastered inter-system travel.  The Asteroid Miner
rendered in this picture is on night watch... off in the distance is a small
scooter craft that is taking a look at a potentially dangerous asteroid near
the main ship.

The bridge of the ship is deserted, but contains seats, consoles and even a
"Star Trekkie" captain's chair, as well as a couple of silvery equipment
boxes.

Spotlights located on the 4 sides of the communications tower light up various
sections of the ship.  They contain fully functional light sources.  However,
to get the full effect of the light graduations on the ship itself, these light
sources were toned back to just glow levels and spotlight sources were added to
create the correct level of lighting on the ship.  (An interesting side-note,
trying to add these same types of lights to each module pushed the memory
requirements of the render off the scale and became unrenderable... hence the
use of high-ambient spheres instead).

One of the scooters mentioned in the intro is off to the right of the rendered
frame.  It's spotlights caste a light green glow on the front command module
and docking tube.  The second scooter is off to the right of the asteroid in
the background.  It's spotlights are what light up that object.

The science lab is located immediately adjacent to the command module.  Storage
pods are placed across the back of the miner, while habitate modules are placed
under the storage pods.

The massive engines of the ship flank the ship's crane that can be used to
tether potentially valuable ore bearing asteroids to the ship and dragged
enmasse back to the smelter.  The engines get fuel from the 6 fuel pods located
below and just in front of them.

Each module included in this render is from a standard set of "plug-n-go"
modules.  There are engines, fuel-pods, habitate, storage, command,
communication, docking and facility modules.  Using the "SYSTEM" game rules, it
is possible to build the entire of standard ships concieved of for the game in
POV.  Watch for these at:

"http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6080".

Each of the modules are based on a 10 meter radius, giving modules that are a
total of 20 meters in diameter.  Each module is designed to connect it in each
of 6 directions, with the exception of the engine modules.

Frames are connector tubes that are used to connect modules together, they
provide redundant paths between modules.  The tube seams even have rivets and
indicator panels rendered on them.
_______________________________
How this image was created:
_______________________________

Asteroid Miner was created using the concept of the "SYSTEM" game and creating
unique modules for each of the components of the ship.  Each component was
created using the same dimensions for each object with the exceptions of the
docking tube, communications array and the engines.
  
Every object was created with a minimal amount of detail, and then over and over
and over objects were added and improved until the render reflected the level
of detail submitted for the competition.  

Especially important was the concept of light for this render.  There is one
light that originates from outside the render and that comes off of a scooter
that is positioned off the lower right corner of the frame.  In another view,
this scooter was visible.  All the other lights were designed so that they
originate from objects in the render.  The spotlights on the communications
tower contain actual light objects.  The red lights on the crane object
originate from lights that are attached around the outside of the top of the
crane.
  
Since the light levels are so low, the asteroid field generated in this module
was not visible and removed from the final picture.  However, if a "sun" is
added to the render, the asteroids  can be reinserted into the render and form
a field off in the distance behind the ship.

Switches were used to turn on and off features that were placed into the picture
over time and allow for faster renders of specific parts of the picture by
commenting or uncommenting the switches at the top of the deck.  Once an object
was placed in it's final position, or obtained its final colors and textures,
there was no need to render it along with another object that had not yet
gotten such treatments.


