TITLE: "The Garden"
NAME: Robert J Becraft
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: castlewrks@aol.com
WEBPAGE: http www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/labs/6080
TOPIC: Nature
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: garden.jpg
ZIPFILE: garden.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Povray for DOS 3.01 running under OS/2

TOOLS USED: 
    Povray (image creation), I_view32 (TGAJPG conversion), PaintShop
Pro (add copyright)

RENDER TIME: 
    5 hours, 48 meg

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 233

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

    
  This picture is composed of several elements that are intended to represent
the theme of "Nature". 

  Comp 1:   Nature: the 4 elements of Air, Water, Fire and Earth.  Nature is
further presented through the panels
                     of pictures representing elements of nature on Earth.
  Comp 2:   Man, man is represented by the blueprint of Leonardo's Vitruvian man
in the background, manna or
                     corn in the center and Earth rotated to the
African/Euphrate's region thought to be the site of
                     man's origins on Earth.  Man is represented by a blue-print
because his origins came well after
                     the elements and the rules by which those elements
interacted... in representing the base elements,
                     man is an image of what is to come.
  Comp 3:   Earth and man become a central element in the garden of planets in
our solar system.  Earth is 
                     surrounded by the elements of nature that blended together
make it a unique place in our solar 
                     system.  The other three places represented are our moon,
Mars and Jupiter... all of which hang
                     desolate and unaccompanied in the bottomless sky behind the
main display.
  Comp 4:   The edge of the world... as in Columbus's time, the edge of the
world was thought to end in a
                      precipace off which ships could sail and never return. 
The precipace is represented in this picture
                      as the edge of man's world, but also as a reference back
to that time when the age of discovery
                      brought man ever closer to understanding the Earth and
world upon which we depend for life.
                      So while man in Comp 2 is represented as a blue-print, not
yet here, his perception of the world in
                      an age gone recently by is also represented without the
precipitious drop into infinity and oblivion,
                      but instead as a sweeping gallery of images of the real
world as it exists today.  Revelation and
                      discovery, man's never ending quest to understand the
world and universe in which we live.
  Comp 5:   Heart-beat, the ripples in the water  are like the pattern of a
heart beating.  All higher life on Earth
                      have some kind of heart-beat that is necessary for them to
be alive.

  This image would not be complete without a discussion of the animation of the
objects in the image.
  
                 - The flames would be leaping (of course)
                 -  All of the planets would be spinning, slowly, very
elegantly
                 -  The image of vitrovian man would be tumbling slowly.
                 -  The images on the panels would rotate from one panel to the
next around the panels.
                 -  The ripples on the water would slowly move outwards from the
center point, new ripples would start
                 -  The clouds would move lazily by.
                 -  The sun would move around giving the image morning, noon,
evening and darkness... a note about
                    darkness, all the panels are lit with spot-lights.
                 -  The earth and its platform and the Fire cauldron would
gently bounce up and down creating the
                     ripples on the water, and the heartbeat of life in the
image. 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

    This image was created using straight POVRAY primatives with image maps
(gifs) applied to the spheres
    and panels.   A heightfield was used to create the earth under the earth
globe.  There are also heightfields at
    the base of the first few corn-stalks.  Only the ones in view were given
lumps as the memory required to put
    them on all of the bases was exhorbinant and it wouldn't render.
     
    Switches are available in the source to turn on and off features of the
render.  The source is divided into 
    three areas, 1st is the control area with the switches, lights and camera
postition.  2nd is the CSG objects and 
    3rd is the actual objects.  Note that the switch to turn off an object is
reflected in the CSG section as well as the
    object section.  Rendering with alot of CSG objects that are never used as
in the cornfield object can extend the
    overall parse time of the entire image.  By cutting out the parsing of
sections that aren't used as well as the
    objects, some sections of the render can be viewed very quickly.
    
    In addition, the global settings below were found to be necessary to
eliminate shadows in the flames that
   created cone shaped black objects.

