Competition entry for August 1995, news:comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing

File       : aw1.jpg
Author     : Kevin B Black
             l_kbb@vb.nwl.ac.uk
             kbb@toucan.win-uk.net
Subject    : Alien Worlds
Title      : First Landing, Ghauri 4 (see story)
Machine    : Developed on a 486DX4-100@50 running Windows for Workgroups 3.11
             12 hours  9 minutes 34.00 seconds (see stats)
Renderer   : POV 2.2.ibmicb
Tools and utilities : 
                 The spacecraft were designed on graph paper, and then
                 hand coded into the POV-Ray description language.

                 Simple Fortran programs were written to simplify a) the
                 generation of the docking linkage that connects the
                 grey flight module to the lifting bodies. b) generate
                 textures for the panels that make up the lifting bodies.
                 c) generate "things" to be placed in the rings system
                 around the large planet (although two items were added
                 by hand for effect).

                 GEODOME V1.0 was used to create the geodesic spheres
                 used for the "radar housing" (it's on the island) and
                 the "habitation" huts.

                 The plasma fields used for the landmasses are from
                 a fractal generation program, and have been hand edited
                 (for various reasons) using Picture Publisher 4.0.

                 All the rest was coded straight in by hand.

The story :

This scene depicts the first two Zkirtian colony preparation team
transport ships arriving on Ghauri 4, which is in the Tanee system.
The spacecraft on the ground is the Viola, and the spacecraft in
flight the Yasmeen. The Zkirtain colonization preparation team have
named the site, Aqi Fhhuray (First Landing)!

Things left undone due to insufficient time :

More work could have been done on the lighting in the scene, problems
resulted from wishing to illuminate the planets from the side so that
they show as cresents. So the foreground scene had to be illumiated
with spotlights. The spacecraft look green, probably due to the lighting
arrangements, they should be a stronger yellow colour. The panels of the
spacecraft should show up better.

problems :

A bright spot can apear on the pod of the spacecraft in flight
as a result of removing the shadow this spacecraft produced
on the other for the final render. There was no time left to
find the reason for this, or correct the problem.

Rendering stats :

POV-Ray Options in effect: +v1 +ft +mb25 +a0.250 +j1.000 +r3 -q9 -w800 -h600 -s1 -e600
-k0.000 -mv2.0 -iaw1.pov -oaw1.tga -l\povray\scenes -l\povray\include 

Warning in file aw1.pov line 440
No pigment type given

  Persistence of Vision Raytracer Ver 2.2.ibmicb

  aw1.pov statistics

 Image Resolution 800 pixels wide x 600 pixels high
 # Rays Calculated     :     3516296
 # Pixels Calculated   :      480800
 # Pixels Supersampled :       99770

   Ray - Shape Intersection Tests
   Type             Tests    Succeeded   Percentage

  Sphere        748077565    11445040        1.53
  Triangle         127780       16181       12.66
  Box           278910305    79429492       28.48
  Cone\Cyl.     296451075    95428312       32.19
  Quartic\Poly   33213856     2095104        6.31
  Height Fld     11226714      761189        6.78
  Bounds          6996433     5799180       82.89
  Clips            110638       33298       30.10

  Calls to Noise Routine  :     2985699
  Calls to DNoise Routine :     5056708

  Shadow Ray Tests        :     4954222
  Shadow Cache Hits       :     2153059
  Blocking Objects Found  :     2330500
  Reflected Rays          :      550081
  Transmitted Rays        :     1587485

  Rendering Time          :      12 hours  9 minutes 34.00 seconds

Additional info :

Some additional images related to kbb_aw1.jpg can be found by looking at
the bottom of the page pointed to by URL http://www.nwl.ac.uk/ih/wwwres.html.
Please note however, that this is a temporary location and it will be moved
at a later date.