Scene    : The Staircase

Desc     : An early 20th-century staircase in a room.

Author   : Federico "Quartic" Mena Quintero

Email    : quartic@polloux.fciencias.unam.mx

Date     : October 1995

Software : POV-Ray 2.2 (MeSs-DOS Watcom compile) --- Rendering.
           Photostyler 2.0 SE --- Adding the text to the image.
           Image Alchemy 1.8 --- Conversions to JPEG.
           Piclab 1.93 --- Some cropping and joining of images.
           tgasize 1.0 --- Written by me, to adjust TGA header fields.
           AutoCAD 10 --- Making 2D versions of the objects
             (and pull out some exact tangencies, etc.).
           Derive 1.22 --- Calculate some tangencies that AutoCAD could
             not pull out (using equations).
           UCalc 1.8 --- Misc. calculations...
           CompuShow 9.04a --- Viewing the images.
           QEdit 3.0 --- Editing everything.
           4DOS 5.5 --- A real DOS shell, unlike command.com.
           Desqview 2.42 --- Multitasking all of the above!

Hardware : 486 @ 66MHz, 16 MB RAM (My machine)
           486 @ 66MHz,  8 MB RAM (Jedi's machine)

Files    : staircas.zip
             staircas.pov --- The main scene file.
             arches.inc   --- The arches.
             balustra.inc --- An individual baluster and a balustrade.
             columns.inc  --- Placement for all the columns.
             ionic.inc    --- An individual Ionic column.
             room.inc     --- Walls, floor, ceiling, etc.
             stair.inc    --- Everything needed for the staircase and lamps.
             staircas.jpg --- A small 240x180 preview image.
             staircas.txt --- This file!!!
           staircas.jpg --- The final, rendered image.

*** Description ***

Hello, all.  This is my first entry for the raytracing competition.  I
wanted to participate last month as well (September), but some other
things managed to push themselves higher in my priorities list...

I've been using POV for about 2.5 years now, and it is a *GREAT*
program.  I've made several animations, several posters, and a few
scenes.  I've found POV to have much better output quality than most
commercial 3D programs, and although it is a great challenge to create
scenes and animations without actually seeing the objects you are
creating, it really pays off.  I have tried several modellers, but I
always keep returning to my good ol' text editor... it is much faster
and much more flexible than any modeller I can imagine.

I use an old version of AutoCAD (release 10) to draw 2D versions of my
objects (say, side and top views) and later pull out the hard stuff...
tangencies, intersections, bounding shapes, etc.  I use Desqview's 'mark
& transfer' (same as cut & paste) to pull out those numbers from the
AutoCAD screen and then put them inside my text editor... I find this to
be really quick, and I think it is a very convenient way of creating
complicated scenes... graph paper and a calculator are just too slow and
messy :)

Although I am studying Computer Science in the National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM), I love to browse through Architecture books
and such... and I find it just as delightful to go out and see nice
buildings :)

This scene, "The Staircase", is based vaguely on the large staircase of
the National Post Office building, located in the center of Mexico
City... FYI, it is one of the nicest early 1900s buildings in the city.

I tried to keep it simple (the beloved KISS principle) and add some
variations of my own to the staircase room... mine is closed, and so
far, it has no doors :)

Some months ago I had created a Doric column object in POV with the true
proportions of real Doric columns, and I was very fond of it (I still
am).  So I decided to make the three classical Orders, the Doric, the
Ionic, and the Corinthian.  So far, I have only made the Doric and the
Ionic columns... the Ionic being the one I used for this scene.

At first I thought of rendering some well-known Greek building or
something like that, but finally I decided upon making one of the
buildings I like the most... the Post Office building of Mexico City,
since I don't think it is known at all outside Mexico. :)

First I made some sketches in AutoCAD to obtain the proportions of the
room (heights and such), to place the columns, arches, balustrades, etc.
I wrote the code for POV... so I had the entire room, but without the
staircase.

Then I created the StairSupport object, which is one of those things
which hold the lamps.  I placed them in the scene and rendered it, to
see more or less how the lights would look like in the final scene...
after about 12 hours (in 640x480 with no antialiasing), I knew that the
final 800x600 render would be really slow... I had never made an image
or animation with so many light sources (12 in all!).  Before rendering
this image I thought of using small area lights inside the lamp spheres,
but I finally decided not to... the polar icecaps would melt before my
machine had completed the final render :)

So, for the rendering previews, I removed all the light sources and put
a small light source in the center of the room... the previews looked
like crap, but at least they were fast (I like to use 200x125 for my
previews... on a 320x200 screen, it still has the 4:3 *physical*
proportions, and it gives much more detail than 160x100).

I wrote the code for the staircase railing... I wish POV had a 'shear'
transformation (AFAIK, the only affine it is missing)... things like
these railings would be *MUCH* easier to create and to bound with a
shear operation.  AutoCAD really helped here, for I was able to easily
pull out angles, dimensions, etc.... still not as convenient as a shear
operation, though.

Then I made the steps... perhaps in real life they would be larger, but
they looked good, so I left them as they were.

Later I remembered that the railings should have some decoration... I
made some simple cylinder/torus decorations, and put them on the
staircase.

I defined the whole StairBlock object, which is a complete staircase
block... there are 4 in the final scene.  A StairBlock consists of two
StairSupport objects, the railings, and the steps.  I wrote it this way
so that I would be able to easily rotate them and place them into the
scene.

Finally, I removed the 'test' light source and put back the ones in the
StairSupport objects... 12 light sources in all, low-intensity so that
their combined intensity adds up to that of a more 'conventional' light
source.


I really like this scene... although it could be improved.  I wish I had
had time to add *something* else than the plain walls of the room... it
is totally closed, and some doors/corridors/whatever would look much
better than that.  If someone adds them to the scene, I would like to
see it... I think that this scene can be a good starting point for a
complete building fly-through animation :)

I included the full source code in the ZIP archive... I myself don't
like to download a ZIP for a great scene, only to find that it does not
contain the full source code or the texture maps... I understand that
they can be *big*, but they would be much more useful that way.

You can do whatever you want with this scene, *except* saying that you
made it.  You can use it anyway you please, but give me some credit.
That is all I ask for.  You can even yank out the objects (the columns
and the staircase are nice, IMHO) and use them for your own scenes, but
please give me some credit in your source code... Also, if you use any
part of this scene, it would be nice if you informed me of what you
did...  It is always interesting to see what other people can do with
your own objects, isn't it? :)

Many thanks go to:

  Ricardo "Jedi" Mendoza --- For letting me render the bottom half of
    the scene in his machine, and for being such a great friend.
  The POV-Team --- For creating such a kick-butt program!  Keep it up!
  Mike Miller --- For his great stone textures... I couldn't have made
    this scene without them.
  My cousin, Marco A. Mena --- For teaching me the first things about
    raytracing and POV.  He's responsible for hooking me into it.  He
    was also "PCC Marco" in the Graphics areas of AOL.
  My father, Federico --- For lending all his Architecture books to me.
  My mother, Leticia --- For not going hysterical when I am still
    raytracing at 04:00.
  My brother, Axel --- For learning how to use the "+c" option to
    continue my renderings after he needs to use the machine.
  Everyone at comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing --- For being such a
    great bunch of guys.

Well, that's it.  I hope you like the scene... personally, I've been
amazed with many of the entries of the previous contests :)

Federico Mena Quintero
Pregonero # 53, Colinas del Sur
Mexico City, 01430
Mexico

Phone # 643-6634

Email : quartic@polloux.fciencias.unam.mx
