TITLE: Arturus Rex
NAME: Stephen M. Farrell
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com
WEBPAGE: n/a
TOPIC: Mythology
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: arturus.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.5; Paint Shop Pro 7 (for signature and jpg
conversion)

RENDER TIME: 
    2 days 3 hrs 45 mins

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 4 2.53 GHz; 1 GB RAM



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


  A collection of items representing various aspects of the legend/mythology of
King Arthur.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


  I got off to a bit of a false start with this one... I originally was creating
a much larger scene, incorporating most of these objects, which showed King
Arthur's throne room in its entirety.  About two weeks into the round, however,
I decided to try placing key objects in a smaller arrangement, and thought the
results were more interesting that way.

  The walls - isosurface blocks.  Actually, one isosurface block, repeated many
times over, with minor random variations in the orientation and texture to vary
its appearance somewhat.  The mortar consists of two textured boxes... I played
around with trying to create something more complex, but didn't care for the
results I was getting, so went with something basic.

  The banner - isosurfaces again, using a bump pigment_map to create the folds. 
An intersection with a cut-out box (to create the gold edging) and a plain box
(for the white background).  Another intersection with a prism to create the
pendragon symbol.  Uses a quilted texture to give the impression of woven
cloth.

  The pendragon symbol - I'm surprised at how well this turned out.  A simple
(?!) prism consisting of just over two hundred points, all placed through trial
and error.  I took it in stages from the simple to the complex.  First I
created a simple amoeba-like prism, with pseudopods for the legs, head, and
tail.  A second pass transformed these pseudopods to squarish regions, to
define the size and shape of each part better.  Then I worked on each part in
earnest, adding more and more points to get each part looking as good as I
could.  A final pass adjusted several key points between the sections, to get
each one to curve and flow into the next part nicely.  It took six to eight
hours to get the final result.

  The shield - all CSG.  Created the shape of the shield, and then intersected
it with a large, hollowed-out sphere to give it a bit of roundedness.  A
cut-out version of the same shape creates the silvery trim, and an intersection
with the dragon prism yields the design.  

  The sword - again, all CSG.  The hilt and crosspiece consist mostly of several
while loops placing multiple spheres and torii close together to give the
illusion of a unified whole.  The blade is very simple... I originally intended
to spend more time on it, to get something that looks more realistic, but liked
the way the light plays off of it so much that I decided to leave it as it.  

  The holy grail - a simple lathe object, with a few torii and sphere-sweeps cut
out of it for the design.  (and yes, it is intentionally over-sized... it's
meant to be a communal (perhaps ceremonial) drinking cup, holding enough to be
passed around a dozen or so people.) 

  The round table - uses rounded-box isosurfaces with a pigment_map applied to
give it the look of rough wooden planks.

  The book - The cover is CSG, but the pages are a single prism object (much
simpler than the dragon - only fifty-eight points this time).  Text objects are
intersected with the page object to create the printed words.  The book is
written in pseudo-latin... by plugging single words into an online
English-to-Latin dictionary, I was able to piece together what is hopefully a
semi-coherent whole.  (and yes, I know the printing isn't very readable, but
it's the thought that counts, right?)

  The scrying bowl (that weird-looking thing in the lower right corner - what,
you couldn't tell what it's supposed to be just by looking at it?  ::grin:: ) 
I wanted to find a way to work something representing Merlin into the scene, so
tried to come up with mystical-looking objects for possible use.  I intended to
go with a crystal ball until my roommate suggested a scrying bowl, which seemed
a better fit for the feel of the scene.  While it doesn't actually look that
bad, and may even have a bit of a mystical look to it, I think this is the
weakest element of the scene.  (I would have just left it out but the scene
felt unbalanced without it.)  A mix of CSG with prisms for the rim.

  The coins - CSG with simple prisms for the designs (a roman numeral V on one
side, and a stylized crown on the other).  Toward the end, I felt the table
needed some sort of small objects scattered around it.  Not sure how much I
like these but the scene seemed a bit empty without them.

  That's about it... hope others like this scene as much as I do (I don't know,
but somehow it just strikes me as more vivid than some of the other scenes I've
entered.)  Comments/criticisms definitely welcomed, and much appreciated.

