Raytracing competition entry to Assembly '00

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Image title: Planetfall

Author: Uncle-x/mfx/mewlers (Niko Leskinen)

Software used: 

MegaPov 0.5A (unofficial compile of Povray 3.1g by Nathan Kopp) 
  - rendering 
  - modeling
Poser 3 by metacreations
  - human figures
Crossroads v 1.0 by Keith Rule
  - conversion of polygon data
Fractal Landscape Generator v1.4 by Steve Anger
  - rocks
Paint Shop Pro 5.0 by Jasc Software, inc.
  - imagemaps 
  - bitmap textures
  - signing 
"Lens Effects" -plugin for Povray 3.x by Chris Colefax. 
  - lens flares

Hardware used for final rendering: 
  - Intel Pentium MMX 200MHz, 64MB of ram & stuff.

Rendering time: 03h 11min

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This package contains two versions of the final image (signed &
unsigned, planetfall.tif & planetfall_nosig.tif respectively) and 
three images showing the creation process: 

planetfall_1.tif - Shows just the unfinished spaceship with
                   a mock human shape. colors are still wrong.

planetfall_2.tif - Initial test with placing of some human figures.
                   Lander is not yet finished.

planetfall_3.jpg - testing rock placement and other paraphelia without
                   spaceship. Ground texturemap is simplified to speed
                   up rendering.

the requested wireframe image can't be supplied because povray
does not have a conventional GUI nor is it a polygon renderer. 
there is a screenshot (planetfall_wf.tif) showing some of the source 
code and rendering in progress...


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Technical detail: The model of the ship is done in quite a hurry.
                  Its just a bunch of scaled spheres with a nifty bumpmap.
                  Most time was spent on the ground. Its a povray generated 
                  heightfield (2500x2500 pixels) which has been 
                  adjusted using paint shop pro 5.

		  The human figures are a total of 30 megabytes
		  of polygons exported from poser. ( there's some
                  overkill here but i'm a perfectionist:-D )

		  Povray says that there are 45061 frame level objects 
                  in the scene. Memory usage is ~96 meg's.

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Respects go again to the Persistence of Vision Development Team, 
Nathan Kopp (megapov), Chris Colefax and all the rest who help
make povray _the_ best free rendering utility around.


Scenegreets belong to demos...

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If you wan't to contact me, mail me at: nleskinen@iobox.fi
(c) 2000 uncle-x/mfx/mewlers
