Raytracing competition entry to Assembly '99

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Image title: Mir2

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

Software used: Povray 3.1A for Win32 (rendering/modelling)
               Paint Shop Pro 5.0 (imagemaps/textures/signing)
               "Lens Effects" & "Galaxy" -plugins for Povray 3.1 
               by Chris Colefax. (lens flares & galaxy background)     

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

Rendering time: 02:01:35

This package contains two versions of the final image (signed &
unsigned, mir2_sig.jpg & mir2_fin.jpg respectively) and three
images showing the creation process: 

mir2_b01.jpg, early version of the station w. radiosity. An earlier
              version of the Earth and moon are featured. 
              (this image is rescued from a faulty hd backup cd, image 
              data garbled a little at the bottom) This was the only 
              image of the station not completed that i was able to 
              rescue from the cd.

mir2_b02.jpg, The station in full lighting w. two space ships not
              used in the final rendering. The earth is in its 
              (nearly) final form in this image but the background
              is missing.

mir2_b03.jpg, This is the nearly final version of the image with
              the galaxy backdrop and the sun lensflare. The background 
              stars are way too bright and the station is missing the 
              other ship and extra lighting.

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Image history: I got the idea for this image (or atleast the featured 
               space station "Mir 2") after buying a cheap multimedia 
               cd about space & stuff. It had cool (& old) images and 
               videoclips of mir & skylab and other relevant stuff.

               The station was originally modelled in late summer 
               1998 but i wasn't able to finish it for that years
               assembly. 

               Then, a HD crash.

               I later found the model on a hd backup cd and decided
               to add a better background and enter the image to
               Asm'99.

               Due to technical problems the image turned out quite
               crap, and it's not the most original (actually, 
               originality in this case approaches zero, but...)


Technical detail: The models (the station, the small ships docked
                  to the station, the earth & moon & sun etc.)
                  are a total of 122kb of handwritten csg operations.
                  No GUI's are used! (i do hate GUI's & the mouse)

                  After bounding volumes are used povray says that 
                  there are 722 frame level objects and 11 infinite 
                  visible in the scene. The actual number is probably 
                  six times as much and the scene still renders in 
                  about 20 minutes in 640*360*32bps with antialias
                  and radiosity turned on (with only 1 lightsource,
                  unlike the final version). But if i change the
                  camera position a little, the rendering time 
                  increases tenfold, go figure... 
                  
                  There are something like 100 texture maps and 
                  5 lightsources used in the final image.

                  The image isn't 100% scientifically accurate for
                  "artistic" reasons. The station is on an orbit
                  about 100000 kilometers from Earth (what kind of
                  an orbit is that?) and the moon is 5 times too
                  big and 3 times too close (otherwise it would
                  look like a dot, funny how it doesn't do so in
                  crap sf movies... maybe it's the camera?). The 
                  Babylon5ish background is not realistic but it 
                  gives a bit of depth to the image.


greets:

The Pov-Ray Development Team. These guys have worked their asses off 
for no money for 7 years to give us _the_ best freeware raytracing
software.

Chris Colefax. His plugin's make the world a better place:)

Jarno Wuolijoki (216/mfx). Helping me with the math part, alot.

Tomi Jkl (roi blask/mfx). One summer night he said: "let's make an 
include file to povray which only contains futuristic weapons. and 
let's put that robert hood album cover on them and the tresor logo" =) 
(those _are_ "visible" in this image...)

Tatu Westerling. Hope you got your image ready and made it to 
assembly'99.

Larry Niven. The author with a vision. I would've already made a
dosen ringworlds (in scale, of course) if only povray wouldn't have 
trouble with _big_ numbers.


Scenegreets belong to demos...

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If you wan't to contact me, mail me at: niko@invalidiliitto.fi
(this address probably won't be operational after early october '99
but you will find my working e-mail address listed in every mfx
demo)

(c) 1999 uncle-x/mfx/mewlers
