Submission for The Internet Raytracing Competition for the month of August Topic: "Alien Worlds" File name: cr-ringw.jpg (800x600 24-bit JFIF) Picture title: Ringworld: Initial Approach Submitted on: 27 August 1995 Submitted by: Chip Richards (chipr@email.niestu.com) Other files: cr-ringw.txt (this file), cr-ringw.zip (POV files and some image maps; others available on request) Distribution: All files Copyright 1995 by Chip Richards, all rights reserved (but negotiable!) Rendered on: Intel 486 DX2/50 running Linux 1.2.8 (Caldera Network Desktop) Rendering time: 7 hours 1 minute, approximately (for the scene) and 14 minutes for the shadow mask (but who cares when you're multitasking!) Rendered with: Persistence of Vision Raytracer Ver 2.2linux386 (with Sced "transform" patches) Other software: Sced (modelling), XPaint 2.1.1 (star field), NetPBM tools (QRT --> PPM conversion, masking, and image pasteup), XV 3.10 (PPM --> JPEG conversion) This is my first entry in the competition, but I surely hope it won't be my last. It is a wholly un-original idea, lifted from the pages of Larry Niven's "Ringworld" books. For those not familiar with Mr. Niven's work, especially the Known Space stories, you should immediately rush to the nearest library or bookstore and read them all. The picture is intended to depict Louis Wu's clear-hulled puppeteer ship as it approaches the ringworld. When I first thought to enter the competition, I expected that the August theme would result in lots of domed cities, cratered landscapes, and medium shots of heavenly bodies bodies with spaceships flashing by. Probably even a ringworld or three. But once I started examining the submissions for past months, I was delighted by their ingenuity and variety. I almost quit when I saw Kevin Odhner's stunning "Pocketwatch", secure in the knowledge that I could never produce anything half so beautiful. But, hope springs eternal. For the (apparently obligatory) groveling part of my text (), let me say that the image is chock-full of scientific flaws and variations from the scene as depicted in the books. I make no apologies, but promise to try harder next month. The scene took a lot longer to fiddle into shape than it should have, and as so many have said of their own scenes, I'm not entirely satisfied with the results. I am, however, thoroughly satisfied with how much I learned doing it, and how much I enjoyed it. The rendered part of the image is comprised of primitives and CSG objects, created and placed with Sced. I can't say enough good things about Sced--Mr. Chenney has done a Brilliant thing creating it. It needs some additional features, sure, (I have a list!) but I wouldn't trade it for any of the others I've used. Sorry you DOS/Win people can't experience it, but that's just one more reason to install Linux or FreeBSD! The idea for the starry background I must credit to the creator of the "PLNTSCAP" hall-of-fame entry, Barry Ferg (bdf@dsi.bc.ca). I drew a starfield in about five minutes using xpaint, then used Barry's technique of rendering the scene again with a white background and black objects, which took *far* less time. That "shadow" scene was used to mask out the parts of the starfield which fell behind rendered objects, permitting the images to be pasted together. I liked the results better than using the starfield as an image map onto a background sphere or plane. The terrain on the ring is a USGS topo map of Earth, suitably hacked, slashed, and airbrushed by me so there would be no chance of a recognizable coastline of, say, Nova Scotia out there millions of lites from Canada. Not that I would recognize the coast of Nova Scotia, but there are plenty who could. The galaxy is a stock photo of M83, scaled and pasted onto the hand-drawn starfield using xpaint. Both pictures were grabbed directly from the net. A special thanks to Matt Kruse for organizing this competition, and to the dozens of people who have entered. My entries may or may not inspire others, but the other entries so far have certainly inspired me!