EMAIL: art-ilc@jcu.edu.au
NAME: Chris Colefax
TOPIC: Science Fiction
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
RENDERER USED: PoVRay 3 (DOS)
HARDWARE USED: Cyrix 5x86-100
TOOLS USED: HeightField Lab

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
On a far distant planet, not unlike our own, overpollution has completely
destroyed the atmosphere, turning the planet into a desert wasteland.
Although forced to live mainly underground, many of the planet's inhabitants
were reluctant to give up the pleasures of surface living.  So, small "Dome
Cities" soon sprung up across the planet, acting as windows onto the rest of
the universe.  These cities were equipped with giant retractable shutters
which could be closed to protect the cities from the harsh rays of the sun.
Like an enormous mechanical flower, one such dome city begins to cover itself
as the first brilliant rays of the sun appear from behind the planet's near
moon, which dominates the horizon.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
John Beale's excellent HeightField Lab was used to create the height field for
the surface of the planet, as well as the cratered bump map for the moon.  A
sky sphere with a layered texture was used for both the stars and the emerging
sun, while a flat textured disc was used to create the spiral galaxy.  The
planet's atmosphere is a large sphere, centred on the camera location, with a
transparent texture. The city structure is composed of various portions of
torii, spheres, and cylinders, and the buildings are boxes of random heights
placed on a grid created using nested #while, #end statements.  Finally, the
lens flare is a tiny sphere centred on the camera location, with an 8-layer
transparent texture (woods and radials) used to model the sun's rays and the
various light halos.  The whole scene was coded entirely by hand, with many,
many test renders being made before managing to achieve the final result.