EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com
NAME: Stephen M. Farrell
TOPIC: Architecture
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Minster Church of St. John 
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: N/A
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray for Windows 3.5
TOOLS USED: POV-Ray for Windows 3.5; WinTree 1.0b; Paint Shop Pro 7 (for signature and jpg conversion)
RENDER TIME: 9 hours 45 minutes
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 4 2.53 GHz; 1 GB RAM


IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

  The Minster Church of St. John the Evangelist in Beverley, England.

  While looking for inspiration for this round, I searched the Web for gothic architecture and came across a large, detailed photograph of this church (see links at end), and thought it would make for an interesting challenge.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

  First off, I just want to make sure to mention that I did use the WinTree program (see links at end) for the trees in this scene.  While I usually try to create all the elements of a scene myself, I knew that all my time and energy would be needed to create the building itself.  Since I didn't really have time to learn much about using the program, I just tried making a few minor adjustments to some settings for one of the example trees, and then created my own textures for them.

  The grass consists of almost one million triangles, divided into eight separate rectangular sections (to avoid getting grass inside the building itself).  Each section is a mesh, which uses while loops to place a single triangle (with somewhat randomized height, position, rotation, and pigment) over and over again.  The brick wall uses simple rounded boxes (with randomized textures) for the bricks. The sky uses a bozo-pattern pigment, and while it may not look totally realistic, hopefully doesn't look too bad.

  While most of my time went into the building, there really isn't much to say about it... it's almost completely csg.  The windows are opague, with a glass-like finish, both to match the look of the original photo, and to keep from having to create a detailed interior for the building.  (It's probably worth pointing out that the parts of the building which can't be seen from this angle have no detail to them at all... the unseen walls are simply boxes.)

  I did my best to create the building in stages... starting off with simply trying to get the shape and scale correct using simple boxes, then going through and adding the details (windows, trim) in very basic form, and then going back over the whole thing numerous times trying to add more detail each time around.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get it too look nearly as ornate as the original, but I'm fairly well pleased with how it did turn out.

  I spent a lot more time tweaking the lighting this time around than I normally do... about two weeks were spent on the lighting alone.  I ended up with one main light source, along with two very dim fill lights to help bring out some detail in the shadowed areas (and also radiosity).  I'm still not sure about the results, but think it is better lit than most of my scenes.  

  That's pretty much it.  As usual, I appreciate all comments/criticisms people care to make.  Good luck to everyone this round!


LINKS:

  WinTree 1.0b (Created by Tom Aust and Gena Obukhov): 
    http://propro.ru/go/Wshop/tools/tools.html

  Small version of photograph of the church: 
    http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/Beverley/Minster/Bev-Minst-ext-BondGA177-s.jpg (697x393 pixels)

  Large version of photograph of the church: 
    http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/Beverley/Minster/Bev-Minst-ext-BondGA177-b.jpg (1738x996 pixels)

  If you're at all interested in this type of architecture, I urge you to check out this site - it's an amazing collection of medieval architecture in England:
    http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/maineng2.html