E-mail: bill@apocalypse.org
NAME: Bill Marrs
TOPIC: Magic
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
COUNTRY: USA
TITLE: Hat and Cards
WEBPAGE: http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/bill/
RENDERER USED: Povray for Windows 3.0.2
TOOLS USED:  PoVSB .99o modeler, sPatch, Texture Magic, Lviewpro
RENDER TIME: 35 minutes
HARDWARE USED:  Pentium 90, 64MB
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
                              Hat and Cards

A scene of a stage magician's tools in action.  As a spotlight beems down,
a wand waves over the hat, while the cards come flying out into the audience.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

I used sPatch to model the hat, cards, curtain and table.  This was my first time 
using sPatch, so I was very pleased at how much power it gave me to create 
spline patches.  The hat was a l-shaped spine which I rotated.  The table top
was a similar rotation.  The table legs (not visible in scene :-( ) were extruded.

I imported all those objects into PoVSB where I arranged, added lighting (used 
a spotlight to help the "stage look"), and a floor, a green cloth, and a wand in 
PoVSB as well. 

I used a scanner to make the card image maps.

Almost all textures were made in Texture Magic.  I spent a long time getting the
cards aligned just right.  The card image-maps were hand edited a bit as well.
My image maps were more square than my cards, thus the back had to be 
trimmed.  Really, my card image maps are funny.  I used only half the image
on the forground (card faces), the image maps have "backs", but they are not 
visible.  Also, because of an alignment problem that I didn't feel was worth fixing
the backs of the cards are the same as the fronts.  The same is true of the 
background cards (card backs), they are actually double-backs.

I spent some time getting the math of the card rotation and movement right, and
still it isn't quite right.  I suspect the card faces don't really make sense on close
scrutiny.  ...I'm not even sure anymore.

Special thanks to the people of "Work Week" at the Blue Forest Farm.


FILES IN THE ZIP FILE:
table.spt		- sPatch model for the table (has nice legs, 
                                      though the scene does not really show them
hat.spt		- sPatch model for the hat.
curtain.spt		- sPatch model for the curtain (used twice in scene)
card.spt                      - sPatch model for the rounded edge cards
flooring.gif                  - image map for the floor, rendered in pov to get wood
                                      texture, then edited in Lview to make into a tile.
as.gif                          - Ace of Spades image map (scanned in)
7d.gif		- 7 of diamonds image map (scanned in)
kd.gif		- King of diamonds image map (scanned in)
joker.gif		- Joker image map (scanned in)
js.gif		- Jack of Spades image map (scanned in)
gh.gif		- Queen of Hearts image map (scanned in)
backs.gif		- Card backs image map (scanned in)
hatcards.inc  	- Generated texture include from Texture Magic
include.inc	- PoVSB standard include file (not much in it)
hatcards.spb	- PovSB scene file
hatcards.pov	- Generated (by PovSB) POV source file 
hatcards.txm	- Texture Magic texture file