EMAIL: steve@g7sta.demon.co.uk
NAME: Steve Attwood
TOPIC: First Encounter
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Voyage to Sirius
COUNTRY: UK
WEBPAGE: http://www.g7sta.demon.co.uk/
RENDERER USED: PovRay 3.1a
TOOLS USED: 3D2POV18, Lens Flare & Galaxy 'include' files by Chris Colefax, Cyber Sculpt 1.1 (ST), Paint Shop Pro 4.1.
RENDER TIME: 15min 28secs.
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 133 (64Mb), Atari 520ST (4Mb)

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The scene depicts the Voyager 2 space probe, drifting into Sirius - the first solar system it has encountered on it's 40,000 year journey from Earth. 

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

First of all, I constructed the Voyager 2 space probe using the Cyber Sculpt package on my Atari ST. The arms and collar (which has the gold reflective covering on it) are extrusions. Primitives formed the basis of the other components in the model, such as the sensors attached to the arms and the antenna dish projections. The dish itself was 'spun' from a template detailing one of of the edges of the dish, and then fed into the spin utility to create a round dish shape.

The resultant .3D2 file was then exported to the PC and PovRay format smooth triangles by use of the 3D2POV18 utility by Steve Anger.

Next I created the background to the scene, using the Galaxy include file by Chris Colefax (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434). The swirls of purple gas were translated to get a certain desired effect - gas could be seen from behind the planets dark side, almost as though the planet itself was boiling. The lens flare was added (also by Chris Colefax) - type 'Rainbow' and positioned just off the planet. 

The planets texture is using the 'agate' effect and a custom colour_map.

The next stage I added the Voyager probe and scaled it to the right size I wanted in the scene, and rotated/translated it so that it faced the camera at the correct angle. All parts except the Voyagers dish were added basic colours - orange (in small quantities) to make certain parts stand out, and white/grey for other parts. This is based upon an actual picture I have of the real Voyager as I wanted to make it as technically accurate as possible. 

Then I created a separate PovRay scene file with only the Voyager in view, so that I could create greyscale some dish panel detail. This was achieved by creating a template file in Paint Shop Pro with a big 'X' in the middle of the image. I then translated and scaled the template file image_map so that the 'X' was in the middle of the dish. This now positioned correctly, I went back to Paint Shop Pro and created the detail I wanted and substituted the template file for the new image_map. A bump_map was also added to give the effect of an irregular panelled surface.

Finally, the scene was rendered with anti-alaising set to +0.3. The result is as you see!