EMAIL: brendthess@aol.com NAME: Brendt Hess TOPIC: Unbelievable COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Solar Temple COUNTRY: USA WEBPAGE: RENDERER USED: Pov-Ray 3.1e TOOLS USED: None RENDER TIME: 25 Hours, 13 Minutes HARDWARE USED: K6-2 350 IMAGE DESCRIPTION: After seeing a co-worker working with POV, I got interested in seeing what I could do. This was the result. A temple with fiery columns and 'sunbeam' spires, floating in space above an ancient but still living planet. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: I decided that I was going to create this using only what I could work out in POV-Ray itself (including the great assistance of the Help file!) - no outside aids. So, I started playing, created a simple column generator, started playing with glass and media, and ended up developing this simple image. The columns and sunbeams use the same media statement - each sunbeams are two irregular hollow conical prisms in the same location (an experiment with serendipitous results). The glowing rooftop, and the bases to the sunbeams, were an attempt at another flame pattern media that didn't work as well (if anyone can explain why the color is mainly blue-green when the color map for the media is red to yellow, I would appreciate the help). The planet is a modification of the simple planet in the POV help file, with a slightly larger sphere with media for the atmosphere to get a scattering effect). The starfield is a sky-sphere with a very turbulent bozo pattern, with almost all of the pattern solid black. The steps include small overhanging curved lips, similar to those seen on some monumental construction. The sinusoidal pattern on the roof of the temple is simple glass spheres, clipped with a flat front, embedded into reflective silver depressions CSG'd into the roof. The platform was an experiment in hexagonal tiling using more than the three textures allowed by the hexagon pattern.