EMAIL: irtc_mail@yahoo.co.uk NAME: Richard Webster TOPIC: Mystery COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Mystery COUNTRY: England WEBPAGE: None RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.5 TOOLS USED: PaintShop Pro for jpeg conversion RENDER TIME: 18 hours HARDWARE USED: AMD Duron 1.1GHz 1GB IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A new development in the mystery of crop circles. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: Short Version: The image was rendered at 1024x768 with anti-aliasing. The beam and green glow are done with media. The runners are randomly placed but with checks to avoid intersections with the trees and other runners. Their direction is chosen to give each one a clear path. Each pose is randomly selected from a run cycle which itself has random variations. The people in the circle are laid out with simple geometry, with a random offset. The trees, standing stones and ground are isosurfaces. Long Version: The position of each tree and the position and direction of each runner is determined by a program (written in C for speed) which writes the povray include file containing the runners and the trees. First the trees are placed randomly, but with a bias to create a pattern of clear areas and dense areas. Intersections are avoided by a brute-force method of repeatedly picking a new random point until a position which does not intersect any existing point is found. Once the trees are planted, the runners are placed randomly using the same brute-force method to avoid intersecting the trees and each other, with a bias to increase the numbers near the centre. The direction of each runner is determined by a search algorithm which starts with an initial direction away from the centre of the circle. If that path is blocked then paths to either side are checked until a clear path is found. Each pose is generated by a run cycle macro which takes a time argument and generates a set of joint angles, with some random variation, for that time in the run cycle. The figure model is made by another macro which takes the set of joint angles and material definitions and builds the figure. For the torch holders, torch-holding run cycle is used to keep the torches pointing at the ground. Torches are given to runners in a way that creates an even spread of torches even though the density of people increases near the centre. The torches are laid out and the person nearest to a torch picks it up. This is to prevent the white-out that happens near the centre if a fixed percentage of runners have torches. The circle figures are created with a different pose (a splat cycle?) with random variations.