EMAIL: jacoons@ameritech.net NAME: James A. Coons TOPIC: The Desert COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT TITLE: The Lonely Place (TBD) COUNTRY: United States WEBPAGE: none FILE NAME: CHLORIDE.POV JPGFILE: CHLORIDE.JPG ZIPFILE: CHLORIDE.ZIP RENDERER USED: PovRay 3.5 for Windows TOOLS USED: ThumbsPlus (Cerius) : Image processing and resizing. PaintBrush (Microsoft): Image processing and adding Title. QEDIT (Semware) : Global changes, etc. Visual Basic 6.0 (Microsoft): Various optional utilities (POVSTRIP, MAKETILE). QuickBasic (Microsoft): Various optional utilities (SEARCH). HARDWARE USED: Intel Pentium 600 Mhz, 65M Ram, Windows Operating System DATE STARTED: 07/06/2004 DATE FINISHED: PENDING RENDER TIME: 21 min Image Description: In the desert, only the wind breaks the silence. The shadows are harsh and lengthen with the approaching sunset. Ambient dust hangs in the dry air. All signs of human inhabitation have been erased by the wind and time. The buildings are baked and bleached by the sun. Nothing green lives here, only the determined Yucca and other desert plants that have managed to survive. Even those are few and far between. Here is the long-abandoned town saloon. If you look closely, you can still read the weathered sign above the door. But the laughter stopped long ago, when the last inhabitants left town more than 110 years ago. Across the street is "The House of Soiled Doves", the town brothel. A quiet stranger lives here. Perhaps you might see him inside the Saloon. Although nobody knows for sure, many people believe it is the ghost of Harry Pye, who founded the town more than 120 years ago. He enjoys watching the sunset because it means a cool evening is near to follow. If it is Harry Pye (and I'm not saying if it is or isn't), he never got a chance to know the town very well. Apache Indians killed him a few months after he first discovered Silver in the vicinity. He is the sole resident of this deserted mining town - Chloride, Arizona. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: Landscape: The Landscape is a hand-tuned Height_Field. I created several realistic textures from Internet images and modified them in PaintBrush for Tiling, Contrast, Saturation, etc. Sky: The Background Sky is a Granite Pattern with a custom Pigment_Map. I used an image of real clouds to create a realistic color_map and a more realistic result was obtained by using a large "squashed" sphere instead of a "Sky Plane" or Sphere. The Foreground Sky and Clouds are multi-layered, semi-transparent, textured spheres. Dust: The low-level Dust is Fog, properly tuned, to simulate dust in the distance and to represent an approaching dust storm. Plants All Plants are created using the PLANTS.TXT Include File. It creates a central "Plant Body" from a Height_Field and places a layer of "Foliage" on both sides. This basic shape is rotate and repeated 3 to form a simple plant. This method renders quickly because the plants are so usually so small that very little detail can actually be seen. The foliage is translucent, which creates a realistic effect when the sun is shining through the leaves. Plant 1: Simple tree with foliage Plant 2: Desert weed (anza agave) Plant 3: Yucca Plant People (possibly not included in final Render) "The Stranger" was created using the HF_MAN.TXT Include File. It creates a slightly 3D image using the Image as the Height_Field. It then uses the same Image to color the person. Because the person is, in essence, a "Billboard", the resulting object must be placed so it is perpendicular to the camera. Buildings (Shacks, Saloon, Post Office) The Buildings are Height_Fields, joined at the corners and formed into a cube, using image based on actual buildings. Internal floors and debris fields, if used, are also Height_Fields. The Saloon is based on an abandoned Canadian copper mine shack (included in submission). It is included in the SALOON.TXT Include File. The House of Soiled Doves is based on photos of the town brothel in Chloride, AZ. It is included in the BROTHEL.TXT Include File. Other Objects Other objects are created using the FORMS.TXT Macro. So far, this includes only a Wagon Wheel, which is not included in the final render. The purpose of the Macro was to simplify the creation of "Extruded Height_Field Objects". Rendering This Image: All image files necessary to render this image are included in the ZIP File, although some may have been reduced in size or quality for IRTC space and upload consideration. I rendered the final image at 1024x768 to obtain the most details and then use ThumbsPlus to convert it to JPG and reduce the size, as necessary. About This Submission: This is my second submission to the IRTC. My previous entry was "The Great Wall of China" for the "Epic Proportions" Contest. I hope the additional time I spent on this submission and effort is apparent in the final render. I learned quite a bit from my previous attempt, which helped immensely on this project. Extra Goodies included in ZIP File: Brothel*.JPG Images of original Brothel in Chloride, Arizona ("House of the Soiled Doves"). CanaMine.JPG Image of original Canadian Mine Shack on which the Saloon is based. Chloride.TGA Original uncompressed Rendered Image. _History.TXT About The Town of Chloride, Arizona Compiled by James Coons. _Develop.TXT Additional POV-Ray development techniques. Interpreting the Topic "The Desert" I felt that the topic "Desert", deserved more than just "a desert, a sky and a gecko", although I expect we will see many entries of that nature. My first idea was to show a cross road in the desert with a General Store or gas station. I thought of various twists, such as it being occupied by ghosts or some such thing. I worked on the general desert layout first and then abandoned the General Store idea. Then, I started researching Deserts and Ghost Towns for inspiration. I found the "Ghost Town Web Ring", which lead me to the town of Chloride, Arizona. Although I couldn't find enough information to recreate the entire town (which I had thought about doing), I decided to use information about the town, as well as some images, to pay homage to this mining town. So, the town in my submission is named Chloride, Arizona, even if in name only. It is also not totally deserted today, but that is just for the submission. My initial idea was to show a single building in the middle of the desert, but when I saw the effect, I decided to create several other buildings to create a more complete town. For additional information on town, see the file HISTORY.TXT, included with this submission. James Anthony Coons