TITLE: The Gods Replied
NAME: Ron Gow
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: rgow@lanset.com
TOPIC: Great Inventions
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: reply_rg.jpg
RENDERER USED: 

    PovRay 3.5


TOOLS USED: 

    QtPoveditor, Povtree, planetGenesis, Poser4, Cinepaint
    GIMP used for signature and conversion to .jpg


RENDER TIME: 
    2 hrs 16 min



HARDWARE USED: 

    Pentium IV 1.8gz
    512 mg RAM



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


We had lived by the mountain forever.  It was our shelter from storms. It was
our landmark when we descended to the plains. Sometimes the mountain smoked
and the priests would make offerings to the Gods to quiet it. Sometimes the
mountain shook and the priests would sacrifice one of the children to appease
it. When the shaking and smoking became more frequent, the priests said the
Gods were angry, and they offered more sacrifices. When the shaking got worse
and we had no more children to sacrifice, the priests said the Gods wanted
something else. They prayed day and night, beseeching the Gods to reveal the
source of their anger. "Answer us, oh Gods" they cried, "that we may know
your will" The mountain threw rocks at them.  Then the priests became angry
and denounced the Gods. "No more will we worship you!" they cried.  "We will
not serve you until you give us a sign!"   Then... the Gods replied.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


Volcano, lava, rocks and terrains are height_fields created in planetGenesis
with some tweaking and filtering done in Cinepaint.

Tree done in Povtree.

Arm done with Poser

Smoke is mostly semi-transparent texture on spheres placed by three loops.
Thanks to Tim Nikias and Zeger Knaepen on the PovRay newsgroup for their help
on getting a smoke that didn't take forever to render.

I originally was going to use radiosity to get some nice effects from the lava
but after a couple power failures I realized that wasn't going to finish in
time
to submit, so I made some last minute changes, added the fog and changed the
lighting a bit, but I'm satisfied with the result considering that it renders
fairly quickly.

No source file, its a mess. If anyone wants any of it they can e-mail me.

Good luck to all!