EMAIL: rfitzel@rogers.com
NAME: Rob Fitzel
TOPIC: Complexity
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Mission Control
COUNTRY: Canada
WEBPAGE: http://www.fitzel.ca/dart/
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.6 (64bit version)
TOOLS USED: DAZ|Studio v1.3.0.1 , PoseRay v3.8.18.390, Paint Shop Pro v8
RENDER TIME: 11m 07s for the image_maps ; 12h01m for the main image
HARDWARE USED: AMD x2 4800+ w/ 3GB RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This image depicts Mission Control about ten minutes after the liftoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery on Dec 9, 2006. The launch of the Space Shuttle is a very complex process. For a successful launch, all the computer, engine, power, mechanical, communication systems and their backups must be working properly. Several hundred people are involved in coordinating the launch activities and in monitoring the 2,300 Launch Commit Criteria measurements.

I have tried to accurately represent the room and its contents. However, the people depicted are purely imaginary. There is no intention to portray actual NASA employees or contractors. Any similarity to any real person is entirely unintentional and purely coincidental.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

The room was modeled based on some high-resolution photos from the NASA website and therefore makes some assumptions about its true size.

The human models and clothes are from DAZ (http://www.daz3d.com/) with the textures from DAZ and Renderosity. The figures were posed using DAZ|Studio and converted to mesh2 format using PoseRay. Some of the figures are cloned to reduce the memory required. Humans closest to the camera have more detailed textures, while the distant ones have very basic textures.

Everything else is CSG.

The ceiling is a macro with pseudo-randomly spaced vents, intercoms and sprinklers. The flourescent lights use an emission texture to get the glow.

The side wall contains all the mission insignia from past shuttle flights. These image_maps were obtained from Wikipedia (from NASA sources), and converted to png (with an alpha channel) using Paint Shop Pro. Note: these NASA images are in the public domain.

The computer consoles are all CSG macros that select different images for the computer screens. The flags are a CSG base with a bicubic patch "cloth."

The flatscreen monitor, printer, tiled ceiling, flag, shelving unit, and TV objects/macros were developed for this scene.  The binders, kleenex box, phone, waterbottle, pop can, office chair, keyboard and filing cabinet objects and macros were from previous projects and tweaked for this one.

This project uses over 130 image_maps: 
- a handful for the people and their clothing
- 40 for the shuttle insignia (mounted on the wall - not all of which are visible)
- 80 for the flags, logos, wall prints, and computer screens (all of which are POV-Ray generated)
The computer screen images were all generated with POV-Ray (using CSG and text). An orthographic projection and a clock-based case statement allowed me to rapidly regenerate them all (see attached file mcc_img.pov).

The included source will allow you to recreate the image minus the people and the shuttle insignia mounted on the walls. There are two steps to render the project:
1) render mcc_img.pov (see the file for the correct command-line parameters) to generate 80 image_maps (mostly computer screens).
2) render rf_mcc.pov

Space Shuttle Discovery was in orbit during part of this project. In the evenings, I would watch NASA TV, which often broadcast live views of the very room I was rendering. It was kinda neat to see Shuttle Flight Control Room live on NASA TV in one window, while rendering it in another. :-)

More info is available at http://www.fitzel.ca/dart/mcc/mcc.html