Title          Slow Leak
Artist         Taylor Reid <treid@class.org>

Filename       slowleak.jpg
Tools          POV-Ray 2.2 (official version)
               Blob Sculptor 2.0
               LPARSER 3.0
Design Time    Approximately 50-60 hours
Tracing Time   9:23:15
Platform       Gateway P5-100, 16M RAM, MS-DOS 6.22

Contents       slowleak.txt   This file
               slowleak.pov   Main scene file
               newtex.inc     New textures
               fov2.inc       Improved Field of View constants
               camera.inc     Standard camera definition
               fastlite.inc   Simple lights for test tracing
               slowlite.inc   Complex lights for final image
               sink.inc       Kitchen sink object
               window.inc     Window object
               knife.inc      Knife object
               pepper.inc     Bell pepper object
               water.inc      Water objects
               walpaper.gif   Wallpaper image map
               preview.jpg    Thumbnail of image created with POV-Ray

               (fern.inc was omitted because the file is over 2
               megabytes in size and anyone can generate their own
               fern using LPARSER)

Description    A depiction of a kitchen counter and a sink with a
               dripping faucet.  A sponge stands ready to mop up
               the puddle left by the drip.  A red bell pepper
               with one slice cut from it sits on a cutting board
               with a knife.  A leafy fern fills the corner of the
               counter top.  Outside the window, a child's ball
               sits on the lawn.

Comments       The water features and the bell pepper were
               modelled in Blob Sculptor.  The fern was produced
               with LPARSER using a variation on the fern.ls file
               that comes with the program.  All other objects in
               the scene were hand-coded from scratch using CSG.

               Many of the textures in the scene were inspired by
               examples in TEXTURES.INC or suggestions made in
               c.g.r.r.  With the exception of STONE18 and
               Blue_Sky, I believe that all of the textures in the
               scene are either originals I made from scratch or
               are substantially modified from the textures that
               inspired them.

               Notable features of the image include the use of
               CSG for the sink, faucet, knife and window, a
               nicely modelled bell pepper, reasonably convincing
               water, including a drop suspended in midair, a 
               credible attempt at a brushed steel texture, an
               improved grass texture, and a focal blur filter to
               give a greater illusion of depth to the view out of
               the window.

               I discovered raytracing and POV-Ray about a month
               ago while browsing the ftp archives at CDROM, and
               this competition inspired me to try my hand at
               creating my own scene files.  This image is my
               first attempt at a complete scene (actually it is
               my first attempt at computer graphics of any kind). 
               Between coding complex CSG objects and fine tuning
               the more challenging textures, this image occupied
               considerably more of my time than I had ever
               imagined it would.  I warmly welcome any feedback
               on the results of my labors and hope that you enjoy
               viewing this image as much as I enjoyed making it.

Credits        For this image I owe thanks to:
               My wife, for her patience and understanding
               The POV-Ray team for the terrific program that made
               this all possible
               Alfonso Hermida, Steve Anger, Truman Brown and
               Ronald Praver for Blob Sculptor
               Laurens J. Lapre for LPARSER
               Dan Farmer for his wood textures
               Mike Miller for STONE18
               Sean Ahern for suggesting wrinkles on grass
               The members of comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing
               for ideas on modelling water and brushed steel

Taylor Reid
Chicago, Illinois
