EMAIL: 100020.777@compuserve.com
NAME:  Garry J. Vass
TOPIC: Flight
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE:  The Flying Dutchman
COUNTRY:  UK
RENDERER USED: POV 3
TOOLS USED:  gviewer
RENDER TIME:  about 48 hours
HARDWARE USED:  166 pentium
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

There is an old legend that says on stormy nights you might see
the blood red sails of the flying Dutchman breaking through the
clouds in his eternal search for redemption...

This image is called "Dutch".  It depicts a whimsical interpretation
of the overature to Richard Wagner's heroic opera, "The
Flying Dutchman".


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

The image was created as a part of my project to use POV for all of
the ten major operas by Richard Wagner.  It was only by accident that
my work here coincided with the IRTC for November, 1996.

But first, a word of background on the story...

The legend goes that a merchant ship sailing from Holland
was caught at sea in a devastating storm.  The sailors were,
one by one, tossed overboard until only one remained...

`The remaining sailor struck a bargain with the devil.  He bargained
his soul against the obligation to forever sail his ship in the
skies...  The sails are blood red because of his pact with the Devil...

The only chance he had to redeem his soul was if someone would
offer him pure, eternal love...  

So much for legend, what I write below is history, the 
year is 1835...

Europe has known 20 years of peace...  But troubles brew for a
young, unkown composer, Richard Wagner.  He was deeply in debt and
hunted on grounds of promiscuity.  Fearing for prison, he fled
the European town of Riga on a ship bound to London.  His life
was a shambles, he was accompanied only by his wife, dog, and
two carpet bags of belongings...

Sailing through the straights between Norway and Denmark, the
ship was caught in a terrible storm.  Wagner feared for his
life...

As the ship sought safety in a Norwegian port, Wagner heard
the cries of the mariners onboard ship calling out to those
ashore...  Salvation...  Redemption...  He remembered that
joyous cry until his death.

Indeed, some historians say that his 10 major operas are
based upon the quest for salvation and redemption.  But back
to the story...

Several years later, Wagner wove that cry into a myth about
a flying dutchman and wrote an opera.  The result was a gift
to Western civilization called, "The Flying Dutchman".  When it
was first performed, there were fistfights in the lobby of the
opera house leading riots in the streets.  Honestly, his opera
signified a complete break in the pattern. 

It is the first of the ten great Wagner epics.  Go buy the CD
and listen to the overature.  You will be moved, I promise!

In all events, you can read about Wagner's life in a book - there
are more books about him than any other person in history (check
me out on that).  If you have the money, you can go to the
Metropolitan Opera and see "The Flying Dutchman" performed.
You can even buy a video cassette of it...

What you cannot do is see the Dutchman's ship breaking through
the clouds...  You can't see the blood red sails of his ship...
You cannot feel what it means to have a pact with the devil.

And that's what I set about to render.

Now on to the rendering itself...

First of all, "dutch" is the 7th part of my project to render
the 10 Wagner epics with POV.  The 6 preceeding images are
Valhalla, Valkure, Siegfried, Twilight, Lohengren, and
Tanhaeuser.  They are all highly mythological in content.
You can get those renderings at CIS|povray.  Those remaining
are Tristan, Meister, and Grail - and I will do those when
I get around to it - they are even more difficult.

To date, "Dutch" has been the most difficult for two reasons:
1.  The rendering requires narrative content; and 2.  the
rendering contains lots of non-standard CSG objects.  Both of
those things are especially hard for me.  To get the result
I needed, I wrote a "C" program that generates a POV file, which
in turn generates the entire image from scratch.  It is about
3,500 lines of code and I will upload it to the povray forum
when the competition is completed.

On to the mundane mechanics.  The image itself contains:

    -  three cloud masses;
    -  a galaxy and the big dipper constellation;
    -  the bridge of a sailing vessal, modified to
       accomodate flight;
    -  masts and sails;
    -  a recursive image map; and
    -  a planet, Earth;

The bridge is composed of POVray bicubic_patches, as are
the banners, the flight controls, and the sails.

The image shows the bridge of a ship, but some kind of 
wierd cross between a "tall ships" vessal, an ocean 
steamer, and an airborne vessal.  Narrative content is
given by the wheel, the sails, and the Earth (credit 
to Herr Bayer for showing me how to do a planet!) I 
used as a backdrop.

In terms of color, the major pigments are Gold (symbolizing
fate, destiny, and the laws of nature); Red (symbolizing 
emotion, passion, and of course, a pact with the devil); 
and IceBlue (symbolizing reason, logic, and the laws of
mankind).  Whenever those 3 elements are in conflict, 
there is an epic story being told - trust me on this one.  

Destiny against passion against reason - a three way battle...

So the number three has got to figure in to it.  Each spoke 
on the wheel has three spheres, there are three monitors,
three panels on the console, three buttons, three sails, 
three masts, three spars, three banners, three bulkheads,
the dials point to 3, -3, 33, -33, 333, and -333.  And all that.

The union of all principal objects is scaled to the 
"Golden Ratio", a numerical ratio discovered in ancient Greece.

Upon insistance from my wife, I added the galaxy.  And as
an artistic whim, I added the Big Dipper because I figured
he needed something to navigate by in case those fancy
instruments failed.

This image was a unbelievable core hog to render - and I have
a screaming 166 mgh with cache.  I think it must be the color
maps, but I don't know for sure.  I just cranked POV to the
max and let it go for a couple of days.

P. S.  You can see the other Wagnerian images at "go povray" on
compuserve.
