TITLE: Vigil of the Ancients
NAME: Bob Davis
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: rdavis@rmi.net
WEBPAGE: http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/gargoyle/34/
TOPIC: Unbelievable
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: ancientv.jpg
ZIPFILE: ancientv.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Povray 3.02

TOOLS USED: 
    None

RENDER TIME: 
    25m 02s

HARDWARE USED: 
    PII-266

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


In a parallel dimension, ancient guardians post a silent watch as
Earth evolves before them.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


In three words - "Fun with Fractals".

For this topic, I thought that an image with a surreal flavor would fit quite
nicely.
From personal experience, I've found that there is often a fine line between
surrealism
and the abstract. To stay within the former's boundaries requires a simple
(non-cluttered) overall look using complex shapes while at the same time
keeping
pronounced angles to a minimum.  What better candidates than fractals?  Besides,
I'd
been looking for a good reason to experiment with them.

The "guardians" are a CSG of two distinct julia fractals using quaternion 4-D
algebra
and incorporating the sqr function.  Each fractal has been clipped, rotated and

translated to form the desired effect.

The "animal-like" beings on each side of the image are also julia fractals.  I
was able
to clip, rotate, and translate each fractal in such a way that when combined
with just 
the right texture and coloring, the image became almost "organic" in
appearance.

The "watchamacallit" above the guardians is a CSG consisting of a series of
extruded
and "normal" spheres.

The rest of the image is fairly basic;

The tile is just your standard 3-texture hexagon plane incorporating two stone
textures
and a "Mr. Clean" finish.

The planet is a sphere overlayed by an image map of Earth.

The energy field around the Earth, is a blue-green tinted sphere.  The finish
uses a
"non-standard" reflection and roughness factor for a transparent object in order
to
use the reflections from the sky and tile to give it a shimmering and fluid
effect.

The sky is a hollow sphere using a somewhat turbulent bozo pattern and a 4
segment color
map.

