TITLE: "Hatteras Storm Front"
NAME: Glenn McCarter
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: gmccarter@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/2006/
TOPIC: Landmarks
COPYRIGHT: I submit to the standard raytracing competition copyright.
JPGFILE: hatteras.jpg
ZIPFILE: hatteras.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.1

TOOLS USED: 

  ColorPicker ( define texture colors )
  sPatch ( bezier patch manipulation )
  3dStudio ( create lofts )
  3DWin ( convert lofts to triangle mesh )
  Paint Shop Pro ( heightfields, convert image to JPEG, add copyright )

RENDER MUSIC: Stevie Ray Vaughan - "Couldn't Stand The Weather"

RENDER TIME: 
    4h 06m

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium II - 300 mhz


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


Fighting fierce winds, strong currents, and rocky shoals, the clipper
ship "Ann McKim" races to outrun a storm front.  The Cape Hatteras
lighthouse stands as a familiar beacon to mark the way.

The Cape Hatteras lighthouse sits on the Outer Banks of the North Carolina
coast, marking the treacherous Diamond Shoals in the Atlantic Ocean.
This area, known as "the Graveyard of the Atlantic", is where the
southbound Laborador Current meets the strong flow of the Gulf Stream.

In 1870 this modern Hatteras lighthouse was built near the site of an
older, weaker light.  The new lighthouse was painted with a spiral stripe
for daytime visibility, and employed the latest in lighting technology: a
first order Fresnel Lens system.  It produces a powerful light beam visible
for 20 miles (32 km).  The tower itself rises 196 feet (60 m) to the
iron superstructure.  To this day it is still the tallest brick light tower
in the world. It stands as a nineteenth century landmark, both literally
and figuratively.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I created everything in the scene, specifically for this IRTC image.
Ironically, the easiest part to model may have been the lighthouse tower
itself, and is a straightforward CSG construction created directly in the
POV-Ray text editor.  I used photographic references of the tower to
maintain accuracy.  The masonary base uses the heightfield + image map
technique pioneered by Jamie Vives.

The sand dunes are a couple of textured heightfields created by hand in
Paint Shop Pro, along with a turbulent textured plane.

The ship is a combination of a triangle mesh hull and bezier patch sails,
along with POV-Ray CSG for spars and rigging.  It is based on hull and
rigging plans from the book "The Pride of Baltimore" by T.C.Gillmer.
The ship is the "Ann McKim", known as the first Clipper Ship because of
her unique hull design and square rig.

The waves are a height field with a bumpy normal texture applied.
The height field creates the large waves, while the  normal makes
the small ripples on the waves. The height field itself was created
with a small POV-Ray scene which makes a greyscale image of a bumpy plane.
The water spray uses a media with both emission and absorption.
        
The clouds are many elongated spheres filled with media.  This is the first
time I've attempted to model storm clouds, so it's sort of a landmark scene
for me, too.  :-)
        

