TITLE: srr_mech
NAME: Steve Reeves
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: dormammu@yourinter.net
TOPIC: Spirit of Asia
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: srr_mech.jpg
ZIPFILE: srr_mech.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.1g for Windows

TOOLS USED: 
    HF-Labv90 by John Beale

RENDER TIME: 
    4 Minutes, 14 Seconds

HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD-K6/233, 96 Megs of memory

Description of Image:

After an almost 3 1/2 year absence from the IRTC, I decided to re-enter.
(The last competition I entered in was "Night" from 1998.)  I checked out
the topic.. Spirit of Asia.  I thought to myself, "What's the first thing
you think of when you think of Asia?"  Japan.  (for me, anyway.)  I have a bit
of an obsession with Japan right now.  The follow up was, "What is most
notable about Japan?"  My answer was, "The've had the same family on the
Throne of the Emporer for all of recorded history."  Okay.. you can't really
do a picture of that.  The next thing that came to mind?  Anime.  I was
going to do some kind of Dragonball Z picture (my favorite Anime), but
realized there's potential copyright problems there.. plus, I don't have the
skill to do raytraced people yet.  So, I thought, what else is notable about
Anime?  My answer?  GIANT ROBOTS.  :)  That seems to be in many, many animes.
(Some examples.. Robotech, Mobile Suit Gundam, Zoids, Gundam Wing, 8th MS
Team, Gundam 008, Transformers, Voltron..and the list goes on...)  So, I
decided to do a picture of a Giant Robot.. and called it a Mech, because
that's the name most people recognize to mean "Giant Anime Robot"  (even
though, AFAIK, the term 'Mech' comes from the very-American RPG 'Battletech'.)
I decided not to do any specific robot from a series because I'd probably
just mangle it, and again there's possibly copyright problems.  I made a
design of my own, and put a big Japanese Flag right next to it.  :>

Mechanics of Scene:

Last time I entered the IRTC (see above), one of the comments I got was,
"Stop playing with toys and concentrate on the scene and you might actually
get good scores." .. a bit harsh, but true.  I submitted two scenes, both
of them were basically me showing off that I knew how to use a Night Sky
Scene include file, and a Lens Flare include file.  I decided to correct
that in this entry.  I used Moray for Windows to do all the modelling, and
a quick use of John Beale's Height Field Lab for the ground.  Other than
the height field, I did everything myself.  (And even with the HF, I set
all the generation parameters.)

Still fairly crude.. but if you check my other entries, this one is a ton
better.

I started off with the Mech's lower body.  The feet and 'ankle' are actually
many parts.. not as simple as they look.  (I had originally intended to do
more of a side view)  Each foot actually consists of 5 splines and 4
cylinders.  I'd suggest moving the camera to take a look, or loading it in
a modeller and taking a look.  I put the 'stabilizers' on the side after I
realized the feet were way too small to hold the rest of the mech up.  (It
would've been a pain to resize the feet)

The legs are pretty easy.  Two cylinders connected by a sphere, which acts
as a knee.  (Notice the bolt I put through the center of each 'knee')
The 'hips' are actually just two cones with a spline in the middle to fill in
some open space.  I decided this is really ugly looking, so I put in what
I call the 'double triangle' to cover it up.  (Another spline object)

The torso drove me insane.  I finally resorted to using CSG.  Basically, I
just used a REALLY BIG cube, and shaped two splines and subtracted them
from the sides.  I ended up with something that looks an awful lot like
the Green Lantern symbol.  (from DC comics.)  At this point, I was so fed
up with the torso, I just said.. "I'm leaving it like this."  I added two
more splines in near the bottom, to round off some ugly sharp angles.

The arms are basically the same idea as the legs.. cylinders connected by
a sphere.  (I debated making it look more stylish, like the Anime I based
it on.. but every attempt made the image look worse.)  Instead of doing
hands, I decided to give it weapons.  (the idea is the hands are retractable,
and the pilot can switch the two at will... much like Voltron pulling a
big sword out of nowhere... except the weapons just kind of disappear into
nothing..)  btw, I also can't do hands.  I tried modelling some in Moray,
they came out horribly.  I then broke out Blob Sculptor and gave that up
almost immediately, as blob placement is near impossible on that thing.
(I don't see how anyone can use it...)  I modelled a double barrell shotgun,
which is actually intended to be a missle launcher.  (I'm not sure why I
gave it a scope :> )  I was originally going to put a buzz saw as the
other weapon, but realized that made no sense.  So, what you have is supposed
to be an energy cannon.. but, as a friend pointed out, it looks more like
a toilet plunger.

The head was originally going to be made from blobs.. but I realized I hate
Blob Sculptor.  (Maybe I got an old version...)  So, instead I used a torus
as a 'faceplate' .. then used a lathe spline for the head casing and added
in two red, glowing eyes.  (I couldn't quite get the effect I wanted with
the eyes, but they look good as is.)

At this point, I'm pretty much done except for the textures and height field.
I loaded up John Beale's HF-Lab, and made a quick .TGA height field and loaded
it in Moray, gave it a textures, and streched it out.  I used the default
gras texture and it... well.. definately doesn't look like grass.  I thought
it was kinda psychedelic and kept it, though.  The robot is supposed to
be in camoflauge.. and it does kinda look like that.  (I modelled the robot
with this weird glowing purple texture... I almost wanted to leave that..)
And the flag was an afterthought.  (The idea is, the Mech is defending the
homeland..)  I just made a flat, rectangular white cube and put a flat,
red sphere right up against it.  The flagpole is just a cylinder with a sphere
on top, using the default 'brushed aluminum' texture.

I then positioned the camera, and the light.. added in the sky sphere, (which
is modified from the POV-Ray help documents) and was done!  I traced the
picture at 800x600 with AA 0.3

Overall, I'm happy with the picture.  I'm under no illusion it'll win, or
even place in the top 20, most likely.  So long as I can break an average
overall score of 10, I'll be happy.  :>  (my previous two entries scored
somewhere in the range of 9.1, I believe.  Since I put much more work into
this, I'm hoping that'll manifest itself as a slightly better score.)
Of course, non-flame criticism is always welcome.  You can be mean t me if
you want, just dont' turn it into a flame.  :)

Overall modelling time:  about 1 1/2 weeks real time.  I put in about 14-16
work hours to do this picture.  (And about 4 dozen test renders throughout
the time I worked on it.)











