EMAIL: cly@u.arizona.edu
NAME: Chun Ly
TOPIC: Dreaming
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: At The Pond
COUNTRY: Indonesia
WEBPAGE: www.u.arizona.edu/~cly    -- Still under construction
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray v3.1 (Windows)
TOOLS USED: Moray v3.1, MakeTree v1.0b (by Gilles Tran), PlantStudio v2.0, Earthscape,
            Photoshop v6.0, Rhinoceros 3D v1.1, NKFlare, 3DCafe.com, Google.com, IRTC.org
            Grass Plugin for POVRay (by Gordon Bentley gbentley@birdcameron.com.au),
            http://zebu.uoregon.edu/images/moon.gif (for moon image)
RENDER TIME: 3 min. 0 sec. (parse); 2 min. 50 sec. (trace); 5 min. 50 sec. (total) / 187 Mbyte of Peak memory
HARDWARE USED: AMD Athlon 900 MHz
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
This image was the result of contemplating my dream date. A very long story and it sounds lame, but my dream date
is to have a romantic dinner with my soul mate at a beautiful pond with the sun setting, the moon rising in
the east, and Venus crossing the meridian. This dream is what motivated me to create this image. It is by far,
the most difficult image that I had to make, and my first entry into the IRTC. This is completely an original idea,
and everything was visioned prior to making the image. What I mean by that is, I thought of the shape of the pond,
how the mountains should look like, and where I feel trees should be place to make it look realistic.

This image is located at a pond that has a wooden, arched bridge which links one side to the other. Mountains are
in the background, and the sun begins to set while the moon is up. Trees grow around the pond, and there are some
plants on the right. The purple one is called a coreopsis, and the second one is a "bushy" plant. Lilies float on
the water, and a white owl is perched on top of a tree and stares at the sky waiting for darkness.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
This image was mainly rendered in POV-Ray v3.1. I mainly used Moray's Material Editor for the textures and Moray
was initially used to simplify the process in positioning objects quicker.

Sky:
The sky was done using overlapping color_maps. One for the clouds (using a bozo pattern), and a second for the color
across the sky, which creates a sunsetting effect. As you know, as the sun sets, the sky turn red before it becomes
twilight.

Landscapes:
The pond was created by hand as a heightfield using Photoshop. The mountains were created with Earthscape,
and Photoshop was used to do the necessary finishing touches. The water texture was from Moray, but I added smaller
bumps, uniform turbulence, and noise to make it attractive and technical right for a pond. The mountain texture is
similar to the one provided by Gordon in his Grass plugin but with modifications on the soil pigments.

Trees:
Trees were created using Gilles Tran's MakeTree plugin. No preference was initially thought off. I render many
trees and selected the four best-looking and appealing of all of them. I also used Tran's tree and leaf textures
which are included in his MakeTree package. I selected different textures to provide a selection of different types of
trees around the pond. Adjustments to the ambient parameters of the trees were made so the trees were not completely dark.
After all, the sun has not setted, so we should see some texture of the trees.

Grass:
The grass was created with Gordon Bentley's Grass Plugin. I created a 1 sq. POV unit patch, and replicated this patch
many times to create a grassy surface. This was simplier than trying to make one big patch that fitted around
the lake; it was also time efficient to parse just a small patch and replicate it. Gordon provided the texture that I
used in his Grass Plugin. Also, I rotated the patch randomly such that it looks different, so no visible pattern
existed.

Objects:
* The wooden bridge was created in Rhino. I chose Rhino because of it's ability to bend objects (which was needed for
  an arched bridge) and its NURBS capabilities. Moray was used to select and create different wood textures for the
  base, the handle, etc.
* Lilies were modelled and textured in Moray. I used Google.com to search for images of the lily pads and the flowers.
* The picnic table was modelled in Moray. It uses the same texture as the bridge.
* The coreopsis and the "bushy" plant was from PlantStudio's collection. I selected them for their uniqueness and the
  realistic qualities.
* The Owl was a 3D model (.3DS) from 3dCafe.com. I imported it into Rhino, and fragmented one object into many body
  parts for different textures. Adjustments were made to the claws so it seem like it was clinging to a branch, or so.
  Its texture was done by hand using Moray. It took forever since I did not use the image map method which I noticed that
  many people use. Color_maps of leopard and marble pattern with added turbulence and a normal map for a little realism on
  the owl.
* The sun and Venus was created using NKFlare. I use a 'sunset' flare for the sun (obviously) and a 'small star' flare
  for Venus.
* The moon is created using two disks. One of which was an image_map of the moon from the above website, and the second
  one was used for a halo effect that overlapped the "moon" disk. I used a onion color_map to create such a halo. I found
  this method from Michael Hough, who used it in his Yerkes Observatory image (IRTC: Great Engineering Achievements).
  For those of you looking for a good image map to the entire moon, the following website provides a really good one:
     http://samadhi.jpl.nasa.gov/maps/earth.html


Let me know what you think, and what adjustments are necessary for future competitions. This took months to create, and
lots of research was done for the softwares available and how realistic objects should be. I used IRTC.org to see how
other people render particular objects. I would like to thank all those who made any contribution to my image. Those who
developed these softwares help dramatically in making the image more realistic, and those who constructive criticize my
image help me put the finishing touches and provided me with different point-of-views.


Later,
Chun Ly
a.k.a. <<azmadscientist>>

P.S. As you notice, the ZIP file does not contain everything that I used to render the image. I have everything that I done
archive. If you would like anything, just drop me an email. For those who plan to use any objects/parts of my image to help
create theirs, all I ask is for some credibility. As you may know, it takes a lot of time, and I would appreciate being
acknowledge.