TITLE: Radio Graves
NAME: Jeremy M. Praay
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: slashdolt@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: n/a
TOPIC: Old Technology
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: radiogrv.jpg
ZIPFILE: radiogrv.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    Win-Gimp, Windows(TM) Paint, POV-Tree

RENDER TIME: 
    1d 17h 36m

HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 512MB RAM



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


Cathedral and tombstone radios were very popular in the 1930's.  Philco, in
particular, made many varieties in the mid 1930's alone (over 100?).  The
beautifully made radios were often quite expensive, especially for that
time-period, sometimes priced at several hundred dollars.  But as time wore on,
the technology inevitably became cheaper, the components became more standard,
and many of these beautiful old radios became too cumbersome and problematic,
especially when compared to transister radios.  But such beautifully crafted
antiques should not just sit in someone's basement to eventually rot away, even
if the technology is dead.

In the distance is an old farm.  The windmill, once vital to the operation of
the farm, now stands as a decoration.  The rusting silos are empty, since
improved transportation means there is no longer a need to store grain for long
periods.  The farmhouse, which was home to a family of 10, is now only the home
of an elderly couple, who often reminisce of the times when the farm was full
of activity.




DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I knew almost nothing about these radios when I started, but working with this
project gave me an appreciation for them.  My original idea was simply to
create a "1930's room", with various objects from the 1930's.  But once I began
creating my first radio, I thought "Gee, that looks like a tombstone", and thus
the "Radio Graves" idea was born.  Later I found that some types were actually
referred to as "tombstones".  I guess I see why.

Creating my first radio took quite awhile, but once I got the process down, I
found I could create them much more rapidly.  To create a radio, I would first
create the basic shape using POV-Ray CSG.  I would then create an orthographic
map looking straight at the radio, with perhaps some of the very basic
features. At that point, I would take the maps and convert to black and white. 
The faces of each of the radios is one or more heightfields based on these
orthographic maps, which I created in Windows Paint and then modified and
blurred with Win-Gimp. I then stuck the height-fields onto the front of the
radios, and added any textures, dials, knobs, screws, etc.  I spent lots of
time getting the wood textures to look good, but unfortunately, much of that
was lost at this resolution.  (I plan to create a super hi-res version later)

The radios were based on images I gathered from various sources on the Web. 
Sometimes I was working with more than one picture, and I really don't recall
where they all came from. Some were as a result of Google's image search. 
However, color pictures of many of these radios can be found at
http://archives.radioattic.com, if you want to check them out.

The background farm is entirely CSG, including the windmill, as is the road, and
the iron fence.

The foreground grass was created by using Gilles Tran's MakeGrass macro set
(http://www.oyonale.com/ressources/english/sources01.htm).  However, it was
"double-layered", meaning that I created the green grass with one set of
parameters and textures, and then created the brown (dead) layer using another.
 It seemed to add a great deal more realism to the grass.

The taller grass (weeds) which are barely visible near the radios and around the
fences, was created by simply wrapping blades of grass (from MakeGrass) around
a cone, and putting it into a macro, adding some variation.  The corn was a
similar procedure, only on a larger scale.  I plan to improve on the corn and
the weed creation in the future, as outdoor scenes appeal to me the most.

The trees are a result of POV-Tree (I LOVE IT!), Authors: Tom Aust (tree
algorithm), Gena Obukhov (Java programming).  Gena posted a faster modified
version of TOMTREE in the newsgroups, which was used here (TomTreeM.inc).  
TomTree: http://www.aust-manufaktur.de/austv2x.html 
POV-Tree: http://propro.ru/go/Wshop/tools/tools.html

The hills in the far background are a simple isosurface on a cylinder, using
Cristoph Hormann's isoCSG library
(http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0013390/pov/ic).  The texture is from 3D
Cafe (www.3dcafe.com/textures/plants12.jpg), although I did adjust the colors
slightly using Win-Gimp (less green, more red). But the texture is barely
visible at all at this resolution.

The image map textures for the grille cloths were used by permission from
www.grillecloth.com.  (Thank you!)  I blurred most of them slightly, using
Win-Gimp  (http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32).  I briefly tried creating them
manually and procedurally, but couldn't make them look as realistic.

The clouds were created by using "fast clouds", created by Gilles Tran, Chis
Colefax, and others, who posted the source in the POV-Ray newsgroups last
year.





