TITLE: Minster Church of St. John
NAME: Stephen M. Farrell
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com
WEBPAGE: N/A
TOPIC: Architecture
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: gothic52.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.5; WinTree 1.0b; Paint Shop Pro 7 (for
signature and jpg conversion)

RENDER TIME: 
    9 hours 45 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 4 2.53 GHz; 1 GB RAM



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


  The Minster Church of St. John the Evangelist in Beverley, England.

  While looking for inspiration for this round, I searched the Web for gothic
architecture and came across a large, detailed photograph of this church (see
links at end), and thought it would make for an interesting challenge.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


  First off, I just want to make sure to mention that I did use the WinTree
program (see links at end) for the trees in this scene.  While I usually try to
create all the elements of a scene myself, I knew that all my time and energy
would be needed to create the building itself.  Since I didn't really have time
to learn much about using the program, I just tried making a few minor
adjustments to some settings for one of the example trees, and then created my
own textures for them.

  The grass consists of almost one million triangles, divided into eight
separate rectangular sections (to avoid getting grass inside the building
itself).  Each section is a mesh, which uses while loops to place a single
triangle (with somewhat randomized height, position, rotation, and pigment)
over and over again.  The brick wall uses simple rounded boxes (with randomized
textures) for the bricks. The sky uses a bozo-pattern pigment, and while it may
not look totally realistic, hopefully doesn't look too bad.

  While most of my time went into the building, there really isn't much to say
about it... it's almost completely csg.  The windows are opague, with a
glass-like finish, both to match the look of the original photo, and to keep
from having to create a detailed interior for the building.  (It's probably
worth pointing out that the parts of the building which can't be seen from this
angle have no detail to them at all... the unseen walls are simply boxes.)

  I did my best to create the building in stages... starting off with simply
trying to get the shape and scale correct using simple boxes, then going
through and adding the details (windows, trim) in very basic form, and then
going back over the whole thing numerous times trying to add more detail each
time around.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get it too look nearly as ornate
as the original, but I'm fairly well pleased with how it did turn out.

  I spent a lot more time tweaking the lighting this time around than I normally
do... about two weeks were spent on the lighting alone.  I ended up with one
main light source, along with two very dim fill lights to help bring out some
detail in the shadowed areas (and also radiosity).  I'm still not sure about
the results, but think it is better lit than most of my scenes.  

  That's pretty much it.  As usual, I appreciate all comments/criticisms people
care to make.  Good luck to everyone this round!


LINKS:

  WinTree 1.0b (Created by Tom Aust and Gena Obukhov): 
    http://propro.ru/go/Wshop/tools/tools.html

  Small version of photograph of the church: 
   
http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/Beverley/Minster/Bev-Minst-ext-Bo
ndGA177-s.jpg (697x393 pixels)

  Large version of photograph of the church: 
   
http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/Beverley/Minster/Bev-Minst-ext-Bo
ndGA177-b.jpg (1738x996 pixels)

  If you're at all interested in this type of architecture, I urge you to check
out this site - it's an amazing collection of medieval architecture in
England:
    http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/maineng2.html

