EMAIL: t.degroot@inter.nl.net
NAME: Thomas de Groot
TOPIC: Before and After
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: A Time of Change (before and after)
COUNTRY: Netherlands
WEBPAGE: none (yet)
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.6 / Megapov / POV-Ray 3.7
TOOLS USED: POV-Ray, Moray 3.5, Poser 7, PoseRay, Ivy Generator
RENDER TIME: about 1 hour for before (V3.7) and >24 hours for after (Megapov) 
HARDWARE USED: HP Pavilion Media Center m7490.nl; Pentium D 930 dual-core; 2x3GHz


IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
An ancient courtyard in an nameless town is the playground for children and the meeting place for the local population. 
Nobody really remembers what the ancient building looked like or was used for. It simply stands there as a reminder of 
long forgotten days.Amongst the children we notice Cathy, gossiping with a friend.

However, the world changes, and as children turn into adults, so do also dreams and wishes. The courtyard has to be 
rehabilitated, keeping however the local meeting function it has had for so long. Some wanted to turn it into a market, 
others into a cinema, a wealthy few into a megastore. In the end, it will be gallery for the local artists (oh wisdom of the town council!). 
Now the first exhibition is being organized, and Tina Chep participates (she is talking here with a journalist of the local newspaper). 
And also the former Plane Checker has found a new job...


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
Only the 'after'scene uses radiosity. The 'before' scene not (v3.7). That will be shown at a later date when rendered with Megapov. 
It takes too long to be ready in time before the deadline.

The <before> image was already under way (Cathy's World #3) before the topic was known but could be easily integrated into the idea. 
Most of the work went into the building of the courtyard walls. I used Ingo's stucco utility (in POV-Rays's Scenes directory) as a basis, 
transforming it into a macro with some more (random) possibilities. This new version is included in the zip file. The archs were made with 
Bill Pragnell's macro. While working on something that would look like ivy, Thomas Luft's Ivy Generator appeared and has been gladly 
used for this scene. The courtyard's flagstones is a height_field and the grass growing in the seams has been traced carefully there. 
The medieval houses of the town have been built in Moray. Some of them are still available from the downloadable objects page of the Moray site. 
The torso is a bit of a mystery. It was provided by Ken Tyler in 1999, who said that it had already been around on the web for several years but that 
the author was unknown. As a texture, Rune's Patina macro was used.

The <after> image derives from the other of course. The stucco has been restored, the ivy and grass was cut, the flagstones have been restored, 
and a dome has been built over the courtyard with the Dome plugin in Moray. All the sculptures have been made in Silo (sometimes based on 
older versions in Hamapatch). Some have been inspired by work seen in RL and archeology. The painting on the wall is one of my entries for 
the Minimalism round of the IRTC.

Poser 7 was used to create the figures in both scenes.