POV-Ray

[miriam_e]

I've talked here before about POV-Ray. I've mentioned how it is a free program and has been in continuous development since the mid 80s. Being community-developed it is available for almost every computer platform that exists. It can do things that 3d renderers costing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars can't do. As I said, POV-Ray is, and has always been, free.

See the picture I have linked to on the right? It is a picture created by Norbert Kern for the International Ray Tracing Competition, which is held each year. If you think that looks impressive, look at the large view. Remember that picture is not a photograph -- it is a 3d virtual world that exists only inside a computer. If you had the text files that are the description of that world then you could view it from any position inside it. You could look back this way from the other side of the stump. You could look through the eyes on the woodpecker (notice the woodpecker?).

Some time ago I gave a link to another of Norbert Kern's beautiful POV-Ray worlds called warm-up (or large version). I'd wished for some time that I could lay my hands on the scene description so that I could render it from different positions in the world, and see what is beyond the trees. Well, I found it! If you want to try your hand at it check out the zip file next to his winning listing on http://www.irtc.org/stills/2001-06-30.html (Note that it requires a slightly modified version of POV-Ray called MegaPOV. I'm having a go at altering the source to render in the latest standard version of POV-Ray.)

My favorite POV-Ray artist of course is the mind-blowingly brilliant Gilles Tran.
http://www.oyonale.com/

If you want to see a whole lot of gorgeous POV-Ray pictures check out http://www.povcomp.com/hof/index.html

If you become sufficiently interested that you decide to try your hand at making your own worlds then download POV-Ray from http://www.povcomp.com/download/