TITLE: Hell's Gate
NAME: Bob Franke
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: bobfranke@halcyon.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.halcyon.com/wordsltd/pov/pov.htm
TOPIC: Imaginary Worlds
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: hellgate.jpg
ZIPFILE: hellgate.zip

RENDERER USED:
  POV-Ray 3.1a (Windows 95)

TOOLS USED:
  POV-Ray editor
  Poser 2
  John P. Beale's Height Field Lab (HF-Lab)
  Keith Rule's 3D file conversion utility, Wcvt2Pov.
  Photostyler for jpeg conversion and copyright note

RENDER TIME:
  6 hours 36 minutes

HARDWARE USED:
  Pentium-133 w/ 64 Mb RAM

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
I am sure many will disagree, but for me, Hell is an
imaginary world.  People all over the world believe in
some sort of life after death.  Many also believe in
the two principal destinations for the soul, Heaven and
Hell. I choose Hell for my image because it is much
more interesting to contemplate.

The image shows a portal like gateway.  The gate keeper
rings the bell to announce to all another lost soul is
about to enter. The two women, who have become part of
the columns, are the lucky ones.  They did not have to
enter.

Immediately after entering, there is a steep 500 foot
decent to the Valley Of Despair.  This is a dark
featureless land where nothing happens and nothing ever
will.  Two miles in the distance and to the left there
is a fiery glow, maybe this is the way to go.  To the
right it is still dark, surely this darkness and
despair does not go on forever.  Which way should I
go?.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
The gate keeper and stone women were created with Poser
2 and converted with Wcvt2Pov.  Please do not get upset
with the nude women and clothed man. Nude women are
simply more beautiful than men.

The landscape is made with four height fields, created
with Height Field Lab.  The bell is a difference of two
Surface of Revolution objects.  The cobble stones are a
bunch of randomly rotated superellipsoids.  Although
not very apparent, two layers of ground fog are used.
The flames are done with interior and media.  Every
thing else is simple CSG.  

The scene has six light sources and was traced with
anti-aliasing at +A0.5. To save space, the height
fields and Poser objects are not included.

Special thanks to:
N.B. and Glenn McCarter for leading me in the right
direction for the flames.

Karl Manning for his example of using granite as the
normal to create a stone texture.