After taking a couple months off for the holidays, I am back at work on this
project. What's new?

1. Rebuilt all of the deck structures, adding round corners, glass in the
windows and new textures.

2. I created a new rail using trace to follow the curve of the hull. This
allowed me to add rounded edges and a bead detail. I wrote the code to
allow for more trace calls where the hull curves the most and fewer where
the hull has only a slight curve.

3. Completely new deck. In the previous design, the deck was simply a union
of alternating boxes and cylinders constrained by an intersection with a
prism. The new deck design uses trace to determine the starting and ending
point of each row of planks. The trace is targeted to the waterway (Red
fixture that runs around the perimeter of the deck) that inturn is created
with trace in the same way as the new railing. This significantly sped up
the renduring time. The code allows for staggering the planks to match
non-existant frames under the deck. New randomized texture as well. I added
"Tree-Nails" to the planks but removed them after I determined that they
were nearly invisible.

4. New rounded stern still needs some work. New textures as well, though it
is hard to see them well in this image.

As always there is plenty of work still to go, but as my experience
increases, I find that I am writing smarter and more efficient code and the
work is going faster. RAM is now becoming an issue (1 Gb of RD Ram) I am
planning on rebuilding my PC and upgrading to a 64 bit dual core system
(This will cost less than adding another 1 Gb of RD Ram). Is this a good
time to do this from a POV-Ray point of view?

Comments, Criticisms and suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks,

Tim

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'uss niagara 013106.jpg' (180 KB)

Preview of image 'uss niagara 013106.jpg'