For this project, I chose to attempt to re-create the Starship Enterprise model (which is located in Vulcan, Alberta) in POV-Ray 3.6. I based my image entirely on two pictures of the statue that I found online:
I have to admit, when I first decided to undertake this task, I was not impressed with the quality of the images created in previous semesters. I thought surely I could create a much more realistic model. Well, I was wrong.
The first task was to learn POV-Ray, obviously. I had never used any sort of Ray tracing software before, but a run through the tutorial and I was ready to begin working on my project. The modelling went quite smoothly, without too much difficulty. I suppose the worst part would be getting all the individual components to the proper scale.
The part that really surprised me was the texturing. It's a lot more difficult to create a good looking texture than one might think. I ended up opting for the solid grey, due to time limitations.
I used Rune Johansen's fast sky (http://runevision.com/) which, as the name implies, is simple a realistic, yet surprisingly fast rendering sky.
the final images:
Not quite the photorealistic images I had once envisioned, but I'm still happy with it. The textures are probably the first part I would have liked to spend more time to improve, lighting being second.