Valley of the Bots

"Ray-tracing is painting with light and numbers."

One of the greatest things in the universe is the Persistence of Vision ray tracer, a freely-downloadable 3D rendering program. Since the renderer is entirely script-driven, it has a steep learning curve for its use, but it is capable of producing great results.

Using this excellent tool, I have developed a series of characters—mostly robots—who have their existence in a virtual realm known as the Petrified Orchard Valley. So far the adventures of these characters are chronicled in the Internet Ray-Tracing Contest, although if my free time allows I might start doing other stuff as well.

The Petrified Orchard Valley is parched dry. There may be places nearby with live trees, but I'm not aware of any. On the good side, the sky is always blue, although there is also some fog in the distance. The trees in the valley were petrified so long ago that nobody remembers. The ground is flat, until you reach the hills that nobody noticed until just recently.

You'll be able to guy gas here when I'm finished building the place. The building's up, now, so it should be soon.

The famous Rusty. He made his first appearance in the October 1998 round of the IRTC, and has been a part of all but two entries I've made since that time. Rusty works in the POV Phytogenetic Research Laboratory, and likes to paint and play chess in his spare time.
Rusty took about a month to design (including time spent on discarded ideas). His texture is the result of a constructive criticism of my July 1998 entry in the IRTC; somebody said that the model in that entry was dull-looking. I had already decided to have a robot playing chess, with the vague idea of setting the game in the desolate ruins of a once-great civilization. This suggested a beat-up looking robot, so I made him gold-plated with rust spots.

Rosie was once Rusty's significant other. She had a small appearance in the October 1999 IRTC round, and a couple more appearances since then. She presides over the Petrified Orchard Valley Traffic Court, and moonlights in a night club. In her spare time she likes to make animations on her Freundin 5000 computer.
I confess that Rosie is nothing more than a re-textured Rusty.

Boxer was introduced in the April 1999 round, and has appeared in three rounds since then. I have no idea what Boxer does for a living, but he is active in the laser rights movement and is one of Rusty's regular chess-playing buddies.
Like Rusty, Boxer's design was a month of false starts until I finished with what you see here.

TC made his first appearance in the January 2000 IRTC. He works with Rusty in the POV Phytogenetic Research Laboratory, and is another of Rusty's regular chess buddies.
TC (short for tin can) was a fairly easy model to design, once I had settled on his method of locomotion (which was also the sticking point in the development of Rusty and Boxer).

The Greb are idol-worshippers from the 777th dimension whose routine habit is to sacrifice all interlopers to their foul god, which you can see in the background of this image. Rusty and Boxer first encountered them in the April 1999 round of the IRTC.
I puttered around for three or four weeks on a different design, until I decided that I had puttered around enough and went with a design I could accomplish quickly. Once I developed a fairly good technique for hand-editing Bezier patches, the Greb became very easy to design. The script that generates the Greb allows for different textures, some equipping options, and has some reasonably idiot-proof IK built in.

I'm no longer doing Greb-based stories in Rusty animations. The Greb are now the bad guys in a new set of stories.

Domo first appeared to the world in my January 2001 IRTC entry, mainly so that there could be three robots to meet Rusty as he rolls up to the Petrified Orchard Valley chapter of the NLA.
Domo was the quickest new design of all my robots so far; I had made lots of notes during a time I was away from my computer, and the fact that he levitates eliminated a great deal of modeling work. He took less than one working day to design and test render.

Another robot of the Rusty design, she appears, with Domo, in the January 2001 entry, meeting Rusty as he first arrives at the NLA meeting house.
While Kammi is basically a retextured Rusty, I also spent about a day designing the laser guns that you can see here. The camouflage colors were taken directly from an Air Force battle dress uniform.

Joe was designed for my July 2001 IRTC entry. Although there are sixteen little doors from which arms can protrude, only three of the arms were designed as of the time of the contest. I might add more. Since he was encountered in a dream, I'm entitled to change things to suit me.
Joe has a distinctive walk; all four feet move at once, followed by the body. I originally wanted the Greb to walk this way (when I was working on a completely different body plan for them).

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