July 2010 Entry : The Solur Nexedifice of Kharaghan

[Crayons]

OK - the original deadline is about up. I think I'm all done?

Some background to the "Universe"

Nexus Technomancy
Gone are old theocracies of elemental Earth, Air, Fire and Water. These "heretical" belief systems are now Anathema and their adherents are persecuted and converted or...
The Uinversal Forces of Light, Gravity, Lightning and Entropy are now the Foundation of modern Technomantic Energy Sorcery. The Secrets of their Craft are well guarded but even so, the Heretical Freedom Army's spies have managed to garner sufficient Sacred Data to unravel the Core Dogma of Nexomancy.
The Unification of Forces was discovered through Matter - Minerals and Metals. The Forces interact with matter in a largely definable manner although many relationships are still being researched and discovered. Sometimes attracting, other times repelling, these minerals and the concentrations of them have become the Loci of Technomantic Study and Learning over the decades.
Loci that can harness and transmit gathered Forces have become linked through the Nexuses, the most powerful of which are the Solur Nexuses that can be found all across the equatorial belt of the Empire.
The Solur Nexedfice of Kharaghan is one of the largest and most powerful of the Light Loci, its energy provides almost one thirtieth of the Nexus's total capacity due to its isolated location in that deep desert.
The ancient volcanic plug on which it stands has a deep concentrated core of Luxite that must have crystalised almost perfectly. A vein of Entropium Oxigate lies a few leagues to the north attracting a constant wind and forming a local vortex which is also tapped for energy. This wind incidentally helps to cool the Nexedifice and allows it to operated almost continuously during sunlight hours. An Entropium Air Tunneller Device provides the air displacement pipe for the energy link. A small Entromantic Order maintains and operates this at their Temple Annex in the cliffs above the main Light Temple complex. Although the energy beam seems significantly weaker at the output that is primarily due to the much lower particulate air matter density created in the pipe, along with the purity of the processed light, giving it a blueish tinge.

You get the general drift I hope.

As for the work, I have created this using Paintshop Pro X and Wilbur for the height_map terrain, with PSP X for the final compositing thing. The images themselves are all created using POVRay v3.62 from scratch - i.e. using standard primitives etc. (There is one image_map used that is a modification of what would normally be a "leafy floor" tile for something like Maptool or Fractal Mapper etc.)

That's about it.
Please feel free to ask any questions at all and please, please feel free to give C&C's! Something that I note has been something of a rarity during this WIP! (I mean the critique bit!)

The attached file is A3 size at 300dpi saved as a jpg with a compression factor of 50. The original is a tad large, sorry!

### LATEST WIP ###


cheers!
Crayons

[Gidde]

This looks fantastic. One little nitpick: I can't believe I never noticed it in the thread name, but unless you have a dialect shift in your world, it's Solar, rather than Solur.

[Crayons]

Thank you.
Correct on both counts! It is merely a dialectic quirk I adopted for that that "forn parts" image! It's supposed to make it feel otherworldly, the kind of other world lacking suitable dikshunaries.

[Steel General]

Great job...

[Crayons]

Sorry about this. I've just had a try with some other compression levels of jpg. The previous compression was just messing up even the reflected clouds in the gold mounting/border so I've redone this at factor 35. I'm afraid that makes the file about 2 Megs so I apologise for the inconvenience. I also tweaked a few little things.
This should be the final version
### LATEST WIP ###



cheers!

[Gidde]

2 megs is still pretty small, actually. Keep upping your res until you're just under the limit (4.77) ... that way your final pic is as good as it can be for the challenge.

[ravells]

I love it Crayons! You really do get the most out of the 3d renders by doing the little insets.

[Crayons]

2 megs is still pretty small, actually. Keep upping your res until you're just under the limit (4.77) ... that way your final pic is as good as it can be for the challenge.

Oh, OK.
I took a moment to add a few more bits to the purifier too.
### LATEST WIP ###
Attachment 27537

[Admins? I took several tries at uploading this but for some reason the Attachment Manager "bit" that makes a thumbnail so it can be inserted into the text didn't seem to "catch" - so I've just left it as a plain attachment. Dunno if there's a bug or something in there?]

[cfds]

You have my vote for sure. Just an amazing piece of work.

[Jaxilon]

I really like being able to check out all the stuff with this last upload. The reflections in the solur collectors is cool.