Stewart Cowley's
Pathetic Pov Page
"Ooh Look at all those pathetic victims!!" says Dodo.
Wednesday, November 24, 1999
After spending years threatening talented people, sitting in my car outside their homes and generally pleading with others to put the results of my Ray Tracing with POVRAY on the Internet, I have finally gotten around to creating my own gallery of images. This is a shameless cry for attention to which I admit full complicity. I blame my parents.
I must give my thanks to the people at MORAY. Prior to their spectacular development I had been confined to large pieces of graph paper spread across the floor of our sinister basement. Loud howling sounds and random expletives would drift out late at night and the neighbors were beginning to avoid eye contact. There was a kind of fearful look on their faces when I opened the door to collect the milk on a morning. When MORAY came along things really changed. With MORAY I was free of the confines of my own limited 3D spatial awareness (I have trouble pouring a glass of water at arms length, for instance) so I cancelled my Krell brain transplant. As by way of counterbalance, I saw less and less of my family. My wife now conducts quarterly orientation classes for my children accompanied by a slide show of blurred recent 'sightings' of their father.
The only good to come out of this is three children's books illustrated to varying degree's of incompetence using POVRAY. "The Balloon Doggy Story", "There's a Spider in the Curtain" and "I Hate My Glasses" have each occupied my time in the past 5 years. To give you an idea how we have all moved on in this time "Balloon Doggy" took nearly 3 years to complete whereas "I Hate My Glasses" took a month - rendering times have similarly collapsed from 3 days to minutes even for the most complex images. My inattention to domestic matters, in the meantime has meant that our house has rarely been cleaned during this time and it has now reached an acute point of dilapidation. One of our children is also missing, according to an email left me by my wife the other day (this is the only way she can get my attention these days).
I, or rather Micha Riser has been kind enough, to publish the accompanying files for most of these objects in his marvelous collection of POVRAY and MORAY. When my boss's back is turned for long enough or he goes on holiday I shall endeavor to update and refine this pathetic website.
The Balloon Doggy
A Toy Horse
The evil and terrible Glockenspiel Pig
The overly elaborate lamp from "I Hate My Glasses"
The glasses from "I Hate My Glasses"
The Ying Yang Man from "The Balloon Doggy"
Dodo talking to her mum
Spider playing football
Balloon doggy hiding behind a fern
The breaking of those glasses in "I Hate My Glasses"
Dodo, the main character from "I Hate My Glasses"
The wooden dog from "There's a Spider in the Curtain"
I am quite partial to receiving emails from other ray tracing enthusiasts so please feel free to drop me a line.
About The Author
Although it is true that Stewart Cowley received a doctorate from Oxford University at the tender age of 25, he has failed to fulfill his early potential. To overcome his shortcomings, and in the public interest, since then he has consistently been promoted to positions of ever higher authority where it is supposed he can do least harm. At his current rate of progress, his extreme level of clinical incompetance leads the author to expect to become Pan-Galactic Ruler of the Universe (2nd Quadrant) some time in June 2005.
Somehow, he is married and lives quietly in London with his saintly wife (Alice) and three children; Alexander, Georgia and Phoebe the initials of whom spells GAP. The eponymous chain store of his children's initials, whose clothes he habitually wears, has never issued a discount for this coincidence, no matter how many times he has pointed it out to the Salesperson. He is the last surviving member of his generation who believes Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
