POV-Ray

First I will note several good POV-Ray tutorials:

To use POV-Ray in the CS Lab, you will need a script. I generally use: newpov. The command you need to type resembles:

./newpov mypovraysource

For this to work, you should have a file called mypovraysource.pov in the same directory as newpov. Exactly what this file should contain we will get to soon. It will render an image based on mypovraysource.pov and show that on the screen. It will also write the image to a file mypovraysource.ppm.

So, what should go into mypovraysource.pov (or whatever you want to name your source file)? I recommend something like this for your first attempt:

camera {        //creates a "view" (there should only be one of these)
    location <2,5,-10>      //where are you looking from
    look_at <0,0,0>         //where are you looking at
}

light_source {      //creates a light source (you need light to see)
    <0,-10,0>       //position of light source
    color rgb <1,1,1>   //color of light emitted
}

sphere {        //creates a sphere
    <0,0,0>,        //location of center of sphere
    5           //radius of sphere
    pigment {       //color and other surface effects
        color rgb <1,0,0>       //color of sphere
    }
}

The best way to create advanced, cool-looking POV-Ray images is to experiment. The tutorials listed above show you how to use the other tools and techniques of POV-Ray. However, inspiration is the key to an aesthetically pleasing image. I leave the rest to your own imagination.

For an example of cool work I did with POV-Ray, you can look at my supercomp page