TITLE: "Holy War"
NAME: Michael J. Holmes
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: otomo@postoffice.worldnet.att.net
WEBPAGE: The perpetually unfinished http://otomo.simplenet.com/
TOPIC: Magic
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: holywar.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Bryce 2.1

TOOLS USED: 
    Photoshop 4, GraphicConverter 2.8

RENDER TIME: 
    2 hours and 25 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Power Macintosh 7100/66

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

   "Holy War"
    On the backworld of Po, the magician castes had, for a series of complex
geopolitical reasons, become excessively specialized over the course of
centuries. Huygerwan, the City of Alchemists, was one example of a highly
focused caste. They could construct kilometer tall towers of bronze, but could
hardly defend themselves when the Despot of the Inconstant Seas came to power
in fifth year after the Krinsai Rituals. The Despot raised a legion of iballs-
subdimensional daemons captured by intricate cage spells- that caused most of
the damage in Po's ruinous world war.
     The iballs, a dubious form of military magic, are difficult to control
unless the magician who does the initial capturing possesses enormous leverage
to use against the daemons to assure their obedience. It was quite impossible
for the Despot to have such control over an entire legion of iballs, and so he
suffered massive "friendly fire" losses in his campaigns against his enemies.
     In the image, three iballs, having left Huygerwan in the grip of massive
daemonfyre spells, approach an Alchemist temple, placed out beyond the limits
of the city as dictated by Alchemist tradition. Although the dual purpose glyph
of worship and defiance still glows in the air over the temple, it has already
begun to be gutted by daemonfyre under the baneful gaze of the nearest iball.
     The Po global civil war ended one hundred and fifty years ago, and the
outcome was unclear at best. It sent that once wonderful world into a dark age
from which it is only now emerging.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

     Nothing partuculary mindbending in the creation process. I tend to favor
simple models and use color and texture to get my effects. I really don't have
the time for multiday renders. ;-)
     The heightmaps for the mountains and towers of Huygerwan, the staring eye
textures for the iballs and the glyph of worship/defiance were all created in
Photoshop.
     The glyph of worship is the command key symbol for a Macintosh, typed once
at 256 point, Gaussian blurred, and mapped on a square with a transparency
mask.
     The daemonfyre and the smoke plume are standard issue volumetric textures
on spheres.
     The temple is a simple hollow hexagonal column with a cylinder for a roof.
The door and windows were subtracted cylinders. This was done with Bryce
primitives.


