EMAIL: thamel@usa.net
NAME: Terry Hamel
TOPIC: Childhood
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Gramma's Attic
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://www.digitalstorm.com/thamel/
RENDERER USED: 3DStudio Max v1.2 default scanline
TOOLS USED: PhotoShop
RENDER TIME: 17 minutes
HARDWARE USED: 166Mhz Pentium Pro, Wacom tablet
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An age-worn attic filled with soft sunlight


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:


The main challenge of this image was make it as photorealistic as I could.  I had
to overcome some demons of computer generated images: hard edges of models, harsh
light/shadow edges and clean surfaces.  The first step was to create a small, rough 
sketch of the final image in PhotoShop using the tablet.  This took about 15 minutes.



The floor and walls are rectangles with a stock 3DSMax texture, with noise added
in the bump to give more dent and chip.  They are the same texture, except 
the wall texture is color tinted on the diffuse (color) map to desaturate.



The wall trim was a spline lofted along a straight line, using the a 3DSMax stock 
wood texture that uses same texture as the bump map, with the addition of noise to 
give it dents and chips.  It was tinted in the diffuse to a rich brown.



The shelves are segmented boxes bent at the edges to round off the edges.  The shelf
base was done similaraly, but with different parameters.  The wood trim texture was
applied with planar and box UV mapping, minus the tint.



The chair back, arms, seat and feet was created from splines and extruded.  The 
back, seat and feet edges were selected and smoothed with meshsmooth to round off
the straight edges.  The arm was meshsmoothed as a whole.  The poles were primitive
cylinders tapered at segments to give indentation.  The wood trim texture was applied
using planar, box and cylindrical mapping methods, minus the tint.



The books cover, binding and back are a closed spline extruded with a procedural
texture of a grid rotated 45 degrees and tiled many times for the bump map.  The pages 
are a closed spline, extruded and bump mapped with a line repeated many times to
make it appear as if there are many pages.



The board game boxes are segmented boxes with noise to disturb the planar surfaces.  The 
same bump map of wrinkles was applied to all the games.  The cover and side texture
maps were all created in PhotoShop by hand.



The carpet is a mesh rectangle with a variety of mapping tricks: diffuse (color), 
bump, opacity and displacement.  The diffuse map started in PhotoShop as tilable 
stock 3DSMax pattern repeated in a larger image and dirtied with the clone tool to
break up the obvious pattern and give it some dirt.

The carpet fringe started as a small, tilable grayscale image painted with a tablet 
in PhotoShop.  The tilable fringe was repeated around the edges of an image the
same size as the carpet diffuse map with transparency where there was no image.
The final fringe layer was copied onto the diffuse carpet, colorized yellow, then 
set to Color Dodge mode.  This blocked out the darker parts of the image, which let 
the carpet pattern underneath show through.

A bump map was made by placing a white layer underneath the carpet fringe image.

A copy of the bump map was created for the opacity map; the only tweak was adjusting
the levels so the grayscale contrasted more (less gray, more pure black and white):
white is opaque and black is transparent.

A copy of the opacity map was created for the displacement map. The back and fringe
layer was leveled towards gray.  A top layer was created and the general width of the 
fringe was rectangularly marqued on each of the 4 sides, then ramp filled from black 
to white.  The layer was then set to multiply mode, which only darkens what is underneath.
This made the edges (black) less displaced than the center (gray).  A few streaks of 
airbrushed white on the back layer made the carpet ripples.



The basket is a tapered cylinder with noise applied to the mesh to distrub the planar
surfaces.  The top of the cylinder was removed.  The leather weave pattern is all 
achieved through textures: diffuse (color), bump and opacity.  The texture comes stock 
with 3DSMax.  The basket rim was created by making an inverted U shaped spline, extruding 
the top curve from the basket cylinder, then lofting the U shape along the curve.  A copy 
of the stock texture was mapped onto it, minus the opacity field.



There are 8 lights altogether: 2 main lights, a selective fill, 2 window lights 
and 3 selective lights to simulate radiosity (bounced light).  All of them use 
relatively wide attenuation; this tapers the light gradually and prevents shadows 
from being harsh.

The key (main) light is above and to the right of the camera.  A fill light is 
placed almost roughly 60 degrees left of the key light to lighten up shadows.  
A non-shadow casting fill light was used on selectively on the shelf to lighten the deep 
shadows inside.  All of these lights were set to white-yellow.

The window lights were filtered with a grid pattern and blurred, also known as a projector 
light.  The light color is slightly saturated yellow-white and is processed with the 
absolute minimum volumetrics so the "dust" can be seen.

Non-shadow casting omni directional lights selectively applied to objects simulate 
radiosity.  They are behind the chair/between the wall, near the red book/shelf and 
near the basket/floor.  The lights are colored to represent the main color of 
the object it is supposedly bouncing light off of.  It is a subtle, yet noticable 
difference when compared without the lights.


There was no raytracing involved; it is all scanline rendered.  Shadow maps were employed.