TITLE: Brave the Elements
NAME: Sean Hamilton
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: Sean_Hamilton@amrcorp.com
TOPIC: Elements
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: shwater.jpg
ZIPFILE: shwater.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV Ray 3

TOOLS USED: 
    Moray

RENDER TIME: 
    5 hrs, 37 Min, 35 s

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 166

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Well, I know I'm going to get flamed for 'relation to topic'
on this one, but I just couldn't help it.  My 'inner jester'
took over and made me do it.  I tried to think of an image about
the elements, and all I could think of was 'fire' and 'water'.
hmm...  'fire-water'!

The image is in the vein of a magazine advertisement.  A crystal
decanter and shotglass, containing some unholy liquid, in
front of a mirror with the name of the liquor and their slogan.

Please place tongue firmly in cheek before viewing.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

I used Moray for all object and texture creation.
All objects in the foreground (decanter, shotglass, liquids,
mirror, countertop, walls, etc) are my own creation.
Objects reflected in the mirror as 'background' objects
were found on 3D Cafe's website (bookshelf, pooltable, 
fireplace, curtain).

Lighting was the tricky part.  I wanted to achieve a dark,
rich bar room feel, but still manage to keep the text
on the mirror readable.  I ended up creating two light bulbs
made of glass textures and placing point lights inside them.
Similar to a heat-lamp shaped bulb.  This allowed me to 
restrict light flow without having to use spotlights.

The room is made up of 6 planes, 4 walls, a ceiling and a
floor.  I needed these to reflect enought light from the point
lights to light the scene.  The floor has an un-seen dark
green carpet texture, the ceiling is a slightly reflective
brass.  The walls are wood textures layered with a modified
and enlarged 'brick' pattern to get the 'paneled' look.

The green marble countertop is my own texture from scratch.
The decanter and shotglass are modified crystal and glass
textures.

On an interesting note:  The addition of the pool table,
barstools, fireplace and bookshelf pushed Moray's resource
usage to 96%.  One of these days my processor is going to
catch on fire rendering this stuff.


I'm personally proud of this image and I had a lot of fun
making it.  For those keeping track, this is my second entry
in IRTC, my first was the New World image.  I think I've made 
some progress in the past months, but I still think I should
probably get off my butt and read a book on how to do all 
this stuff.

Enjoy!


