TITLE: Jessica's Creek
NAME: Josh Derr
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: xeo@home.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.3dillusion.com/~void
TOPIC: Water
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: jcreek.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Byrce 3d v3.1

TOOLS USED: 
    Truespace, Photoshop, TreeDo, Fractint

RENDER TIME: 
    Approximatly 12 hours

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentuim 200

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


        Jessica wasn't content to stay home. She didn't want to play dolls in
her room, or have tea
parties. The land just beyond her open windows called to the adventurer inside
her.
Visions of crisp water, small animals, new, curious, interesting things, flashed
through her
impatient young mind. She ran out the back door, dressed in overalls and old
shoes.
Jumping over the fence from her backyard property, she paused to look around,
and
retrace her steps from her previous outing. A certain tree, and odd shaped
rocked; she
knew she was headed in the right direction. As she slipped down a gentle
embankment,
she recognized the surroundings. The large, shady tree she would climb. The
thick,
clay-packed mud that would coat her shoes and cover her hands. And the water,
cutting
an irregular path through the middle of it all. She had discovered it all. It
was her special place. 
It was her creek. 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


Overview:

        As you may have already guessed, this picture was originally planned for
the  
_nature_ round, but never got around to doing much with it. 

Modeling:

The picture started its life as a height field for the ground. A separate height
field was
generated for the water, made from hand-drawing the waves to match the contours

of the land over which it flows. This gives the creek water a somewhat realistic
look,
verses generic waves. If you look carefully, you can see the water flow around
the dirt,
both on the banks, and in the stream itself. For the plants, I originally used
the Bryce stock
plants, but was disappointed by the lack of detail in the texturing and shape.
So, I modeled
my own plants. All the plants use on basic model, a swept curve. Then I
randomly
transformed and rotated the leaves, to give each plant a more natural looks. I
used
TreeDo, along with TrueSpace to create, and then deform, the tree trunk/roots to
the left
side of the screen. The frog was pretty simple. He is modeled out of deformed
spheres.
For the scale it works well, though he looks a little cartoony up close. 

Texturing:

        The water is pretty simple. A bluish-clear texture, with a light wave
bump map, an
moderate refraction and reflection. The dirt I'm somewhat proud of. If you
notice, near the
water lever, it gets darker, smoother, and shiny. Unfortunatly, The lighting in
the scene
doesn't do it nearly enough justice. But it still does a convincing dirt-mud
texture in my
opinion. The creek bed is a modified Bryce stock texture, using a bump map to
create the
illusion of small, smooth rocks under the surface of the water.  

        The plants were a lot of work. Initially, I wanted to use the stock
plants that come
with Bryce. But they where a flat green, and didn't look realistic enough for
the scale I
needed to use them at. So, I drew my own leaves, using Photoshop. For the ferns,
I
created a fractal fern, then sketched over it in Photoshop. Separate bump maps
were also
created for all the plants, to help give them more texture. The tree to the left
foreground
uses a Bryce texture I blatantly ripped off from one of its stock models(hey, it
works
perfect, otherwise I would have done it myself). The frog uses a simple
black/green
spotted texture.

Other notes:

        Somehow, early on in the scene, the frog got named 'Mr. Frog'. I don't
know why.
He also has a small wake behind him, though you can't really see it. 

        Towards the final stages of this scene, I readjusted the color of the
plants and the
river to make the scene more colorful. Originally, the river was less blue,
almost 
completely clear, and the ground was a little more beige. It looked very
realistic, though
somewhat bland, causing the stream ripples and mud to become washed out. I
decided to
go for bit more 'bolder' look, though more unrealistic looking(feedback was that
the river
looked metallic) to make the beautiful contours of the river stand out, as well
as make the
scene more eye-catching. I hope it works as planned....

        Sorry I can't include the source files, but at 115mb, I think the IRTC
might get mad
if I uploaded it. If you want to see any models or textures, please email me @
xeo@home.com


Conclusion:

        I really wanted to work on improving my texturing. With a program with
powerfull
texturing capabillites like Bryce,  it has been a valuable learning experince. I
feel somewhat
pround of this scene, and am eagrly awaiting all the feedback from it. >)






