TITLE: Sea Of Tranquility
NAME: Michael J. Holmes
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: otomo@worldnet.att.net
WEBPAGE: otomo.simplenet.com
TOPIC: Landmarks
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: tranquil.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Bryce 3D

TOOLS USED: 
    Photoshop

RENDER TIME: 
    56 minutes with high quality (multiple rays per pixel)
               antialiasing.

HARDWARE USED: 
    PowerMac G3/266


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


On the "shore" of the Sea Of Tranquility, The Moon. Date unknown.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I wanted to create a stark, realistic view of the lunar surface despite
the surrealistic nature of the image.

The cratered texture took a long time to coax out of the Bryce texture
editor. I have several variants: ground level, high altitude, orbital
views, etc.

The Milky Way is a group of ellipsoids with a cloudy, transparent
texture. No diffusion or specular levels and just a touch of ambient for
the soft glow of distant star clouds.

The star field was created in Photoshop using random noise with extreme
brightness/contrast adjustments, and placed on a large, transparent plane
aligned to face the camera- in front of the Milky Way and behind the Earth.

The orbital ring around the Earth is a thin toroid with a coppery texture
and an ambient mapping to create lights.

The Earth is a blue, green and white landmass texture surrounded by a
barely larger sphere with a transparent atmospheric texture.

The lighthouse is a fairly simple object with an internal, blue visible
light source. I gave the structure a fractal rock shading to give the
impression of seams under thousands of years of micrometeorite erosion.

The blue light, as a bonus, gives me the moonlight slightly illuminating
the dark side of the Earth. :) The light itself is surrounded by a
faceted cylinder of glass, but it's not really large enough to see it
well. If you look closely, you can see the refraction.

That rock in the front looks swell, doesn't it? ;-)


