TITLE: Some things don't change. . .
VIEWING INSTRUCTIONS:
This is a stereo image. To see a completely realistic 3d view, follow these
instructions carefully: 
(Note: Your screen resolution will need to be at least 1024X768, if it's not I
suggest you either chage it or else copy the picture and resize it. It really
is spectacular with the full 3D effect.)

Sit at a relaxed distance from your monitor and focus on the two images.
Now slowly go cross-eyed and you will see the two images seperate (and probably
blur) and slowly form a third image in the middle of the two pictured images.
This image (probably very blurry at the moment) is the real 3D image you want to
focus on.
Now, try and relax your vision and focus on the new third image in the middle.
There you go! A REAL 3d image!

Don't be put off if you can't see this image straight away, it can take a little
practice. The closer you are to your monitor the HARDER it is to see the 3D
image; if you are finding it difficult move away a little bit.



NAME: Tim Cuthbertson
COUNTRY: Australia

EMAIL: tim_cutho@smileyface.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.tim3d.com

TOPIC: Contrast
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: 3dfire.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    3d studio max v3.1 (student version)


TOOLS USED: 
    Imagine It! (jpeg conversion), MS Paint (pasting images together).
My scanner for 2 of the textures.



A (large) NOTE ON THE POST-PROCESSING OF THIS IMAGE:

The stereo effect of this image is produced by rendering the scene from the
perspective of two different cameras side by side, simulating the two human
eyes. The Image that you see here is two separate renderings, pasted together
in MS Paint.
I was worried weather this was allowed in the competition, so I emailed the IRTC
administrators with my query. They told me of one person who did a similar
thing in another round, who had produced his image straight from the renderer.
The difference with his image was that to see it, you had to look through the
screen, as opposed to going cross-eyed. He made this straight from the renderer
by using a series of four mirrors which split the camera's view, and then
focussed each half onto the scene from a different angle, which is similar to
having two cameras.

The major limitation of this method is the fact that the images themselves can
only be as wide as the distance between a pair of human eyes, if the image is
wider, it's physically impossible to see it properly.
I didn't want to restrict my image by making it so small, so instead i used the
"cross-eye method, where the image can be as large as half a computer screen,
and if the viewer is finidg it hard to see, he or she can just move back from
the monitor.

I set to work trying to set up mirrors to produce the final image in one
rendering. However, since I was using the cross eye method, I had to split the
camera viw and direct it to scene from the opposite side. This made it very
difficult to set up, because the mirrors were intersecting with each other.

Eventually I did come up with a way to do it in one rendering, and this is the
basic setup:

                  _______________
                  |      |
                  |    Scene    |
                  |_____________|
            





                                               /      /
                  /      /
                \      \
                                      \      \

               \____/
                |__|
                      Camera

The camera view is split by the two mirrors closest to it, and then the two
halves are directed bach to the scene through another two mirrors.
This produced difficulties in trying to determine what angles to put the mirrors
at, because two of them were at a different distance from the scene, so they
had to be worked out individually. I actually did get this to work, but I had
to manually adjust the rotation of the image, so It could never be perfetly
aligned like the image I have submitted.

Yet another problem with using the mirrors is that when 3DS Max renders through
mirrors, it takes shortcuts by mapping the image onto the mirror, and not very
detailed. This resulted in two things:
1: The image quality was lowered from having the two mirrors on each side of the
camera, and
2: The focal blur I had applied to the scene didn't work as if it were
raytraced, instead it treated the mirrors as flat surfaces with 2d maps on
them, and therefore it was impossible to apply the focal blur and make it look
real.

Now that you know the problems involved in the producing one final image from
the renderer, I hope you understand why I instead opted to use the two camera
perspectives pasted together to keep the quality of this image.




HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium III 800mhz- my early xmas & birthday present

CREATION TIME: This took me from when I thought up the idea on the 7th of
december, the last day of school, until christmas eve, when I submited it.


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Some things don't change. . .
I see change as just another forn of contrast, contrast from the old to the new,
which is why I thought this image was applicable for the topic.
This image was inspired from a real photograph I took and developed of a fire
hydrant right outside Flinders St Station. For those who don't know where that
is, It's the largest station in the heart of Melbourne, the second largest city
in Australia.
I thought it really symbolised the contrast from the area all around it, which
was new and modern, wheras the fire hydrant looked so old and rusty it was
almost ancient!

It is also a contrast to my usual style of image. I usually make bright, bold
and colourful pictures that are almost fantasy. For this image, however, it is
done completely in black and white, and made to look as realistic and close to
the real photo as possible. The photo was taken and developed by me during a
year Nine photography elective.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


This image is created out of meshes. for most of the objects, I start with a
basic low-polygon object, such as a cylinder or a box. I then turn it into an
editable mesh, making it possible to move individual vertexes and faces. Once I
have an accurate shape, I apply a mesh smooth modifier to the object to smooth
out the faces of the object. All of the objects in this scene are created with
this method, except for the ones listed below.

The hose connecter comming out the side is a whole series of different-diameter
cylinders, all CSG'd together and then smoothed to give the appearence they are
joined.

The different ground sections are all smoothed boxes with bump applied to them
through the texture.

The grate is simply a box with a black & white striped texture applied to it.


A FEW INTERSTING NOTES:

One interesting thing to note is where I got the texture for the lid of the fire
hydrant.
Well, actually, I found a REALLY old instruction manual for "Kings Quest 5"
behind the computer, and surprisingly, the pattern on the back of the booklet
was exactly what I was looking for. I scanned it in and applied the map to the
fire hydrant's lid and voila!

Just the other day I went back to the same place where I took the photo. I
noticed the same fire hydrant there, but it had been repainted! It now looks
really ugly with plain grey and red paint. I'm so glad I took my photo while I
had the chance. I guess not all change is good :(


Well, that was a very large description, so now you can just sit back and enjoy
the cool 3D-iness of my image. Thanks for reading!

TO SEE THE ORIGIONAL PHOTO:
point your web browser to
http://www.geocities.com/jefferyjjones/photos/photo.html
and while you're at it, take a look around my website at www.tim3d.com



