TITLE: Tis The Season
NAME: Stephen M. Farrell
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com
WEBPAGE: n/a
TOPIC: Contrast
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: tisthe.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.1

TOOLS USED: 
    POV-Ray for Windows 3.1; Paint Shop Pro 6.02 (signature and image
compression only)

RENDER TIME: 
    Approx. 5 hours

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium II 266; 128 mb RAM


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


  Tacky vs. tasteful (or fun-loving vs. uptight, depending on your point of
view).  I wanted to depict two similar houses, decorated in contrasting styles
-- one unrestrained and rather gaudy, and the other a more classic style.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


  Lots of lights.  About halfway through the creation of this scene, I ran into
my first slab building error, and had to figure out how to resolve it. 
Luckily, a similar question and answer had been posted to the newsgroups (my
thanks to the posters, whose names I unfortunately forgot to write down), and
once I disabled the light buffer I was able to continue with no problems.

  Lots of blob objects.  Most of the more complex objects... the snowman, Santa,
the trees and bushes, the garland on the right lamppost, the wreaths on the
doors, and the snowflakes... are blobs.

  Lots of while loops.  Used to place the individual boards of the houses, the
sidewalk blocks, the candles, and all the Christmas lights.  I also made heavy
use of the mod function for the first time, to alternate the colors of the
lights, and to create the stripes on the snowman's scarf.

  With the end of the year coming up (which coincides with the end of my first
year entering the IRTC), I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who voted
and especially commented on my entries over the past year.  My experience with
the competition has been overwhelmingly positive, and I've learned a lot from
all the comments I've gotten.  I know it takes a lot of time to vote and
comment on the images each round, and I appreciate everyone's efforts in this
respect.

  Happy holidays, everybody... I'm really looking forward to my second year of
competition, and to seeing all the wonderful scenes people create in the year
ahead!
  


