TITLE: Fractal Head
NAME: Stan Schwartz
COUNTRY: United States
EMAIL: stan@stanschwartzmeta-arts.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.stanschwartzmeta-arts.com
TOPIC: Fantasy and Mystic
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: frachead.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Blender

TOOLS USED: 
    Poser, CrossRoads, Python, The GIMP

RENDER TIME: 
    10 minutes?

HARDWARE USED: 
    Compaq running Linux and Windows, Mac G4

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 
    I had previously written software to apply IFS and MRCM
     algorithms to convert 2D figurative images to fractals (viewable in the
     collections at the bottom of  the main gallery page of my web site) and
     wanted to try it in 3D.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

     Used Poser on Mac to create meshes of two figures, 1 high-res for
     body, 1 low-res for head,  Exported meshes in 3DStudio format.  Used
     CrossRoads in Windows partition of Compaq to convert meshes to VRML 1
     format (readable by Blender).  Moved meshes to Linux partition and
     used my own Python implementation of the MRCM (multiple reduction copy
     machine) algorithm to translate, scale, and rotate vertices read in
     from VRML head mesh - 2 iterations of 4 3D linear affine transformations
     applied to all vertices = 4**2 or 16 head mesh copies, written back
     to file in VRML 1 format.  Imported figure mesh and multiple-copy
     head mesh into Blender where I created the scene, did compositing,
     added and positioned the lights, camera, etc., and applied texture
     maps previously created using the GIMP.  Rendered image in Blender
     using z-buffer, shadow buffer, and local illumination models.

