TITLE: Ice On Fire
NAME: Elwin Way
COUNTRY: New Zealand
EMAIL: ejnmare@quicksilver.net.nz
WEBPAGE: http://www.mystuff.orcon.net.nz
TOPIC: Surrealism
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: icefire.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Scanline

TOOLS USED: 
    3DS Max 5.1, Pheonix

RENDER TIME: 
    2 hours 18 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    1300Duron 256 ddr


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


To me, surrealism is a subject which exists in our minds. It describes what is
impossible in such fine detail that we believe it to be, even though we know it
really isn't. 

Ice On Fire is an image that describes an impossible situation. I had friends
try various methods and all failed to actually set an ice cube on fire! (Kids -
don't try this at home).


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I started off by creating the ice cube - its isnt just a simple transparent
block. THe mesh is a chamfer box with a little amount of noise added. It was
then turned into an editable poly, and the bottom vertices pulled out to create
the melt.

The material is a raytrace material, with a fog added in the advanced setting to
create the 'semi transparent' look. This took me a week to get it to look
'right'.

The fire is from Pheonix - I tried various other methods, including modelling a
flame and setting various transparency / diffuse maps, but nothing would look
right. I only used Pheonix as a last resort, and even then that took me the
best part of a day to tweak!

The only light in the scene is a Pheonix light wich simulates light given off by
the fire.

The ground plane is a stock standard box with a rusty metal texture map
applied.

