TITLE: The 8th Wonder of the World
NAME: Michael Hunter
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: intertek@one.net
WEBPAGE: http://www.interactivetechnologies.net
TOPIC: Great Inventions
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: 8thwondr.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    3D Studio Max Version 5.1

TOOLS USED: 
    3D Studio Max, PhotoShop (for texture maps)

RENDER TIME: 
    about 1 hr 35 min

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 4 1.8 GHz 261 MB RAM

In memory of journeyman Irving Lang


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

There was a time when books and newspapers where assembled one letter at a time.
Even for a skilled printer this process was laborious. But in 1886 a German
immigrant by the name of Ottmar Mergenthaler changed all of that with an
invention so elaborate that Tomas Edison proclaimed it the eighth wonder of the
world. The Victorian colossus, under command of an operator sitting at a
keyboard, would drop small molds into compartment which, once filled with
molten lead, would form a line of type. The automatic type setting machine -
later to be known as a Linotype machine - was born. It was a milestone in
printing history. One operator could out produce ten seasoned printers. Not
only could this mechanical wonder tumble letter sized molds as fast and
accurate as a printer could type but for an encore it would automatically sort
and return - via a tinny elevator - all of the molds to their correct storage
compartments. And so it's time savings were not only in composing but in clean
up as well. The linotype machine was clamed to be the greatest advance in
printing since the development of moveable type by many. It's impact was
especially noticeable in the newspaper industry where time and cost are both at
a minimum. Linotypes were gradually phased out in the 1940's in favor of a yet
faster process of offset lithography that prints with photographically produced
plates. Though it is not the fastest anymore, I think Mr. Edison was right in
calling this impossibly complex machine a wonder of the world.

Now that you have a taste of the environment, allow me to be your tour guide of
a 1030's print shop. We are standing in the composing room. The large black
machine on the right is the wondrous linotype machine. You can just see the
little elevator above the foreman's head (the standing man is the foreman). The
man facing us is "locking up" a block of type. The type, whether it be
removable type (individual letters) or lines of type needs to be secured into a
metal frame so that it will stay together in the printing press. If this
process is not done correctly, the type will end up on the floor before it gets
to the presses. The man furthest away from us in this room is making a proof
print before the type is approved for printing. Behind him is a drawer with
many divisions. That's how removable type is stored. It's called a "California
Job Case". Each division holds many of the same letter with one type size\font
per drawer. Around the room are many cases of type. The other room is the
"press room". Printers by the way don't actually print (other than proof
prints). Printers compose and the people who print are called "pressmen".
Anyway the printing presses in that room are officially called "platen presses"
but are nicknamed "gator presses" due to the way they print. The paper is
inserted one sheet at a time onto a table with pins to hold the paper in place.
The table is then rotated vertically to meet the freshly inked type. Then it
opens and the pressman swaps the printed sheet for a blank one and the process
continues. The opening and closing of the "gator's" mouth is automatic and so
the pressman must pay close attention or he'll get his fingers bitten.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

I was lucky to have worked in a shop similar to this one twenty-five years ago.
Though we didn't have a linotype machine I learned the basics. So this helped
greatly in reducing the amount of research I needed to do.

The difficulty with the linotype machine was that there are many, slightly
different styles and manufacturers of these machines over 50 years. So finding
good reference pictures of a model from 1930 that also showed all of the parts
from all of it's sides was an impossibility. So I mixed and matched elements
that seemed most characteristic of the grand machine. I had no dimensions to
work with so I did the best I could using objects of known size as reference. I
do vaguely remember seeing one first hand when I was given a tour of the
Cincinnati Enquirer by my Dad. It was big. And black. And complicated looking.

I had some problems with rigging the figures. The man in the foreground has a
terrible tangled mesh for his chest. This was caused mostly by how his bones
are assigned as controllers to vertices (That or I was to heavy-handed moving
him about). I have never worked with an image with this many figures. It was a
challenge for me.

I used full radiosity on this image. I really like the subtle detail it brings
out in the shadows but it's a bit slow to render. If I was starting over I
think I would leave the radiosity stuff alone until all the models are in place
and textured since there are many cases when you want a little test render.
Once you get the radiosity set in Max the light level is so different from a
non- radiosity rendering that you can't easily turn the thing off again without
messing up your settings.

I have found a tape measure indispensable while modeling. If I am working on a
chair and wonder how high the seat should be from the ground I grab the tape
measure and measure the seat I'm sitting on. Even for things that I can't
directly measure it's helpful to *see* what 4' 3 1/2" looks like. This has
absolutely caught many things that I would have missed.

