TITLE: Bird
NAME: Cate van Alphen
COUNTRY: England
EMAIL: cvalphen-art@tiscali.co.uk
WEBPAGE: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cvalphen/
TOPIC: Minimalism
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: cv_bird.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Bryce 5

TOOLS USED: 
    Bryce 5, Photoshop 5.5

RENDER TIME: 


HARDWARE USED: 



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


For this image I explored the art movement Minimalism, and the idea of capturing
the essence of a thing with simple geometric shapes.  The work of Brancusi, in
particular his _Bird in Space_, was my primary inspiration.

A squashed sphere forms the shape of an egg, suggesting the potential of a bird.
 The sculpture is in a sterile art gallery type environment, but reflects and
enormous landscape beyond, alluding to the flight and freedom of a bird.  A
single feather hints at the physical presence of a bird. 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


Obviously there was not much modelling for this image, as I used primary shapes
in keeping with the ideas of the art movement Minimalism.  I did spend a lot of
time tweaking the materials though.

There are only 2 walls to the gallery, so that the view can be reflected in the
egg.  I also faded the walls using a gradient alpha map for the transparency so
that the walls could disappear in the reflection, but be behind the sculpture. 
For the feather I scanned in a real feather on a black background, and used
this as the transparency alpha channel.

