TITLE: Grow Up So Fast
NAME: Tekno Frannansa
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: tek@evilsuperbrain.com
WEBPAGE: http://evilsuperbrain.com
TOPIC: Speed
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: grown_up.jpg
ZIPFILE: grown_up.zip
RENDERER USED: 


        POV-Ray 3.6.1


TOOLS USED: 


        DAZ Studio (daz3d.com)
        povray editor
        Irfanview (to resize, convert to jpg, & add copyright)
        OpenOffice.org Writer (for this text)
 

RENDER TIME: 


        approx 24h


HARDWARE USED: 


        Athlon XP 3200+ 2.22GHz 1GB RAM


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


We grow up so fast. I was always waiting for the day when I no longer felt like
a kid, when I was finally one of those adults I could see all around me. But
school and college went by fast, and now I find myself pretending to be an
adult, wearing an ill-fitting suit and trying to hide the fact that I'm still
just a kid.

But the other people aren't really adults, they just hide it better than me.

Personal note:
I feel like this a lot of the time, so this is a kind of surrealist
self-portrait. For anyone who's curious I'm actually 29, so I've technically
been an _adult_ for more than 10 years. I still feel stunned every time someone
addresses me as _sir_...



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I've crossed to the dark side! This is officially the first IRTC entry I've
spent any money on, which is pretty good since POV's been my longest standing
and favourite hobby for years and has so far not cost a penny.

I bought some things from daz3d.com, a company who provides you with everything
you need to put humans in your scene *totally free* provided you're prepared to
spend ages doing all your own modelling for things like clothes and variations
on the character, and then tempts you with some fairly well priced versions of
such things. Inevitably I therefore bought most of these things from them
having (a) too little free time to make it all myself, (b) plenty of disposable
income, and (c) the urge to financially support daz for giving away free
software.

So anyway, the bits I got from Daz and can't take credit for are: Michael 3 (the
basis for all the adult men), 1 set of textures for Michael, 2 hair cuts, 1
business suit, a pair of children's trousers & shoes, a morph pack to give
control over Michaels face, and the millennium girls pack (modified to look
like a boy).

Bits I actually did myself: Every character's pose, the unique variations
between all the people (a mixture of pov materials and adjusting settings on
daz studio morphs), the ill-fitting shirt for the child, skin shading tricks in
pov (using daz's textures, but my own pov code to modify them to fake
sub-surface scattering, freckles, and things). Quite a lot of work but I
definitely can't take the credit for everything this time round.

The rest of the scene is pure pov: the briefcase & background are really simple
CSG. The lighting is an elaborate set-up with a key-light (the sun), a
highlight to give sheen on the skin, multiple fill lights to fake radiosity
(real radiosity wasn't very mesh-friendly), and a totally fake glowing object
behind the camera for the highlights in the eyes. I've provided source for all
this but without the characters, because they're hundreds of MBs!

I realise this makes it a bit harder for the judges if they haven't played with
daz themselves, all I can say is it's worth getting it and having a play, but
to judge my image fairly compare it to other povray works created with daz
figures. 



