TITLE: Close Encounters of the Santa Kind
NAME: Phillip L. Easton
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: east103@dialaccess.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.dialaccess.com/east103/

TOPIC: First Encounter
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: ceotsk.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Bryce 3.1


TOOLS USED: 
    sPatch, Poser 2, Paint Shop Pro 5.1


RENDER TIME: 
    13 hrs. 18 min.


HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD K6 300/75 MHz with 64 MB and Windows 98.


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


He is known by many names, such as Santa Claus, Sinter Klaas, St. Nicholas, 
and Pere Noel.  There are many of us who once believed in Santa Claus and 
would awake on Christmas morning with great anticipation as to what he might 
have brought us.  However, did you ever wonder what it would be like if you 
woke up and found Santa Claus in your house?


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I download sPatch just before starting this image and I am glad that I did!
The boots, stockings, fireplace scoop, ribbons, bows, and boots were all 
made with sPatch. These were then imported into Bryce 3.1 a DXF files.  The 
textures on the stockings and clock face were created using Paint Shop 
Pro 5.1.  The remaining textures were generated using Bryce.

The tree is a Bryce 3.1 object. The lights, decorations, and ribbon were each 
place manually around the tree.  The gifts are boxes and cylinders mated
with the bows created in sPatch.


The fire place stones were created by taking an image and using it to 
created a terrain or heightfield. The snow covered hills are also terrains. 

The icicles are symmetrical lattices with a glass texture applied.  Santa's 
legs and fur are also symmetrical lattices. The rug is made of 4 toruses.  
A bump texture was applied using cylinder mapping to create the rug texture. 
The rest of the objects such as the fireplace tools, mantel, mantel clock, 
and candlesticks were created using Boolean operations.

The walls, ceilings, and floor are just block primitives stretched.  A white 
bump texture was applied to these surfaces. Using a negative Boolean operation 
created the window.  The window structure was created using boxes stretched to 
fit.  Another box was inserted into the window and a glass texture applied to 
simulate the windowpanes.  The floor texture is an image obtained off of the 
web.  The baseboard is a cylinder that was compressed along the perpendicular 
axis to the length.

The child was created in Poser 2 and imported as a OBJ object.  The hair was 
downloaded from Crowfoot Productions at http://www.greylight.com/.  A green 
bump texture was applied to parts of the body to simulate pajamas.  I had 
originally placed the child in the opening in the room.  Thanks to AXE,
(don't know real name) for suggesting putting the child in her current
position.

I am really happy with the way that this image turned out.  I love the play of 
light and shadows in the room. This image took me almost a month of evenings to

complete and I am ready to move on to the next topic.  I hope you enjoy this
one.

Thanks,
Phillip L. Easton