EMAIL: seayt01@mail.mgc.peachnet.edu NAME: Thomas Seay TOPIC: Imaginary Worlds TITLE: Lost in the Mail COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. RENDERER USED: POV-Ray 3.1 TOOLS USED: Paintshop Pro (for snow image map) RENDER TIME: A puny 4:26 ;) HARDWARE USED: AMD 300, 64 megs RAM DESCRIPTION: Well, here it is: my first entry to IRTC. This is about my first real image ever (other than mirrored spheres on checkered surfaces), and given that, I'm pretty proud. It doesn't even begin to compare to what some of you guys can do, but I think I can get better with time. The idea for "Lost in the Mail" began as a stream-of-consciousness approach to the Imaginary Worlds topic. I invisioned myself setting foot on an alien world, and wondered what I would be most delighted to find. For me, that would be a message from another civilization. Such a message would have been sent out to humans without the sending species even knowing where it was going to end up. Well, when you send out a message in a bottle, you're trying to give out information without any real knowledge of who will finally get it. Thus, the specimen left by this ancient civilization would be, effectively, a message in a bottle. Now, that message has been "lost in the mail." It lies frozen in a sea on a moon which orbits its mother planet, which in turn orbits a star that lies in the midst of a gigantic nebula. It is patiently awaiting the day when an explorer will accidently come upon it... DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: This image used Chris Colefax's Galaxy include file for the background nebula. In addition, Chris allowed me to use his planet in this rendering. Though I tried several dozen times, I couldn't make a planet that fit quite as well with this image as his. Many thanks! The bottle was created using simple CSG. The ice/snow texture was simply an cut from a skiing picture with a bit of turbulence thrown in for style. I considered adding terrain to the picture, but decided that since the message was frozen in the middle of a sea, there would be no terrain to speak of. Also, I did notice a few errors and such that I tried to correct. I know that the bottle is at something of an unrealistic angle, but when I fixed it, it didn't communicate the effect I wanted. Also, I tried several times to make a fissure around the bottle, but it ended up looking really awful. My attempts were done with height fields... does anybody know of a better way? In addition, the paper looks unrealistically flawless, but I couldn't figure out how to make it look less perfect without making it look downright fake. Lastly, I beg for comments from you all... That's the best way to learn! Oh, and be gentle... ;)