TITLE: Abandoned Post
NAME: Paul Potiki
COUNTRY: Australia
EMAIL: guanolad@hotkey.net.au
WEBPAGE: www.guanolad.com
TOPIC: Fortress
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: abandon.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Lightwave 5.5, Terragen

TOOLS USED: 
    Photoshop for textures

RENDER TIME: 
    4m 39s

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium III, 550 mhz, 32Mb Matrox G400



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


I had two ideas for this topic, one of which seemed easier to achieve than the
other, so I went for that one. It presented its own challenges, though.

Originally I wanted this one to feel like it was a sentry's lookout position
which had long ago been abandoned, leaving behind a rusted broken sword and
helmet. But as I went on with it, I felt it was missing something. When I
watched a movie that had some scenes set in the snow, I was inspired - so I
added the snow to my image too, to bring a sense of starkness and loneliness to
the image.

The sword was originally going to be resting on the ground next to a damaged
helmet. Then I thought of sticking it in the snow to show the shadow. But that
implied a more recent abandonment than I originally intended, so I added the
second half of the sword (at the suggestion of a friend) and left it at that.
The helmet seemed unnecessary.

I'm very satisfied with this image.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


My first object was the wall. Modelling the shape was no problem, but originally
it had no grooves or edges, just straight cut sharp corners. After some
deliberation and experimentation, I added the grooves as part of the whole
object - it seemed the most practical.

Textures on the wall are many. The green mossy stain is hand drawn in Photoshop.
The rough texture is a rocky image I used as a bump map. The deeper scratches
are hand done. There are at least two different fractal noise textures to
randomise some dirt, a gaussian noise layer, and then a bump map I scribbled
together to imply a crusty lichen texture to the stones. There was a lot of
careful placement for some of them. Even though they were placed as cubic image
maps, the repetition is barely visible, I'm pleased to say.

The mountain range was an image made in Terragen. I hope that doesn't disallow
me from the competition. I hadn't used Terragen much before, this was the first
time where I hade to make some of the features and textures myself instead of
using the default randomisers. Originally, without the snow, there was much
more greenery - but the snow gives it a very effective believability.

The snow was easier than I thought. The placement was the most complex part -
textures and shaping was relatively easy, but placing it in such a way as to
look realistic was a challenge. It is intercepted by the surface of the wall,
which gives the emerging parts a very real feel of melted randomised snow. Also
the fractal texture looks a lot like it's rain-pitted which adds to it a lot.

The sword was easy, both in modelling and texturing. I used a lot of fractal
noise layers to give a sense of dirt and rust - perhaps not exactly as I
imagined, but nevertheless effective, especially with the broken part sticking
out too.

The grass originally was intended to be mossy blades in the grooves of the floor
slabs, but with the snow it added that final touch of believability to it.