TITLE: Bed in Flight
NAME: B. L. Sledd
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: trothgard@citywidesoftware.com
WEBPAGE: Not Yet
TOPIC: Dreaming
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: bedflite.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Carrara 2.0

TOOLS USED: 
    Poser 4.0 (for Bobby), Carrara 1.1 (to start, 2.0 came out in June),
Photoshop (for textures)

RENDER TIME: 
    1m 29s

HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD Athlon 1.1 GHz, 512 MB, 1 GB scratch space

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Bobby loved to dream he was flying, he'd spend nights dropping, weaving,
soaring, and swooping over what seemed an infinite ocean.  Never to get his bed
wet, but to soar with the birds and fly close to the water.

Xrlyx, the monster under Bobby's bed, hated these flights, it was the one way
that Bobby scared Xrlyx, getting him back for all those nights when Xrlyx
grabbed his legs are made weird noises when Bobby was up in the night.

Here we catch Bobby as his dream ends, his flights always end when the sun is
completely over the horizon.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

All of it was done in Carrara 2.0 (eventually) except for Bobby.

I first started with a bed, which is a somewhat copy of a bed I saw at in a
local ad, although I made the bars a brass color rather than the white in the
ad.  Next I designed a mattress, a sheet, and spent most of my time with the
blanket flailing behind the bed (what Xrlyx is holding on to).

Secondly I placed Bobby on the bed, and tried to position him, and completely
textured him in Carrara.  This was tough, I really need to learn to use some
program like UVMapper or something.

Thirdly I added a blob shape (metaball in Carrara) for pillows and the teddybear
(adding simple spline shapes for the button eyes and nose) and placing them on
the bed's top.

Fourthly, I added an environment to the setting with Carrara's atmosphere
controls, adding both sun and moon to the picture.  And for a dreamy look,
Carrara can added a glare to the entire scene, first attempts on this looked
almost washed out.

Fifthly, I added a fountain in the back ground, textured to look somewhat bubble
like in appearance, but with a healthy purple glow.  I inserted it to add a
little more to the background and to give the sense of the bed moving over the
water.

Lastly, and not least importantly, I added Xrlyx to the mix, making him out of
two distinct metaball shapes, converting him to a vertex object, adding simple
splines for horns, teeth, and nails.  After I had the basic shape and the
vertex parts molded together, I used Carrara 2.0's newest feature, the bone and
skinning tool.  This tool allowed me to take Xrlyx from a standing with arms
wide open to the scared for his life hold on the bed.

This was a learning experience for me from start to end, having never used these
tools much save for making some simple pictures (I love spheres, just look at
my sig... :) ).  Also time consuming with OT at work and other small house
projects.  Enjoy