EMAIL: Kitsune_e@hotmail.com NAME: Edward m. Blake TOPIC: Loneliness COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Barren COUNTRY: United States of America WEBPAGE: N/A RENDERER USED: Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer v3.5 TOOLS USED: Gilles Tran's MakeGrass include Tom Aust's tomtree package Daylon Leveller v2.0 Jasc Paint Shop Pro v3.1 RENDER TIME: 1h 18m 7s From concept to completion the scene took a little over two weeks. The final image took one hour and eighteen minutes to render. I had planned to include some of the other statistics provided by POV, but I accidentally deleted the render messages instead of copying them... HARDWARE USED: Pentium4 1.7GHz 256Mb RAM Windows XP home edition IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This image was in all ways an experiment. This is my first attempt to create a "complete" composition. I attempted first to create a convincing setting. I then tried to create an atmosphere by use of fog and focal blur. The image did not develop as I had wanted, but the end is true to my vision. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The development of this image was an intense learning experience. I created about ten different height fields using different tools before arriving at the last one. I then spent almost a week trying to create a texture for my field. I tried separating segments by CSG, I tried assigning textures to ranges of values in my material map, and finally just created two gradients based on the height fields rgb values. I experimented with fog and atmospheric media, and used focal blur and radiosity for the first time. I am especially pleased by the effect of the focal blur, it reminds me of Tool's "Sober" video. I am sure that with more experience I could do better, but I am very happy with the results of my efforts.