TITLE: Pacific City
NAME: Andrew Hay
COUNTRY: United States of America
EMAIL: mith_istari@hotmail.com
WEBPAGE: http://blackknightpictures.tripod.com
TOPIC: Future
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: pacifica.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    3DS Max 5

TOOLS USED: 
    Photoshop(for textures and post-render size adjustment), 3DS Max for
modeling, texture-mapping, and rendering

RENDER TIME: 
    45 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 4 Geforce 5

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Viewed from above, New Pacifica is the largest commecial city of its kind on the
planet.  From this vantage it is difficult not to consider the astounding
nanocarbon technology that keeps the city stable in the tsunami prone North
Ocean. New Pacifica is well known as a hub of commerce; bridging the gap
between Neo Tokyo and Hawaii.  The constant bustle of commercial traffic,
through its air-docks and massive artifical bays gives the city a feeling of
excited movement, even early in the morning.  In addition to the city's
industrial market, the Upper City provides a thrilling night-life with
cassinos, penthouses, and even airship cruises to exotic locales, for those who
can afford it.  New Pacifica views itself as a soverign nation.  Ruled by a
council of powerful merchants, the city remains neutral in all matters except
those concerning profits.  New Pacifica employs a small but well equipped
military for the defense of its interests.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

I have been playing with 3D for little more than a year now.  IT is the first
thing I have ever considered myself to be an artist in and I am glad for the
opportunity to have it judged.

The Water: The first thing I did and probably the most important part of the
scene.  I created a simple plane with alot of polygons, and then distorted with
a bumpy map and a distortion gizmo.  The texture is completely reflective and
also completely transparent. The is a blue plane below to create some blue
water and where it drops off the water reflects the sky above.  If I had time
for another render I would have faded the blue plane out so it blended better.

The Sky: a simple gradient diffuse and illumination map of warm colors that can
be done in photoshop in 5 seconds used as an enviroment map.  If I intended to
animate this scene I would put the map onto a giant hollow hemmisphere
instead.

The Domes:  Giant hemishperes with some primitive shapes used in boolean
difference.  The texture I agonized over for some time, and finally decided to
combine 2 of 3ds max's library maps into a blended texture to give the effect
of moss on rock.

The Upper City:  Designed to brilliantly reflect and refract the surrounding
enviroment.  Most of it is lathed.

The Fighters:  I spent probably the most time on these.  I am not the best with
a pencil and pad, so I told my friend the general concept I had and he sketched
me 3 perspectives (fron, left and top) and I was able to created it from there.
It was box-modeled from a cylander and then vertex edited. Finally, the texture
is the same as that on the city except the cockpit which is mapped separately
but with the same level of reflectivity.

The Ships:  Little more than primitives.  The don't suffer close inspection very
well, but they look fine form here.  They are placed mostly to give a sense of
scale.

Lighting: a couple well placed omni lights which are shadow-mapped and
raytraced.

I will be glad to share more information with any specific requests.  I prefer
not to give away my exact values but I would be happy to give general
tutuorials.