EMAIL: Sonya_Roberts@geocities.com NAME: Sonya Roberts TOPIC: Science Fiction COPYRIGHT: I submit to the standard raytracing competition copyright. RENDERER USED: POVRay 3.00e.watcom.Win32 TOOLS USED: Adobe Photoshop 3.0 to create image map. POVRay 3.00 interface (with customized insert menu) for all coding My brain, with occasional assistance from pen and paper, to layout and plan objects. TextureMagic v0.95 (Trial Version) for creation of a number of textures. RENDER TIME: 6 hours, 47 minutes, and 1 second to render 1,718 objects HARDWARE USED: Pentium Pro 200 w/32 meg memory and Matrox Millenium 2mg Graphics Card IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A substitute teacher's nightmare - a class full of alien beings. Try teaching Cultures of Today (CUL 101) to that crowd... DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: As usual, I've made fairly extensive use of the looping and random functions; for example, the chairs and desks are placed along a regular grid using loops, and random numbers are used to slightly offset each desk and chair so that they are not unnaturally rigid in their layout. The aliens I've created are (from L to R, front row, then ceiling): CACTUS - looks like your basic potted cactus, but is, in fact, an intelligent being (just don't leave it standing out in the rain or it'll get root rot). The spines along the edges of it's twelve lobes are created using a combination of loops and random numbers. BLOBETTE - created using blob objects (naturally enough!). I did two slightly different versions of this alien, Blobbettes Nos. 1 & 2, one of which has one hand raised and the other on it's knee, and the other of which is sitting with both hands on it's desk. PRICKLY BALLS - a wierd-looking communal creature, this silica-based lifeform is formed of several individual creatures (each of which is a single prickly ball of spines) that join together to share brain space, food energy, etc., in much the way you might network a number of computers together and multitask them. Yet another example of loops & random numbers. JELLYFISH - another blob-object creature. Kinda makes me think of a slime mold in it's mobile form, except it's shaped more like a five-armed starfish than a slug. Got this texture out of TextureMagic. BIGBUG - your basic oversized spider. The sort of thing that gives arachnephobes like me nightmares. Though this guy is slightly cute, except for the glittering black eyes and great big jaws. This is also my first foray into the world of atmosphere effects (for the sunbeams shining in the windows) and area lights. Or do fog and rainbow's count as atmosphere? I've done those before... It's the dust and lights that have slowed the rendering down so much; if I turn off the atmosphere and all but a single point source of light, the rendering only takes a few minutes to run.