EMAIL: mfraser@kw.igs.net
NAME: Morgan H. Fraser
TOPIC: Glass
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT
TITLE: The Temple of the Glass Cups
COUNTRY: Canada
WEBPAGE: http://www.kw.igs.net/~mfraser
RENDERER USED: Pov-Ray 3.0 (For Windows)
TOOLS USED: Keyboard, mouse .... (just the text editor in Pov-Ray)
RENDER TIME: looong - approximately 4 days
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 133 (top 10-15 lines), Pentium Pro 200Mhz Dual Processor (The bottom 585-590)
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
  This is a view of the great temple to the two last remaining glass
  cups on this planet.  No other glass objects have remained intact 
  on this world.  The locals worship these icons in this specially
  constructed temple.
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
  Hmmm... I started with the concept of the temple.  Its very simple -
just 6 boxes.  I added the torches along the side next.  For variety,
each of the torches is rotated a random amount.
The glass cup was next.  It is a simple surface of revolution.
The altar that the two cups are on is a close replica of my 
coffee table - I'm not really that original.
The two sculptures on the left and right hand wall are very simply
constructed by 2 squished julia fractals.  The creature at the far
end was originally meant to be on the left wall to be a contrast to
the green mass of the julia fractal on the right wall, but I moved
it down to the end because he looked a little dumb from the side - it's
nothing more that a stick figure.  I made the head radiate a bit
by using a transmittance and filtration component greater than 1.
The atmosphere was created by using lots and lots of lights.  That's
the main reason why this render took so long.  There is a light for
each torch, and one for each candle.  To add to the effect, each
light uses fading to increase the realism.

I think I did OK this round, but I did miss a few things when I
did the final render.  One problem with the picture that many of you
will notice is that it is a bit dark.  It is viewed best if you set it
to full screen, and then turn out the surrounding lights.  Turning up
the brightness on the monitor helps a bit, but it washes out the
colours as well.

I hope you enjoy this image as much as I did creating it.