TITLE: CAN'T WE JUST BE FRIENDS?
NAME: Raymond A. Salvatore
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: bonsalva@bellsouth.net
WEBPAGE: NONE
TOPIC: NATURE
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: rasowl.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Raydream Studio 5 raytracer

TOOLS USED: 
    Micrografix Picture Publisher, Mustek scanner, Four Elements

RENDER TIME: 
    approx. 45 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    PENTIUM 233 MMX WITH 64 MEG SDRAM

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 
    I've done owls in many art forms including pen and ink
    etching, watercolor, and sculpture, so my first thought for nature
    was "owl." Since most of my other works with owls contained a rodent
    of some kind (usually a chipmonk), I added a mouse, but this time
    I left the mouse alive and well.  They seem to be content sharing
    the same branch.  What happens next?  Whoo knows?

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

    I started with a background made using the "wind" element from the
"Four Elements" part of Raydream Studio, the moon, the light, and the
higher clouds were made here.  I used the terrain mode to make one mesh
file from a gray scale bmp.  I used the same one four times to make the
mountains and glaciers.  I deformed, rotated it and smoothed it to make
it appear different.  I added fog to the scene to give it a stormy look.
The tree branch was made in the "free form modeller" as an 
extruded spiral and then rotated, deformed and resized.  The textures of
the branch and mountains are modified preset textures.  The owl and mouse
were both made from the "meshform modeller" in Raydream, except for the
owls beak  and claws and the mouse's tail.  The beak and claws are CSG 
objects and the tail is an extruded spiral.  For the owl's texture, I
scanned a feather hat and used the color bmp as a tile and used a grey-
scale version as a bump map.  For the mouse texture, I scanned a photo
of a chipmonk and used the bmp in the same way.