TITLE: Starfish
NAME: Nikki Gillett
COUNTRY: Australia
EMAIL: nikki@evolve.co.uk
WEBPAGE: http://www.evolve.co.uk/nikki/
TOPIC: Nature
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: starfish.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    Povray 3.02

TOOLS USED: 
    Moray 3.01, Photoshop 5

RENDER TIME: 
    15 minutes & 1 second

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium II 266


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


A starfish washed up on the beach.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


The starfish is a Tapering sweep with a 'glyph' spline type to make it rounded.

I gave it a gradient pigment with a spotty normal to give it some texture.

The sand itself is a height field created in Photoshop. There were 4 layers. The

first had rendered clouds, which were blurred, the 2nd & 3rd layers had a 'black

to transparent' layer from right to left and 'white to transparent' from left to

right to create a natural beached slope. And the 4th, a set of footprints which

were blurred, filled with a gradient fill to allow for the different
pressures/depths 
left by a footprint & lightened. I gave it a yellow color with 'Crand' set to 
give it the graininess. I to use smoothing on the height field within Moray but
the 
'ridges' in the foreground sand seemed more pronounced so I turned it off.

The water is just a cube of blue with caustics, reflection, refraction & a
normal 
for the ripples. It has a transparent colormap gradient so the sand where the 
water laps up can be seen through the water. I added a sky in afterwards so the

water reflects something.

PS: I haven't included the source or the height field because they're quite huge
in filesize.