TITLE: The Alchemist's Playground
NAME: Rob Chant
COUNTRY: England
EMAIL: Chripstopher_Chant@compuserve.com
WEBPAGE: N/A
TOPIC: Elements
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: rjmc_alc.jpg
ZIPFILE: rjmc_alc.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV 3.1 beta 5

TOOLS USED: 
    Paint Shop Pro 5, Paint Shop Pro 3, Fractint 17.2, Truspace 1.04g

RENDER TIME: 
    58 hours 43 minutes at aa threshold 0.2, method 2

HARDWARE USED: 
    486DX4/133, 16Mb RAM, UMAX Vista-S6E Scanner


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


   The image depicts the table of an ancient Greek alchemist, who has finally
succeeded in a most epic task, seperating the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire
and Water. Each is held in its own contianing sphere of iridescence. The
alchemist has worked long - a candle burns low on his table, and his ink
well runs low after he has taken his many notes...


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


   This image was created in a very unusual way for me - normally, the idea
for an image, or a picture of it, appears in my mind, and I just start from
there, already knowing apporximately how it will look. I get inspired, if
you like. So, being given a topic to start from was difficult, but I was
determined to try, even though I had only a month (this is my first entry,
and I had the impression the the competiton still ran on a monthly basis, so
I checked it out at the beginning of the wrong month. Never mind).
   So, I sat and mulled over several ideas for a while, when, suddenly, the
inspiration for The Alchemist's Playground hit me (it wasn't originally
called that). The four Grrek elements, contained in transparent spheres,
sitting on a table, with a candle, and something going on in the background.
   I was going to write a proper description, but I'm clean out of time. The
final render took much longer than I thought it would, which is why this is a
little late - I'm not sure by how much, as I'm a little confussed over dates
and time differences and stuff. Anyway, the render has only just finished. I
was also going to include the complete source, but I'm out of time on that
one too, so I've only included the source for the elemental spheres.
   Breifly, the rest:

   The quill pen was designed in Truspace, and was originally to have
feathers, but it triangulated them in a very odd way, so I didn't use them.
   The candle holder and ink pot are lathe objects.
   The design on the parchments very drawn by hand and scanned.
   The table edges are pieces of a superquadric ellipsoid.
   The candle drips are blob objects.

   Everything else is pretty self explanatory I think. Sorry if I'm too late
too enter, but hopefully I'll get some coments anway. Cheers and enjoy.