TITLE: In Caverns Deep...
NAME: Kevin L. Cummings
COUNTRY: United States of America
EMAIL: kcummings@utahlinx.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.utahlinx.com/users/kcummings
TOPIC: Water
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: cavern.jpg
ZIPFILE: cavern.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    Bryce 2 (Free from PC Format magazine!)

TOOLS USED: 
    Bryce 2, Microsoft Picture-It! (For adjusting brightness and adding
text), X-Res 2.0 (To create on heightfield)

RENDER TIME: 
    1 hour 43 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 200, 32MB RAM, 2.1 GB Hard Drive

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Somewhere below the surface of the earth, water has carved a series of caverns
in the soft limestone.  Water dripping from the ceiling has formed stalactites
and stalagmites.  An unseen hot-spring fills and warms the lake, causing steam
(another form of water) to rise above the surface.

At some level, caverns like these are water given solid form.

In the lower left corner, the spelunker has left a lantern in the scene to give
some feeling for the scale of the picture.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

Everything in this scene is a Bryce primitive and most of the textures are the
default textures which come with Bryce.

The cavern floor, walls, ceiling, and formations are all Bryce terrains which
were modified with the built-in G2H editor.

The lantern was hand built out of primitives.  The side supports (the funny
angled bits) are a symmetrical construction made in the G2H editor.  (The
original lines were drawn in X-Res 2.0 and then imported into Bryce so I could
fiddle with 'em.)  The lantern globe is real glass and even has crossed wires
to protect it.  A yellow light source sits on top of the filament to project
the light and shadows of the lantern.

The mist over the water is a volumetric texture applied to a flattened,
distorted sphere.

There is, of course, another light source to illuminate the rest of the cave and
simulate scatter.  Anyone who's been in a cave will realize that you don't
often see things this clearly, but a "realistic" scene which only showed what
the lantern illuminated would have failed to communicate the essence of water
as seen in this cavern.