TITLE: Champ No More
NAME: Ron Gow
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: rgow@lanset.com
TOPIC: Decay
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: champ_rg.jpg
RENDERER USED: 

    PovRay 3.5


TOOLS USED: 

    Poser 4, Poseray, Hamapatch
    Paintshop Pro 7 used for signature & conversion to .jpg 


RENDER TIME: 

    PovRay: 5day 7hr 37min 


HARDWARE USED: 

    Pentium III 550mhz
    512 mg RAM


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

    Decay. It's a process. A slow and gradual deterioration. For 
    an athlete, that means the unavoidable erosion of skill and 
    the slowing of reflexes. It's age, yes, but its not, since most 
    athletes are still young. But rigorous training and competition
    require a sharpness of mind and body that diminish long before
    the body has reached even middle age. Somewhere in the back of
    the mind is always a tiny doubt... when will I fail?

    Yesterday, he was the champ.  He felt great, he'd trained hard, 
    at 37 he was in his prime. But the challenger always a little 
    faster, a little stronger, and his stamina was a little better.
    And the champ never even saw the punch that put him down.

    Maybe he'll fight his way back. He might even regain his title. 
    Heart, they call that. But in that heart, something is lost. In 
    the mind, the tiny doubt is now a certainty. It's just a matter 
    of time.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

    
    Ring, lights, arena are CSG with ring ropes from sphere_sweeps. 
    Crowd is CSG using a macro I still need to perfect.
    People in ring & at ringside all Poser 4, converted by Poseray.
    Boxing gloves made in Hamapatch.
    
    The render time is because of the combination of lights, media
    & focal blur. There are around 55-60 lights, with 7 light_groups.
    Atmosphere is scattering media.
    
    Focal blur settings could use improvement, but the render time
    was getting out of hand for test renders, and the deadline was 
    coming up, so I never got quite what I wanted.
    
    Textures are all procedural by me.