TITLE: Struggling Opposition NAME: Hans Palacios COUNTRY: USA EMAIL: hapala@morphingdesign.com WEBPAGE: www.morphingdesign.com TOPIC: Opposites COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. JPGFILE: strug.jpg RENDERER USED: Mental Ray TOOLS USED: 3D Studio MAX 7 RENDER TIME: 34 minutes HARDWARE USED: AMD Athlon 64 1.84GHz, 1GB IMAGE DESCRIPTION: As a kid, I grew up learning to play chess and it immediately became my form of meditation, freedom, and relaxation. However, it slowly began to express itself as an obsession to compete, struggle, and win. It can be treated as a game or aspect of life, particularly to individuals who devote themselves to chess. Either way, the object develops from a set of wooden pieces on a board of tiles into a competition, a struggle between two opposing forces to the end. This rendering visualizes the freedom of chess in a struggle with the captivation that it has on individuals grasped by it. Just like being absorbed by work, money, or any other thing, it has the potential of monopolizing time, energy, and freedom. Similarly, a simple game of chess can become a great war. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The chess pieces were created with simple splines and modified with a lathe. The jail cell bars and the cage enclosing the chess set are arrays of columns. The rest of the objects are simple geometries with materials applied for texture and depth.