Name:
     Jamie McCarter
     50ve3gso@qstar.fanshawec.on.ca
     511 Hibiscus Avenue
     London, Ontario, Canada
     N6H 3P2
     I would love to answer any questions you might have concerning this
     image and the process through which I arrived at it.

Filename: 
     DrgnRmPv.Jpg
     800x600.  Rendering time on my 486dx2-66 was, well, I really don't
     know.  Due to the other games on my system, others in my household
     continuously cancelled the render part way.  I believe it to be
     somewhere around 25 to 35 hours.  Animating this thing is going to be
     horrific!  Anyone have an ONYX I could borrow?  The other include files
     that I didn't upload are just plain bezier objects and textures, nothing
     of really great interest.
     
Scale:
     Sort of 1 foot = 1 unit.  The camera is situated at 6 feet, as though
     one were actually looking through the eyes of the warrior.

What it is:
     The idea for the image came from having played fantasy role playing
     games on my computer, but primarily inspired by the works of J.R.R.
     Tolkien, Robert Jordan, and George Lucas.

Programs Used:
     I used Moray for moulding each individual bezier objects then I used a
     ordinary text editor for touching up and placing each.  I mainly used a
     simple text editor for manually creating most of the objects.  For the
     textures I used DeluxePaint II for creating and touching up the image
     maps, Graphics Workshop for Windows for converting my file formats,
     ColourRender for the specular highlights, Windows for rendering in the
     background (so I could do homework as well), Piclab for the odd job,
     and Deskscan (someone else has the scanner, I just borrow the use of
     it) for scanning in the image maps.  And of course my Windsor Newtons
     watercolours and Staedtler watercolour pencils for creating the
     dragon's skin.

How I Created it:
     I just used graph paper for most of it, Moray for interactively
     pushing and pulling the bezier splines, and lots of time.  I created
     the dragon with it's components separately in separate files so that I
     could easily exclude certain ones for test renders.

     I also created all of the dragon objects using variables for the
     rotation values so that I could have each dragon with it's mouth open
     differently, tongue differently aimed and head and neck rotate
     differently.  I did this by basically creating hierarchial control
     points that when rotated would affect the objects attached to it.  I
     also can have now an animation where the dragon twists its neck and
     wiggles its tongue, etc...

     I did this by having several recursive unions of the objects each with
     a rotate value and then a translate value for each.  So that the
     rotate value rotated everything above it in the unions and then the
     translate value lifted everything up to the top of the object beneath
     it.

The Story so Far:
     The battle hardened hero opened the door slowly.  Strewn behind him
     was a myriad of victorious battles with Orcs and Trolls.  He had
     overcome great obstacles to finally arrive at this, the last hindrance
     blocking his way to glorious victory.

     Yet, opening the door to the Hydra's chamber revealed a surprise: this
     Hydra was over twenty feet tall.  He unsheathed his sturdy sword, and
     gasped.  From the carnage scattered across the floor it was obvious
     that this dragon had eaten better warriors than he.  It would be near
     impossible for him to best such a creature.  However, this quester had
     a single advantage.

     He reached down, and deftly keyed in the cheat code from the hint book
     he had purchased but an hour ago.

     The dragon, understanding what was occurring, screeched in terror.  It
     flailed it's head about and fire burst forth, but it was no match for
     the hero, and his code.  The dragon was bested with ease, the land
     saved for eternity, and the hero went back to his algebra geometry.