EMAIL:          Sonya_Roberts@geocities.com
NAME:          Sonya Roberts
TOPIC:          Science Fiction
COPYRIGHT:         I submit to the standard raytracing competition copyright.
RENDERER USED:         POVRay 3.00e.watcom.Win32
TOOLS USED:         Adobe Photoshop 3.0 to create image map.
          POVRay 3.00 interface (with customized insert menu) for all coding
          My brain, with occasional assistance from pen and paper, to
          layout and plan objects.
          TextureMagic v0.95 (Trial Version) for creation of a number of
          textures.
RENDER TIME:         6 hours, 47 minutes, and 1 second to render 1,718 objects
HARDWARE USED:         Pentium Pro 200 w/32 meg memory and Matrox Millenium 2mg
Graphics Card
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:        A substitute teacher's nightmare - a class full of
alien beings.  Try teaching
          Cultures of Today (CUL 101) to that crowd...


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

As usual, I've made fairly extensive use of the looping and random functions;
for example, the chairs and
desks are placed along a regular grid using loops, and random numbers are used
to slightly offset each
desk and chair so that they are not unnaturally rigid in their layout.

The aliens I've created are (from L to R, front row, then ceiling):

CACTUS - looks like your basic potted cactus, but is, in fact, an intelligent
being (just don't leave it
standing out in the rain or it'll get root rot).  The spines along the edges of
it's twelve lobes are created
using a combination of loops and random numbers.

BLOBETTE - created using blob objects (naturally enough!).  I did two slightly
different versions of this
alien, Blobbettes Nos. 1 & 2, one of which has one hand raised and the other on
it's knee, and the other of
which is sitting with both hands on it's desk.

PRICKLY BALLS - a wierd-looking communal creature, this silica-based lifeform is
formed of several
individual creatures (each of which is a single prickly ball of spines) that
join together to share
brain space, food energy, etc., in much the way you might network a number of
computers together
and multitask them.  Yet another example of loops & random numbers.

JELLYFISH - another blob-object creature.  Kinda makes me think of a slime mold
in it's mobile form,
except it's shaped more like a five-armed starfish than a slug.  Got this
texture out of TextureMagic.

BIGBUG - your basic oversized spider.  The sort of thing that gives
arachnephobes like me
nightmares.  Though this guy is slightly cute, except for the glittering black
eyes and great big jaws.

This is also my first foray into the world of atmosphere effects (for the
sunbeams shining in the windows)
and area lights.  Or do fog and rainbow's count as atmosphere?  I've done those
before...

It's the dust and lights that have slowed the rendering down so much; if I turn
off the atmosphere and
all but a single point source of light, the rendering only takes a few minutes
to run.