EMAIL:     tnishi@ari.ncl.omron.co.jp
NAME:      Teddy Nishiyama
TOPIC:     Great Engineering Achievments
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE:     Engineering Olympic Style
COUNTRY:   Japan
WEBPAGE:
RENDERER USED:  Povray 3.0 for Windows
TOOLS USED: Moray, NKflare.inc
RENDER TIME:   ...I forgot to check but I think it was about 2 hours.
HARDWARE USED: 486-100MHz
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
	   As you all know, the 18th Winter Olympics were held this 
	year in Nagano, Japan and one of the events that stood out
	was the Speed Skating competitions held at the M-Wave ice
	rink.  This was the first Olympiad where skaters used the
	new "slap-skates" (or "clap-skates"), where the back part
	of the skate separates from the heel of the boot and then
	slaps back into place as the skater pushes off the ice.
	   This new skate is apparently less stable than the older
	skates and seems to take a bit of getting used to, but when
	used correctly, it helps the skater transfer more power into
	their stride as they push off the ice.  The separating heel
	allows the full blade to stay in contact with the ice to get
	maximum power, where as with the older skates, skaters would
	end up pushing against the ice with the front edge of the
	skate at the end of their stride.
	   Though slightly overshadowed by the even newer strips of
	...what is it?...plastic? or something, on the head and on the
	calves of the Norwegian skaters, the slap-skates seem to have
	contributed to many of the gold medals which were won with
	record breaking times.  Most were won with either Olympic or 
	World records.
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
	   The hardest part of this topic was actually coming up with
	an idea to work with.  Well, the Olympics happened to be
	right there, as were the slap-skates.
	   The olympic rings, the blade of the skate and the medal
	was pretty straight forward, but the boot of the skate was
	a problem.  I couldn't think of a good way to create it and
	I'd heard of Rhino and thought that's probably what I needed
	but since I don't have it, I decided to give a bezier patch
	a try.  After several tries, I finally got a shape that 
	looked pretty much like the boot portion.  The "ice" is also
	quite straight forward...it's just a thinned out cube with
	a dented white texture.
	   After asking my wife for her opinion, she said I should
	add a ribbon to the medal...ugh...after the boot, I decided
	I hate working with bezier patches, but again, I resorted 
	to using another patch for the ribbon.
	   Finally, I added Nathon Koop's nkflare.inc file for the
	sparkle.