EMAIL: gregj56590@aol.com
NAME: Greg M. Johnson
TOPIC: Still Images
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE:  "A Study in Melting Points"
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://members.xoom.com/gregjohn
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.02 watcom32
TOOLS USED: Povray, CorelDraw7, Poser2, CrossRoads 3D
RENDER TIME: 10h 4m 59s
HARDWARE USED: Aptiva C9E, 200 MHz Pentium
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:<
"A team of metallic superheroes burst into the lair of the evil Dr. Ruby. Whether and how they survive will depend on the physical properties of the elements in their composition."
This image is inspired in part by the old Metal Men comic books, where each superhero would explain his defeat or victory in battle with campy little science lesson. Poor Tin, always getting melted!
This image is also inspired by the kinds of arguments that arise when materials scientists from different disciplines get together. Much like sports fans arguing over whether Mike Ditka could singlehandedly beat the 1972 NY Jets, silly arguments arise between metallurgical and ceramic engineers. 
This image plays on several battles: good vs. evil, metals versus ceramics, and expert (IMHO) use of blobs in excellent freeware vs. crappy output of canned mediocre software. 

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
First, I greatly improved the "insect-like" figures that I used in my last IRTC entry.  The figures are made up of blobs of hundreds of elements. The blobs are cylinders (bones) and elongated spheres (muscles).  The tungsten character represents a "normal" figure with the INC that I created.  Next I made two figures which were melting into puddles, by adding flattened cylinders to the blob.  Then I made a diffusion couple between copper and nickel, where I inserted two different characters into the same blob statement.
Then, I used Poser 2 to create Dr. Ruby.  I am disappointed with this program, as all bent joints end up looking like cracks in a ceramic mannequin.  I exported it to DXF and used CrossRoads 3D to convert to POV. Crossroads doesn't seem to get along with either Win95 OR Win98.
Then, I created a floor of ceramic tiles, with a while/end loop and a quasi-random selection of colors. The finish is copied from an example in the POV documentation.
The heat weapon control box is all POV CSG and the weapon heat lamp is a mere lathed object. I TRIED time and again to make the heat beam visible via a halo, atmosphere, or fog, but never got anything to work. As the documentation says, it doesn't affect reflected light. A real laser wouldn't be visible in this manner, anyway, you people!  The squares from the periodic table and the sign on the heat weapon control box were composed in Corel Draw 7 and exported as GIFs. I gave them an ambient of rgb 111 in order to get them to show up brightly.  I ran across a 1966 Legion of SuperHeroes comic book where the villain's weapon was labelled in a campy fashion and though this was a nice touch. 
The TV images on the monitors are studies from my devleopment of my INC. Like the periodic table squares, they shine by virtue of an ambient in the finish. 
Yeah, I know that the image would look better if I finished making the doorway through which the metal men supposedly just burst through. But when you work with a project for two months, you eventually have to just let it go...
The ZIP file includes, I hope, just enough files to show it's my original work.  I still want to submit an animation with the type of character I have developed here and want to hold on to my metal men just a few months longer.