EMAIL:s_lumini@hotmail.com
NAME: Stephen Lumini
TOPIC: Elements
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Noble Gases
COUNTRY: Canada
RENDERER USED: POVRAY 3.0
TOOLS USED: POVRAY 3.0, MORAY 3.0, Paint Shop Pro (to convert the TGA to a JPG)
RENDER TIME: 41 minutes, 41 seconds
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 90 - 40 meg RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Entering the Outer Ring of Castle Valence, you happen upon two of the Noble Gases.  It is an unusual pairing - Lord Radon's cold personality and harsh demenour couterpoint to Lady Xenon's bright, cheerful and mostly flirtatous nature.  There are rumours that she has been coupling with many of the common elements and the evidence seems quite clear from the names of some of her court: Xenon Hydrate, Sodium Perxenate, Xenon Difluoride, and the explosive Xenon Trioxide (most likley all bastard offspring).  She is visibly excited by your presence, perhaps you will find out if the rumours are true.

Description of How the Image was created: I have always thought the term noble gases somewhat romantic - implying, I guess, that these elements were to important to "breed" with the lesser, more promiscious elements (Hydrogen is such a whore). It was a very small leap to thinking of the gases as Nobles and simply anthropomorphisizing then into Lords and Ladies.  I had initially planned them to resemble 19th century aristocrocy, but the top hat and coat, and all the other cloiture proved beyond my abilities. Knowing that noble gases are odorless and colourless by nature I researched their properties for different conditions. Radon, when cooled below the freezing point, exhibits a brilliant phosphorescence which becomes yellow as the temperature is lowered and orange-red at the temperature of liquid air.  While Xenon produces a blue glow when excited by an electrical discharge in a vacuum tube.

Technical stuff: The faces and clothes are bezier patches - all modeled in sPatch (most awesome tool- the homepage has all sorts of very useful tutorials!!).  The "heads" and "hands" are sphere and cone merges "filled" with colourful halos.  The pillars and hallway are standard Cylinder, Cones, Spheres and Toruses.  The light on the door is a spotlight in a hollow Cube with "slats" cut out the bottom.