EMAIL: gonz@evamail.i-p.com NAME: Michael McGonigle TOPIC: Ruins COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: The Lost City Of Atlantis COUNTRY: Australia WEBPAGE: n / a RENDERER USED: 3D Studios Max R2.5 TOOLS USED: 4d Paint Rembrandt 1.8 , Paint Shop Pro 5 , Poser 3 RENDER TIME: 1 hr 8 mins 51 sec HARDWARE USED: Celeron 466, 64 Mb RAM IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Well I guess you could say that my scene is an interpretation of the lost underwater city of Atlantis. I didn't actually set my scene out as a depiction of Atlantis, just some underwater ruins, but when I completed the image, I couldn't really think of a good name for it so I had to go for the obvious..... The ancient civilation of Atlantis was first mentioned by the Greek philosipher Plato. He placed forward the idea that there was once thousands of years ago an advanced civilization that ruled the world and was destroyed by a large earthquake and as a result, their continent sunk into the ocean. The Atlanteans were believed to be an extremely advanced technological race. Many people have put forth suggestions that they were able to control the weather and they utilized space/time technology that enabled them to use a device called a "probability gate" which was just like the gate used in the movie Stargate. The other technology used in Atlantis was crystals. The Atlanteans were believed to be able to use these crystals to store and create energy. There have been numerous discoveries by scuba divers of statues holding crystals and pyramids with large crystals on top. ( The statue in my scene is holding a crystal ) There are 3 main theories that surround the legend of Atlantis 1) It is fiction ---> Plato thought that the idea of an advanced civilization sunk under the sea would increase his book sales and get himself some cash... $$$ KA CHING $$$ 2) Thera and Minoan Civilization ---> Thera was a city that was destroyed similarly to how Atlantis was destroyed ( an explosion caused half the island to sink into the sea ) and artifacts found on the island give archeologists reason to believe Thera was part of the Minoan civilization. 3) It existed ---> Plato wasn't talking crap and knew his stuff [ and therefore increased his booksales legitimately :) ] My scene is an underwater city that was destroyed and all that is left is the decaying ruins. There is a temple on the left, a wooden lookout on the right, a fountain with a statue holding a crystal in the middle, some ruins in the background ( I loosley based these on the ruined temple of Apollo ), a stone walkway with some segments fallen down ( just behind Apollo ruin ) and a pyramid just behind the walkway ( you can hardly see it because it is so far back ) There are 4 types of fish in the scene. 1) The sharks ( well duh ) 2) The fusilers --> bluish fish on left and behind shark on left 3) The bullseyes --> swarms of tiny fish on right hand side of screen 4) The butterfly fish --> 3 fish hanging around the wall at front If the information on Atlantis interests you, there is heaps of information about it at http://www.newage.com.au/library.pages/ancient.html DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: - All buildings i.e. temple on left, ruins at back, lookout on right and pyramid in very back (you can hardly see it, but I assure you it is there ), the stone walkway, the gate, the statue's base and the path were created with simple geometry and have texture maps applied. - The rocks, wall and all fish were created by box modelling ( ie creating box and extruding faces and moving vertices to get the basic shape and then applying a mesh smooth ) Note, for the shoals of fish, I just created a random array of one fish ( ie used scatter plugin ) - The textures on the fish were done in 4D Paint Rembrandt 1.8. I had a lot of trouble painting in detail directly onto the mesh in 4d paint so I had to save the basic texture as a map in 4d paint and then use paint shop pro 5 to touch up the map. - The skeletons ( lying on temple floor and there is one sitting up against a column in the front left hand corner of the ruins at the back ), the angel on the gate handle and the statue were created in Poser 3 - The weed was created by making 4 different blades of reeds ( each were bent slightly different) then applying plugin called scatter which creates a random array over an area. I then created a wave space warp and applied this to the array of reeds to give them a wavy look. - I created the bubbles by using a particle system. - The underwater look was created by... 1) Placing a fog which increases exponentially ( i.e. as you go further away, the fog gets thicker. 2) Using a caustic projector on the spot light so it casts a light that gives the appearance of the wavy seafloor 3) Applying volume light on the spot light so light rays are cast through the water.