EMAIL: StephenF@whoever.com
NAME: Stephen M. Farrell
TOPIC: Contrast
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Tis The Season
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: n/a
RENDERER USED: POV-Ray for Windows 3.1
TOOLS USED: POV-Ray for Windows 3.1; Paint Shop Pro 6.02 (signature and image compression only)
RENDER TIME: Approx. 5 hours
HARDWARE USED: Pentium II 266; 128 mb RAM

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

  Tacky vs. tasteful (or fun-loving vs. uptight, depending on your point of view).  I wanted to depict two similar houses, decorated in contrasting styles -- one unrestrained and rather gaudy, and the other a more classic style.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

  Lots of lights.  About halfway through the creation of this scene, I ran into my first slab building error, and had to figure out how to resolve it.  Luckily, a similar question and answer had been posted to the newsgroups (my thanks to the posters, whose names I unfortunately forgot to write down), and once I disabled the light buffer I was able to continue with no problems.

  Lots of blob objects.  Most of the more complex objects... the snowman, Santa, the trees and bushes, the garland on the right lamppost, the wreaths on the doors, and the snowflakes... are blobs.

  Lots of while loops.  Used to place the individual boards of the houses, the sidewalk blocks, the candles, and all the Christmas lights.  I also made heavy use of the mod function for the first time, to alternate the colors of the lights, and to create the stripes on the snowman's scarf.

  With the end of the year coming up (which coincides with the end of my first year entering the IRTC), I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who voted and especially commented on my entries over the past year.  My experience with the competition has been overwhelmingly positive, and I've learned a lot from all the comments I've gotten.  I know it takes a lot of time to vote and comment on the images each round, and I appreciate everyone's efforts in this respect.

  Happy holidays, everybody... I'm really looking forward to my second year of competition, and to seeing all the wonderful scenes people create in the year ahead!