EMAIL: simplepsy@aol.com
NAME: Simon Osbaldeston
TOPIC: Mythology
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Pandora
COUNTRY: England
WEBPAGE: http://www.cgchannel.com/gallery/viewprofil.jsp?artID=1352
RENDERER USED: Maya 4.5, Poser 3
TOOLS USED: Maya fluids, maya 3d paint fx
RENDER TIME: 2.5 hours
HARDWARE USED: AMD Athlon XP 2000, 512Mb Ram, GForce 4 ti
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 
This image is based on the myth of pandoras box. 
The greek story says the gods gave (pandora who was the first woman) a magical box. They also told her not to open it. Out of curiosity she looked inside the box, and out of that box came all the evil in our world. 
I chose not to include pandora in my image since the more interesting part of the story is the origin of evil and its effect on the earth. 
The bright light in the scene represents the sheer power of this force, and the intangible magics released. Inside this light are evil spirits represented by demons and skeletons, also representing death.
The tree is an autumn tree, symoblising the decay of our planet, however I chose a tree because trees seem dead, then in spring they come back to life, symbolising the hope that was also left in pandoras box. 
The sky is as it is to add mood and atomsphere. And the pebbles show a barren landscape, with some beauty.
I chose to keep the image composition as simple as possible, aiming to provide a sense of scale leaving the horizon fairly clear, similar to some Dali paintings. 

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
I started with a simple flat plane with a base material to 'flesh' out the pebbles, adding more interest and filling the gaps. The pebbles themselves are straight forward polygon spheres flattened out, varied and copied with procedural textures.  Mayas Paint fx feature enabled me to 'grow' the tree, specifying the parameters for the trunk, then branches, twigs and leaves.  
The skeletons were posed in poser3 and exported for use in maya. I gave them a semi translucent material, with some incandecance to give them a slightly ghostly look.
The main beam of light is a volumetric spotlight, with shadows cast in the fog by the skeletons.
I created the spiraly 'streamer' with a path extruded curve and a highly incandecant material with glow. 
The sky was the fun part, I spent days playing with mayas fluid dynamics to create a realistic sky, made up of an upper incandesant atmosphere layer and the lower cloud layer with shaders to simulate shadows to save render time.