EMAIL: ryanbennitt@lycos.co.uk
NAME: Ryan Bennitt
TOPIC: Light and Fog
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Never look into the light
COUNTRY: UK
RENDERER USED: POVRay 3.6
TOOLS USED: Silo
RENDER TIME: ~6 hours?
HARDWARE USED: Athlon XP 3200+
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
Until Monday this week I had no inspiration for this topic. Then a few thoughts came together that inspired me to rush this out in four days.

There's a scene in the film "The Man Who Wasn't There" where they're in a prison cell and the light is shining through the bars into a slightly smokey room. As the camera travels from one side of the room to the other, you can see the shadows of the bars travelling through the fog. Its one of the few scenes in films where I've actually commented on the great camera and lighting work.

If you've ever had to drive through thick fog at night you'll know what an eerie experience it is. You can only see a few meters ahead, far less than your braking distance. Putting your headlights on full beam just results in total white out. So imagine being on the receiving end of that.

Often driving along the country lanes I see roe deer darting across the road. Sometimes animals freeze under headlights, mesmerised. It could be the last thing they see.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
I started off by making a 3D silhouette of a roe deer from a couple of pictures I found on the internet using Silo.

I quickly put this into POV-Ray and started playing about with light sources and road surfaces. A couple of spotlights and a normal mapped box later I had myself a basic scene. Varying the normal map along the width of the road added the two stripes of smoothed road that normal wear and tear produces.

Surrounding the whole thing with a sphere filled with scattering media added just the kind of thick fog I was looking for. Straight away you could see the shadows of the deer streaming out into the fog, just the kind of effect I wanted. Ramping up the number of intervals produced a smooth fog at a cost to render time.

Again using Silo I made a white line for the road's centre and a kerb stone from which the road's edge was constructed. Finishing off with tarmac'd pavement I had to leave the scene as it is. I would have liked to add some dirt and rubbish to the edge of the road, but the scene looks fairly complete, if a little clean as it stands.