EMAIL: intertek@one.net
NAME: Michael Hunter
TOPIC: Absence
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: The Incredible Reversible Man
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://www.interactivetechnologies.net
RENDERER USED: 3D Studio Max Version 9, Mental Ray
TOOLS USED: 3D Studio Max, PhotoShop (for texture maps)
RENDER TIME: 1 Hour 45 Minutes (test renderings with lower light samples took just 2 Minutes)
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 4 1.8 GHz 768 MB RAM


IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
My image fulfills the second definition of Absents: "...an exploration of what artists call 'negative space'." 

I was tinkering with some ideas when the phrase "Reversible Man" came to mind. So this image actually started out as a title. As it developed, it seemed to suggest to me a state of perpetual contradiction. A person who is caught looking left and right who is both dark and light, solid and void simultaneously.

While Kim Jong-il tries to keep North Korea safe with nuclear weapons we are protecting freedom by holding prisoners without habeas corpus. It's like the time they lined up the big guys of the cigarette cartel and made them all answer "I believe cigarettes are not addictive" while the world watched. People kill people for god knowing full well that god could do that without their help. We build 700 miles of fences in the desert but pretend there's no such thing as global warming; a world where science teachers teach Creationism and priests molest boys. The world seems caught in turbulent currents of contradiction a mind bending, schizophrenic time that defies reason.

But is this mess a product of reversible men or is being a reversible man the only way to manage a backward spinning world?

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
Paper

I started with a spline of the head and two identical planes (each with 40x40 segments). I copied the head spline and created a negative version - a line that looks like a square with a head shape subtracted from it. I extruded both splines and used Boolean to cut the planes. This gave me two irregular planes - one the shape of a man's head and another shaped like the background around the head. I was careful to keep the two planes in alignment. Boolean operations on polygonal meshes are much messier than on solid geometry so I had to check around the edges for awkward triangulation.

3DSM (3D Studio Max) has several tools that can deform space rather than deforming geometry. The theory is like this: if you were to bend space around into a doughnut shape a ruler in that space would still be straight even if its opposite ends touch. In practice the deformation only applies to vertices but with enough of them the illusion of warping space is convincing. I used a tool called FFD (4x4x4), short for Free Form Deform (4 nodes by 4 nodes by 4 nodes). This puts a box shaped cage on the selected geometry. Rather than pushing individual vertices pulling control points of the FFD cage will manage large groups of vertices at once. I placed one FFD on the head plane and another on the background plane so the two planes could be individually deformed in opposite directions.

Scissors
The geometry of the scissors is basic box modeling on poly-mesh. I was looking at real scissors while working. Some of the faces have small scratches caused by machining. Those areas create anisotropic reflections. (See links below for description of these reflections) The new version of 3DSM provides a new "Arch & Design" shader that permits accurate reflections. I used a blend of Chrome and Brushed Metal for the most polished parts of the scissors. Since chrome is so reflective it tends to act as camouflage by making objects the same color as their surroundings. The solution is to put something on the camera side of the scene that contrasts with the background. I added a white rectangle just off camera to the left to improve the reflections on the scissors.

Lighting & Rendering
I used a large photometric area light to create soft shadows. Over the white surface of the paper banding (uneven gradation) plagued me. There are two resolutions to this. One involves a process called "jitter" which has the side affect of degrading fine details. The other resolution is to use a higher number of samples for the light (which dramatically adds to the rendering time). I changed the number of samples per ray from the default of 32 to 128. Where my test renderings took only two minutes my final render took nearly two hours!


LINKS:
Anisotropic Reflections:
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/aniso_ref/aniso_ref.htm

Anisotropic Highlights:
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/aniso_highlights/aniso_highlights.htm

Amazing Cut Paper and expressive but disturbing mythological ink drawings by Ed Pien:
http://www.pfoac.com/artists/ep-english.htm

Cut Paper Exercise:
http://www.dickblick.com/lessonplans/2004lightcapturing/

Henri Matisse, in his 80's, turned to cut paper:
About him:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/matisse.htm 
Knife thrower: http://www.gregkucera.com/_images/matisse/matis_knife_thrower_72.jpg

Laser Cut Paper by Abraham Schiff:
http://www.soussanart.com/liste.php?artist=20