EMAIL: uvasst00@mcl.ucsb.edu
NAME: Trevor Vass
TOPIC: Flight
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Flight of the Crusader
COUNTRY: United States of America
RENDER USED: 3D Studio Release 3
TOOLS USED: Paint Shop Pro 4.0, Universe 1.0
RENDER TIME: 7 hours, 50 minutes, 50 seconds
HARDWARE USED: AMD 486DX4-120, 32 Mb RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
	This image depicts the maiden flight of a future aerospace figh
ter, the Crusader, as it speeds away from its testing grounds above Mar
s on a course for Earth.
	Image of Mars courtesy of NASA (http://www.nasa.gov).
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
	The texture maps in this image were created with Paint Shop Pro
using a two step process I saw used in last month's competition. First
an alpha rendering of each individual object to be textured must be cre
ated. Then in Paint Shop Pro I painted on this black and white template
image to create my bump, self ilumination, and texture maps. Then I wen
t back into 3DS and applied mapping coordinates to each object individu
ally by simply setting the mapping planes dimensions to 'bitmap fit' an
d then scaling the mapping plane to fit the size of my orthognal view w
indow, which is zoomed to fit the current object having the texture app
lied.
	The background was created in two seperate steps. First I used 
Universe to generate the star field in the background by setting the st
ar density to 0.02. Then in Paint Shop Pro I created the image of the n
ebula. To create the nebula effect of this image I used Paint Shop Pro'
s paper textures to create a layering effect. First I created a light m
ist effect with the airbrush using no paper texture and a large spray s
ize. Then I softened the nebula's border to dispose of the crisp edge. 
With the first layer applied, I then reduced the size of the airbrush s
pray and used the 'clouds' paper texture to create the light fluffy par
ts of the nebula with a lighter color than that of the background layer
. Then I reduced the size of the spray again and used the 'ocean' paper
texture to add the small highlights of the nebula clouds with a light r
ed, almost approaching white. Finally, I used the darkening brush to re
duce the the overly bright areas of the nebula and to create small pock
ets of space in the clouds which add to the depth of the nebula. With a
ll of this done I then pasted the nebula image as a transparent selecti
on over the star field created in Universe. Then I took the image of Ma
rs and pasted it over that of the nebula and star field in the same way
. Finally I softened around the edge of Mars to eliminate the jagged pi
xaleted edge that the pasting left.After the background was created I j
ust set it as my background image in 3DS and then rendered the model us
ing raytraced shadows, and reflection maps. Eight hours later I had my 
image!
	Oh, many of you may wonder if this is the same model I used fro
m last months competition, and I assure it isn't. I went back and remod
elled the entire space craft and added more detail (fully detailed cock
pit, etc.), I figured that if I was going to totally retexture the mode
l I had might as well go back and remodel the whole thing. Well I hope 
you like my entry, and if you have any question about the techniques I
used, or the image in general feel free to e-mail me at the above addre
ss.