EMAIL: 101517.27@compuserve.com NAME: Ian Oatley TOPIC: Nature COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Tornado (COW LAUNCHED!) COUNTRY: England WEBPAGE: none RENDERER USED: Pov-ray for windows: version 3.02 TOOLS USED: no tools used RENDER TIME: About 20 minutes HARDWARE USED: Pentium 200 with 32mb IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This is the first real still image that I've created since I downloaded pov-ray and moray for windows three weeks ago. I have essentially used this competition as a basis for a project in which I could learn what the tools at my disposal are capable of and getting to grips them. There is clearly substantial room for improvement of my image and many things that I wish I had included or tweaked a little but which have not. The reasons for this are manifold: time-constraints, lack of experience with the program etc.. Altogether I am reasonable pleased with the image as a first attempt. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The image is largely a collection of bezier patches, with the occasional cameo appearance of a Sphere, Disc or Rotat. The Tornado section itself is made from 3 main bezier cylinders, moulded into an appropriate shape and position and then given a sky-type of texture. You'll notice that the vast proportion of the image has a certain misty quality to it - which was provided through the use of a Rotat. I was in two minds about adding this because all other rendered images that I have seen have this certain crisp, almost perfect characteristic. But then again a 'Tornado scene' is by definition unsettled and chaotic, and if I had entered a nicely 'polished image' I feel that it would have taken away a sense of dynamism that the scene needs to make it look realistic. The brightness and gamma correction of the image was tweaked using Corel's Photo-Paint 5 in accordance with rules 5g (ii) and (iii).