EMAIL: chrish@rivernet.com.au
NAME:  Chris Hernandez
TOPIC: First Encounter
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: A New Life
COUNTRY: Australia
WEBPAGE: none
RENDERER USED: POV 3.02 for Windows
TOOLS USED: sPatch v1.5, Adobe Photoshop v4.0,
            Chris Colefax's Lens Flare plug-in v3.0
RENDER TIME: 9hrs 6mins

HARDWARE USED:

   - Pentium II 266 with 64 meg ram


IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

    After nine months, it begins. The warm, protective fluid has
    drained away; the baby begins what is to be the first of her
    many journeys.
    
    Over the next few hours she leaves behind the womb, working
    her way down the long tunnel towards the open arms of her
    first encounter.
    


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

    This scene was first started a couple of weeks after the
    topic was first announced when I modelled the doctor's
    cap and mask in sPatch. However, due to plenty of work
    and study commitments, I found that I was unable tp get
    back into it until *much* later.
    
    So, on Christmas Eve, I found myself on holidays and with
    only seven days to go. From there on in, it was a real
    exercise in planning shortcuts and sleights of hand to
    get the scene finished.
    
    I spent a couple of days finishing off the mask and cap and
    also adding the rest of the face in sPatch. That was a
    real uphill battle since this is also my first serious
    encounter with sPatch (or any other modeller).
    
    Because of the time pressure, I decided to model the
    body, eyes and eyebrows in CSG. I was gambling on the
    fact that I could get the textures to do most of the
    work on the body. After much experimentation, what I
    ended up using was a scaled bozo texture to give the
    apperance of wrinkles on a surgical gown. The hands were
    also modelled out of little scaled spheres and placed
    by hand (with a lot of reference to another pair of
    hands I created for the 'Childhood' round).
    
    Next came the background items, again all in CSG: the
    room (which has a triple layered texture to create the
    tile effect), the window, door, lamp, cabinet and
    humidicrib. With some hindsight, I could really have
    spent less time on these since most of the detail ended
    up being blurred away.
    
    I wanted to emphasize two things - the brightness of
    the background lights and the hands of the doctor, which
    would be the first things the baby sees coming towards
    it. To do this, I decided to add some focal blur and
    lens flares to the scenes.
    
    Over many test renders, I found the right amount of
    blur to add. (The renders were taking a while - my
    life at this point consisted of setting a render going,
    getting a couple of hours sleep and getting up when it
    had finished). I finally decided to tone the confidence
    and blur_samples *down* in order to keep some of the
    'grit' that would be more representative of a new baby's
    point of view.
    
    I also played with lighting. I ended up toning down the
    room lights so that the doctor and lamp lights were
    more emphasized. I debated a lot on whether or not to
    do this (it looks a little unnatural) but in the end
    artistic licence won and I went ahead.
    
    In the meantime though, I found that when I added focal
    blur the lens flares would disappear. I couldn't get
    them back, even if i translated the flare_positions
    close to the focal point. Here the time pressure won
    and I ended up importing the background scene back into
    POV and adding the flares seperately.
    
    With only a few hours to go till the deadline (and
    a new years party to go to) I set the render going on
    Thursday morning and waited... and waited...
    
    I then mucked about with the image in PhotoShop to add
    a title and signature, and also to correct the brightness
    of the image a little.
    
    And so, after seven long days of continous labour, my
    efforts finally came together and culminated in the
    birth of 'A New Life'. I hope you enjoy it.
    
    
    PS: because of time limits, I didn't clean up my code
    very much. I'd be more than happy to get email from
    anyone if they are having trouble deciphering it.