EMAIL: rdavis@rmi.net NAME: Bob Davis TOPIC: Unbelievable COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. TITLE: Vigil of the Ancients COUNTRY: USA WEBPAGE: http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/gargoyle/34/ RENDERER USED: Povray 3.02 TOOLS USED: None RENDER TIME: 25m 02s HARDWARE USED: PII-266 IMAGE DESCRIPTION: In a parallel dimension, ancient guardians post a silent watch as Earth evolves before them. DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: In three words - "Fun with Fractals". For this topic, I thought that an image with a surreal flavor would fit quite nicely. From personal experience, I've found that there is often a fine line between surrealism and the abstract. To stay within the former's boundaries requires a simple (non-cluttered) overall look using complex shapes while at the same time keeping pronounced angles to a minimum. What better candidates than fractals? Besides, I'd been looking for a good reason to experiment with them. The "guardians" are a CSG of two distinct julia fractals using quaternion 4-D algebra and incorporating the sqr function. Each fractal has been clipped, rotated and translated to form the desired effect. The "animal-like" beings on each side of the image are also julia fractals. I was able to clip, rotate, and translate each fractal in such a way that when combined with just the right texture and coloring, the image became almost "organic" in appearance. The "watchamacallit" above the guardians is a CSG consisting of a series of extruded and "normal" spheres. The rest of the image is fairly basic; The tile is just your standard 3-texture hexagon plane incorporating two stone textures and a "Mr. Clean" finish. The planet is a sphere overlayed by an image map of Earth. The energy field around the Earth, is a blue-green tinted sphere. The finish uses a "non-standard" reflection and roughness factor for a transparent object in order to use the reflections from the sky and tile to give it a shimmering and fluid effect. The sky is a hollow sphere using a somewhat turbulent bozo pattern and a 4 segment color map.