EMAIL: macdonald@lonhelyg.freeserve.co.uk
NAME: Julian MacDonald
TOPIC: Worship
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Silent Prayer
COUNTRY: UK
WEBPAGE: N/A
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.1
TOOLS USED: Moray v3.3,PaintShop Pro,Painter, pencil & paper
RENDER TIME:  9 hours 39 mins
HARDWARE USED: PentiumIII 500 MHz

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
I almost didn't enter the competition as, although initially intrigued by the subject, I couldn't think of a single original and achievable interpretation.  Then suddenly 2 weeks before the deadline, an idea came to me - a stained glass window!  (there have probably been loads of stained glass window pictures submitted so I'll end up looking a fool for thinking this is in any way original !).  I then had a dilemma of whether to focus exclusively on the window and get it perfect or to create a scene around it.  As you can see, I chose the latter.  Alas, as any full-time working man married with 3 children under the age of 7 will tell you, 2 weeks is not a long time and there are thus many things I am unhappy with in the final picture, including the main window itself.  Nonetheless, I find this competition to be a great source of inspiration and gives me the kick up the backside I need to get working on (and learning) new techniques so I thought I would enter anyway.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
The main window picture was sketched on paper, scanned in and played around with in PaintShop Pro and Painter.  I used Moray to assemble the outer panes of the window and the frame which took ages and doesn't seem to really show !  The rest of the scene is fairly standard CSG stuff.  The lighting took a great deal of time, particularly getting the shine through the window which I thought would be easy.  There are several area lights which, together with the main window, made for an extremely (in my experience) long render time.