EMAIL:gmair@compuserve.com
NAME: Gerhard Mair
TOPIC: Fantasy and Mystic
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Aldurs Vale
COUNTRY: Germany
WEBPAGE: none presentable up to now
RENDERER USED: Bryce5
TOOLS USED: 
          - Amorphium for modeling of Belgaraths robe and some parts 
            of the towers
          - UV-Mapper for getting a map to texture Belgaraths robe with
          - Poser4 for Belgarath and the wolfe
          - Corel Photopoint for the signature, the conversion of the 
            image from bmp to jpg and the bitmaps for some of the Bryce4 
            terrains as well as texturing belgaraths robe
RENDER TIME: 12 hours 23 minutes
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 166 MMX , 64 MB Memory

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:


The key elements of the scene shown here are taken from the epic novel 
"The Belgariad", written by David and Leigh Eddings.

It is the story of young Garion, who learns from an old storyteller, that
he is the long lost heir of an acient kingdom, destined to be the fate
of the evil god Torak and owner of a powerful jewel called the orb.

The Picture shows the  event in the belgariad, which happens to start
the long list of adventures of the old storyteller, actually the 
great grandfather of Garion and powerful sorcerer, named Belgarath.


His education as a sorcerer he gets from the god Aldur, who dwells 
in a lovely vale, that can be seen in that picture. 
The sorcerer and his fellow magicians live in
towers, all crude copies of Aldurs tower, to be seen in the background. 

Aldurs divine brother Torak is visiting his sibling at his home and is having a 
dispute about Aldurs greatest creation, the orb. In the end the orb is 
stolen by the dark god, a deed that ultimately leads to the gods extinction.
The dispute is accompanied by some summer storm, that is seen to build up
around Aldurs tower. Belgarath and some of his newly found companions, 
a wolf, do look with astonishment at that unusual weather condition, which
reflects the end of the peaceful age of learning and studying.

 

DESCRIPTIO OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
the models:
Most of the elements in the Picture are Brycian built-in elements and terrains.
Belgaraths robe was modelled in amorphium as well as some parts of the towers, imported as obj-file and textured with bryce-textures. 
The trees are a new feature in Bryce5, now adding the possibility  of 
greening the Brycian landscapes

the textures:
Textures for terrains and objects are pure brycian 2D- and 3D-textures, 
taken from the built-in presets and customized to have the desired properties. 
Belgaraths robe is a combination of a map, painted with photopaint, which tells
Bryce where to apply one of the two used textures.

the rendering:
It took more than 12 hours to render the image, mostly due to the extra
light effects and the new trees.