EMAIL: jgrimbert@free.fr
NAME: Jerome Grimbert
TOPIC: Dreaming
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Alchemy
COUNTRY: France
WEBPAGE: http://jgrimbert.free.fr/
RENDERER USED: Patched version of Povray 3.1 
TOOLS USED: vi and ImageMagick (to convert from png to jpg)
RENDER TIME: 7 hours 23 minutes
HARDWARE USED: Pentium-180
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

Just a thought about the old dream of converting lead into gold,
this time, it's wood that can be transformed into gold. 
Maybe we are in the lab of the modern alchemist, or maybe
we are just in a classroom lab and the transformation is part
of the classworks for all the students ? Maybe you can easily
get your own equipment, just like you could get a TV or kitchen oven ?
Who knows ?
There is no head on the gold pieces because they came from the 
wood ones.

The eggs are obviously an evocation of the philosopher's stone...


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

First was a simpler lab table, with a plain wood texture and just a 
metal box on it. 
I just tried to find a descent texture for the metal, sort of hammered
copper. and just four stacks of coins (one gold and three wood).
But why would someone with such a tool wants to stop at only a few pieces.
So more stack were added in the background.
I also tried some rendering with radiosity, but the time gets quickly
above the roof and didnot seems to add anythings (even if I would have
like a smoother shadow, which therefor request an area_light)
As this was not clear enough, a small manual with some clues has been
added before the apparatus.
And then, I changed the table for a more "lab" one.

The power cable was added, to make the whole thing look modern,
but I did not want to model a full plug set (male and female on the wall),
so let's assumes that it is somewhere further.

The left part was too empty, and there was too much stack already, and
adding some symbols was needed, so some wood eggs get their way in.

each eggs is held in place by a small acrylic torus, just like it should be.
It really seems that this is a test for students, so pencil down now please!