TITLE: Closing Time at the Fair
NAME: Martin Glaude
COUNTRY: Canada
EMAIL: martin@simaltech.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.bluexsoftware.com/
TOPIC: Loneliness
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
RENDERER USED: 3DS Max
TOOLS USED: Adobe Photoshop 6, Poser 4
RENDER TIME: 2 mins
HARDWARE USED: AMD Athlon 1600+ XP, 256 RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
It's late at the fair, but the ring-toss game hasn't closed up yet.  Only one very plain and tattered teddy-bear is left on the shelf.  The man running the booth takes a moment to reflect on his own life, and how always being on the road has left him with little.
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
I had most of this piece worked out within the first two weeks after the topic was posted.  I spent most of the time after than trying to think of things I could add without cluttering the scene and making it "unlonely".

I wanted to include some refraction examples in this topic's piece, so I thought of glass bottles and the scene assembled itself in my head pretty quickly.  The bottles are a lathed spline.

The teddy-bear was built from an editable mesh and is actually fully rigged for animation with bones and all.  I'm just waiting for the perfect animation topic.  :)

The man is a Poser 4 figure, with the cigarette and smoke added in 3DS.

The most time consuming element was the string of red lights.  Manipulating the large group of objects was pretty demanding on my machine, and getter the lighting, materials, and glow just right required a lot of manipulation.  I'm VERY happy with how these turned out, as they really add to the mood.

The posters are scans of things that were actually posted in a county fair over 50 years ago!

Oh, and the coins on the table are Canadian quarters!

In the end, this image came off much simpler than I would have liked (2 mins render time?  Ye gods...) but I'm really happy with the reaction that it evokes from everyone I show it to, so it's my favorite scene to date.

Can't wait for next month's topic!