TITLE: Premature Doomsday
NAME: Mark Hibner
COUNTRY: United States of America
EMAIL: stumble24@hotmail.com
TOPIC: Frozen Moment Nov-Dec 2002
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: pre_doom.jpg
RENDERER USED: 

        PovRay v3.5

TOOLS USED: 

        Moray v3.3
        sPatch v1.5
        World Machine; terrain heightfield creation 
        PSP; BMP to JPG conversion and signature

RENDER TIME: 
    12 hours 20 minutes 23 seconds

HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD 1.0 Ghz



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


Premature Doomsday
{ Dateline: "Doomsday Central Command Structure" }
Since 1947, the Earth based publication "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"
(http://www.thebulletin.org/clock.html) has used a clock reflecting the state
of international security. It has been nicknamed the Doomsday Clock. Due to an
unforeseen chain reaction, doomsday has come early to Earth.

Nobody actually saw what struck the doomsday machine. The chain reaction was
fairly quick in its destruction. The cable has held fast for many generations
yet the snap could be heard 'round the world. It is tragedy that this has
occurred before the doomsday clock actually reached midnight, but some things
are just destiny.



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


I have been raytracing for a few months now, and this is my first entry into the
IRTC.  I wanted something that was very close to being the final-frozen moment.
What other better way to display it than to show the end of the world. I don't
wish to endorse the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," but I've always found
their use of a clock to show the state of the Earth's so called destruction to
be a clever one. That said, the only reason I modeled my clock after theirs was
that its reason for existence was somewhat widely recognized. 

My first idea was to show a hammer falling while frozen in time; it was going to
be difficult to convey. After trying some variations, I found a chain reaction,
was the way to go; actions/reactions could be understood and followed easier. I
also wanted to keep things somewhat primitive and simple.

Most everything was created and placed using Moray. The conveyor belt was built
using native shape CSGs, as were the pulleys and base marble cracks. sPatch was
used to lathe some objects, create the hammer, golden claw, bolt heads, and the
doomsday clock/monitor. There are three light sources, one spotlight on the
center, one point light in the sky, and one blued area light inside the
clock/monitor screen. Mike Weber's B-Spline Generator/Editor Moray Plugin was
used for the snapping cable. And then more time was spent on trying to get all
of the textures and colors correct.

Rendered using a slight focal blur and radiosity.

I hope that I have conveyed the "frozen moment" theme well enough to understand
without first reading a scene description.

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