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