EMAIL: tertle@mindspring.com
NAME: Glen Carter
TOPIC: School
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Break-time at Band Practice
COUNTRY: USA
RENDERER USED: Truespace2
TOOLS USED: Paintshop Pro, Truespace2 
RENDER TIME: Approximately 15 hours 
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 166 with 64 megs of ram
DESCRIPTION:  During my school years, I spent many hours at band practice.  This scene is typical of band rehearsals.  Whenever there is a break, instruments and music are laid in the most convenient places.   The result is a big musical mess until the rehearsal resumes.     

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The floor is made of several hundred cubes and approximately 50 different variations of the same wood texture.  The block walls (which are typical of a school stage or auditorium), are also made of cubes.  The curtain was formed by first drawing a spline polygon and then sweeping it.  Most of the remaining objects were made of primitives and extruded splines.  

The most challenging part of creating this image was positioning objects to form the musical instruments, especially the trumpets.  Obviously, if these objects were not positioned correctly, seams would be evident.  Another challenge was the ebony piano.  Since it is black, the contour of the piano is only evident due to the light and objects that are reflected on its finish.  Achieving the correct amount of reflectivity and shine took some trial and error.
     
I attempted to make the objects very detailed in order to achieve as much realism as possible.  Some examples are:  squared heads on the snare drum lug nuts, spit-valves on the trumpets, detailing on the mouthpieces, the "lip" on the edge of the piano keys, and screws on the piano hinge.  By the way, the title of the music on the floor is "Concerto for Virtual Piano". (It's almost legible)

Because of the format and size of the file (over 10 megs), I chose not to include a zip file.   If anyone has any questions regarding the image or any of the objects, I will gladly answer by email. All of the objects in this scene were created for this project.