EMAIL:Stephen@OpCom.ca
NAME: Stephen Lumini
TOPIC: School
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Diploma
COUNTRY: Canada
RENDERER USED: POVRAY 3.0
TOOLS USED: POVRAY 3.0, MORAY 2.5b, Paint Shop Pro (to convert the TGA to a JPG)
RENDER TIME: ~ 12 hours
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 90 - 24 meg RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: It is showing a futuristic diploma which has tiny holo projectors in the metal sheet which project the words just off the surface.  Alexander has been travelling for a little while in his cabin to his new job on the planet seen in the window.
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE IMAGE WAS CREATED: Nothing too special - the "newscube" is just gifs mapped onto cubes.  The text for the diploma is actually three separate TGA files made into heightfields and positioned just above the diplmoma.  As are the "embossed" celtic borders and school crest.  I made the crest in Paintship Pro and just gave it the same texture as the diploma to give the effect of embossing/engraving.
The light source behind the camera is "shadowless" so you can see everything without throwing in annoying shadows where you don't want them.
The planet is just a layered texture with the "cloud" layer having one color completely filtered out (I stole/learned the trick from an entry a few competitions ago).