EMAIL: pconophy@walldata.com
NAME: Phillip A. Conophy
TOPIC: Magic
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: The Chamber of the Orb
COUNTRY: USA
RENDERER USED: povray 3.02
TOOLS USED: 
RENDER TIME: 12hrs 45m
HARDWARE USED: AMD K6233
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
The chamber and pillars in the scene are CSG constructs with various stock textures applied to them.

The base is a more complex CSG construct.  The runes around the base are text objects that use the Tolkien Quenya TTF.

The statues are CSG models.  Each has a number of control points that can be used to pose most of their joints.

The chains are a scaled torus series.  The frame in which the crystal is set is a CSG object.  The crystal itself is a hollow glass sphere.

The blue-white cloud is an emitting halo.  The flares scattered in the cloud are generated using Chris Colefax's wonderful lens effects include file available on his POVRay include files page.

In my choice of textures, I was trying for a fairly stark theme in most of the scene which is why I used mostly blacks, whites and greys.  I wanted the gold textures and the halo and flares to make a strong contrast to their surroundings.