EMAIL: guanolad@hotkey.net.au
NAME: Paul Potiki
TOPIC: Fortress
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Abandoned Post
COUNTRY: Australia
WEBPAGE: www.guanolad.com
RENDERER USED: Lightwave 5.5, Terragen
TOOLS USED: Photoshop for textures
RENDER TIME: 4m 39s
HARDWARE USED: Pentium III, 550 mhz, 32Mb Matrox G400


IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

I had two ideas for this topic, one of which seemed easier to achieve than the other, so I went for that one. It presented its own challenges, though.

Originally I wanted this one to feel like it was a sentry's lookout position which had long ago been abandoned, leaving behind a rusted broken sword and helmet. But as I went on with it, I felt it was missing something. When I watched a movie that had some scenes set in the snow, I was inspired - so I added the snow to my image too, to bring a sense of starkness and loneliness to the image.

The sword was originally going to be resting on the ground next to a damaged helmet. Then I thought of sticking it in the snow to show the shadow. But that implied a more recent abandonment than I originally intended, so I added the second half of the sword (at the suggestion of a friend) and left it at that. The helmet seemed unnecessary.

I'm very satisfied with this image.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

My first object was the wall. Modelling the shape was no problem, but originally it had no grooves or edges, just straight cut sharp corners. After some deliberation and experimentation, I added the grooves as part of the whole object - it seemed the most practical.

Textures on the wall are many. The green mossy stain is hand drawn in Photoshop. The rough texture is a rocky image I used as a bump map. The deeper scratches are hand done. There are at least two different fractal noise textures to randomise some dirt, a gaussian noise layer, and then a bump map I scribbled together to imply a crusty lichen texture to the stones. There was a lot of careful placement for some of them. Even though they were placed as cubic image maps, the repetition is barely visible, I'm pleased to say.

The mountain range was an image made in Terragen. I hope that doesn't disallow me from the competition. I hadn't used Terragen much before, this was the first time where I hade to make some of the features and textures myself instead of using the default randomisers. Originally, without the snow, there was much more greenery - but the snow gives it a very effective believability.

The snow was easier than I thought. The placement was the most complex part - textures and shaping was relatively easy, but placing it in such a way as to look realistic was a challenge. It is intercepted by the surface of the wall, which gives the emerging parts a very real feel of melted randomised snow. Also the fractal texture looks a lot like it's rain-pitted which adds to it a lot.

The sword was easy, both in modelling and texturing. I used a lot of fractal noise layers to give a sense of dirt and rust - perhaps not exactly as I imagined, but nevertheless effective, especially with the broken part sticking out too.

The grass originally was intended to be mossy blades in the grooves of the floor slabs, but with the snow it added that final touch of believability to it.