EMAIL: kingofmycastle@gmx.net
NAME: Florian Kastell
TOPIC: Surrealism
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Death of Mind
COUNTRY: Germany
WEBPAGE: http://www.digitaltwilight.de
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.5
TOOLS USED: Poser 4, pose2pov
RENDER TIME: 27 minutes 19 seconds
HARDWARE USED: Athlon XP 2400+, 768 DDR-RAM

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

As I saw the new stills topic "surrealism" I thought, hm, that could
be interesting. So I crawled through my files and found a relic...
a field of crosses. Then I made a brainstorming but I actually don't
know how I got the idea of "Death of Mind". Ok, know let me explain
it: On the left hand side you see a big white head. This head is a
symbol for life. On the other side you see a black body which lies on
the ground. This one symbolizes death. In the middle you see a hovering
ghost with a cross instead of a head. This the death of mind. When your
mind dies you die with it.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

First of all I must thank my good friend Tim Nikias v2.0. He helped me
to get back into POV-Ray.

The ground:
It is a heightfield which is created by a function. It was team work of
Tim and me. I told him how it should look like and he created these nice
little hills. The texture is dark gray with a granite normal.

The crosses:
I created the field by using a #while loop. The crosses are csg with
rounded edges. I used matrix to make the vertical part of the cross a
bit bigger at the top andd the bottom. And I also textured it with
granite, but very bright like bone or ivory.

The background and atmosphere:
The complete scene is in a dark sky sphere but behind the heightfield
I also placed a vertical black plane with a water texture. On the
ground there is a fog make the horizon more diffuse.

The big head:
Here Poser 4 got its first job. After importing it I placed the boxes
around the back of the head. The texture is mainly created by using
different finishes. I added "no_shadow" to make it look more bright and
"no_reflection" to prevent it of being reflected on the background plane.

The black body:
Poser4 part 2. And also the same intense use of finish.

The hovering ghost:
Last Poser 4 part. I played around with the transparency added media but
then I only used the normal rgbt system. And like on the other Poser 4
models I used finishes.

The light:
There is an area light behind the camera. And I also added a parallel
light which makes the front of the big head more shiny and bright.