EMAIL: boork@zipcon.net
NAME: Brook Peterson
TOPIC: Desert
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Antelope Canyon
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://www.boork.net
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.6
TOOLS USED: Photoshop used to crop and save as jpg
RENDER TIME: 16 hours, 4 minutes
HARDWARE USED: PIII 866

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

Not your typical picture of endless rolling dunes, but still evokes "Desert" to me.
The image is inspired by numerous photographs of Antelope Canyon, a narrow slot canyon in 
Arizona.  The canyon floor barely gets direct sun (even at high noon), but you may catch it 
when ray of sunlight slips through and stabs all the way to the canyon's floor.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

The whole scene was constructed with the povray editor (Povray 3.6 for windows).  I started 
with several blocks and then "carved" the canyons out using CSG with rotated and translated 
julia fractals (this was an attempt to give the canyon the sculpted look of scoured 
sandstone).

The light beam in the middle is done using a transparent cylinder and emission media with a 
variable density and variable color.  The spot at which it strikes the floor is highlighted 
using several overbright lights that diminish rapidly using fade_distance and fade_power.

The lighting was difficult; I was trying to re-created the ultra-vibrant look that comes 
from long-exposure using slow slide film (something like velvia 50).  There are so many 
things I'd like to do with the image; I am certain that proper radiosity and/or photon 
settings would aid it immensely, and I'd also like to render it with a little bit of focal 
blur (with the focal center on the beam), but I'm out of time for this round's entry, so 
this is the version y'all get.