EMAIL: zerozerozerozero@wyan.org
NAME: Michael Chelmecki
TOPIC: FIRE AND ICE
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Fire Flake
COUNTRY:United States
WEBPAGE: Private
RENDERER USED: POVray 3.6
TOOLS USED: IrfanView - convert to JPEG, gamma correct
RENDER TIME: 47 min, 23 sec
HARDWARE USED: AMD K6

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
I'm afraid there's no deep symbolism this time, just an attempt to combine the topic elements into what I hope is an aesthetically pleasing image.  After trying out several different variations with respect to backgrounds and arrangements of large and small numbers of  different "fireflakes", I came to a firm conclusion that, in the case of this particular image, less really was more.  All of the non-black backgrounds made the image seem far less dramatic.  Large numbers of  "flakes" made the image seem busy and cluttered.  Just a handful seemed to beg the question, "Where are the rest?"  In the end, I just decided that a tight close-up of my favorite design brought the basic idea home with the most elegance and intensity.  In order to keep the black background that I grew attached to, yet avoid having the main element exist in a visual environment totally devoid of depth or context, I added a rippled surface below that is visible only inasmuch as it reflects the "fireflake".  The ripples emanate from the point at which the "flake" touches the surface so that the interaction will make the deliberately sparse elements both seem more substantial.  Although I did take some time to study real snowflakes and the principles that govern their formation, in the end I kept the characteristics that I found visually pleasing and disregarded the rest.  I experimented with deliberately imperfect symmetry for added realism, but decided that I simply didn’t care for the result.  "Realistic" fire has very little surface definition and, thus, seemed inadequate for the purpose of modeling a surface that conveyed the intrinsic beauty of the snowflake. Instead, I tried to represent the idea of fire in a more impressionistic manner using color, pattern and form, taking inspiration from some of my favorite painters, particularly Hieronymus Bosch and William Blake.  I hope that in combining the aspects of fire and ice that I find most visually pleasing into a single construct, I have created image that others will enjoy as well.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
The "flake" itself is a collection of  icosahedrons stretched, flattened, flipped, clipped and rotated.  The surface below is a height field function based on the sine of the distance from <.5,.5>.  The fire pattern is a "leopard" pattern with the turbulence,  omega and  lambda values tweaked to produce the desired result.