EMAIL: irtc2@maartendinger.net
NAME: Maarten Dinger
TOPIC: Catastrophe
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Nuclear Flux
COUNTRY: New Zealand
WEBPAGE: none (yet)
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.6
TOOLS USED: AC3D for modelling/posing.
RENDER TIME:  18 Hrs
HARDWARE USED: Pentium IV 2.2 GHz, 1 GB RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: This image is trying to depict the instant after nuclear detonation - before the coming shock waves, sound, debris etc appear, where all the organics are vapourised almost instantly by the intense radiation alone.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: The skeleton model was downloaded sometime ago somewhere (I think 3D Cafe) off the internet, edited/posed with AC3D and subsequently exported to POVRay where it was textured and a normal (granite) applied. I forwent any additional scenery since the intense light needed for the image made this look superfluous and/or fake. On hindsight, a fogged silhouette of trees or buildings in the far background might have been nice. The vapourising effect was acheived with a very simple iterative variable transparency routine applied to a lower polygonskeleton model. Atompsheric media was initially attempted, but a staisfactory result could not be obtained by this method (by me, anyway). The image does look better with radiosity (I did some low res tests), but the render time became excessive. The two models afer being converted to POVRay smooth triangles were too large for upload (8 MB), so only the main source file is included.