TITLE: cutter
NAME: Glyn Ryland
COUNTRY: UK
EMAIL: rylandgn@cf.ac.uk
WEBPAGE: www.glyn-ryland.com
TOPIC: Insects and Spiders
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: cutter.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    3D Studio Max default

TOOLS USED: 
    3D Studio Max release 4 (no plug-in or extras), Photoshop for maps

RENDER TIME: 
    3 minutes

HARDWARE USED: 
    Home build 2 x pentium 800

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


The image is of a smart bug who, tired of the eternal insect stuck against
window problem, gets a glass cutter and makes good an escape route. 


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


Everything made from scratch for the IRTC Insects and Spiders topic.

Most of the time was spent on the insect itself, I had never modelled one before
and found it fun. Mesh modleing used mostly.  Half the insect was made then
mirror then at vertex level join the new half. Bump maps were used after
initial modleing, then difuse maps etc.  All maps made in Photoshop, the
insects skin was made from digital pictures of leaves taken in my garden, then
cut up and mixed with hand painting in Photoshop. A little (30%), raytrace on
the eye in the reflection channel.

The insect was a made up beast with different parts from the 'Observer book of
insects' which cost me 99p in a second hand shop.  The colours and textures
were made up from imagination.

Background is a very simple 3d interior I made in Max with depth of field giving
blur focus. I rendered this to a 2D image, then used this as the background in
the final scene to save processor time. 

The glass is a plane with a shape merge cookie cutter applied, then extruded.
The glass disk is an editable spline extruded.

The wings are 4 planes, two with the skin and two with the the viens, then
opacity maps and bumps, masks etc.  I used the motion blur for the final image
which lost a lot of the detail in the wings but looked a little different, and
it was an opportunity to use the new function on Max 4.

The hairs on the insects legs and lower body took a little time to get right, in
the end I used the 'scatter' function in the 'Compound Objects' (under Create,
Geometry).  Scattering an instance of an edited spline with a bend and a two
sided material applied to it, (don't forget the 'reset Xform) drove me crazy
for a while.

Hope you liked it, drop me a mail with any questions / comments.

Thanks

Glyn


