EMAIL: a.o.rappard@cfi.nl
NAME: Adriaan Rappard
TOPIC: Decay
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Nuclear decay
COUNTRY: Netherlands
RENDERER USED: Povray 3.5
TOOLS USED: Moray 3.3 (modelling) and Microsoft photo editor (JPG conversion) 
RENDER TIME: 1 hour 20 minutes 
HARDWARE USED: Pentium-4 1.6 Ghz 256MB

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

Since nuclear waste is said to decay over time my idea was to model a sunken 
nuclear submarine at the bottom of the ocean and have some remaining nuclear 
activity shine through the holes and cracks in the hull. This proved difficult 
and i didn't seem to be able to get the lighting right. The image looked a lot 
better when i moved the objects above water and i ended up with the submarine 
rotting away half above water. Since i wanted to do an image with some dramatic 
lighting effects and i think it turned out rather well.

DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

I started modelling the ocean floor and water tying to get a nice underwater feel
when looked at from below the surface and placed some objects on the bottom. I had 
hoped to get some nice caustic effects both on the sand and on the objects but this 
proved rather difficult. I continued by modelling the submarine and the 'ripped' 
texture (which suggests a worn cover over a support structure) and it just looked 
a great deal better above water than under water. I decided to finish the submarine 
above water and added the reef and landing. Finally i added the landing lights and 
atmospheric effects.