EMAIL: intertek@one.net
NAME: Michael Hunter
TOPIC: Decay
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Spirit of Freedom
COUNTRY: USA
WEBPAGE: http://www.interactivetechnologies.net 
RENDERER USED: 3D Studio Max Version 5.1
TOOLS USED: 3D Studio Max, PhotoShop (for texture maps, resizing image), Simbiont plug-in (http://www.darksim.com/)
RENDER TIME: 5 Hours 55 Minutes @ 2000x1000
HARDWARE USED: Pentium 4 1.8 GHz 261 MB RAM

INSPIRATION:
There was a wonderful image back in the Mystery round made by Richard Massey entitled "The Mystery of Airships". I was really captivated by the image. It shows a city in ruins with zeppelins floating in the air above what were once streets. According to the story the balloons are searing the remains of the city for survivors. The magic of the image for me was the contrast between the heavy, dark, rot filled buildings and the balloons. It symbolized spirit vs. hard reality. Richard really got the ingredients right in that picture. But (forgive me Richard) I thought that the drama had been lost somehow. I was just itching to try my own hand at the scene. When I learned the topic was decay I saw it as a blessing from the gods to follow this drive (I also talked with Richard to alert him to my plans and he graciously encouraged me to proceed.)

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
I though it was important to put us, the viewer, in the scene. I didn't want to have the camera just float in the air. I figured that if I put you into one of the decayed buildings and show enough architectural details to establish a sense of scale then your relationship to the image changes from spectator to one of the characters.

Also I wanted to contrast the oppressive atmosphere of the decayed buildings with something optimistic. My thought was to tweak Richard's original story. Here the balloon is not from some better place come to carry off people but a strange flying machine created out of the debris. Not only does it represent freedom but shows an individual's victory over adversity.

Of course I had to come up with a plausible design. It had to look like it could fly, be made out of available materials, and be something that could be made by one person (maybe with some help of friends). I looked over every web site about balloons, zeppelins, blimps, airships, and flying machines. (It was truly a fascinating bit of research! I can't imagine who invented some of those odd machines not alone who was brave enough to flying them.) I learned that in addition to the Write brothers there were others who flew homemade machines.

I decided to use a VW bug for a gondola. The engine powers two propellers on either side of the car. The fins on the balloon are cable controlled (the long beam that extends between and behind the propellers has guides for the cables. The tail is made out of galvanized metal (as you would find in duct work). The balloon itself is fabric. I'm afraid I can't explain where all the fabric came from nor the gas in the balloon. Maybe someone with an engineering background would argue that this would never work. I did my best to be convincing at least to the average person. I want you to believe the tall tail I'm spinning so I don't want any obvious design flaws.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
Everything in this image was modeled for this image with the exception of the woman. I made her for the Mystery competition but ended up building a different woman for that. So she now has her chance. She is 100% 3D Studio Max and has a skeleton that deforms her mesh skin when it is repositioned. This makes positioning her less difficult but setting up the envelopes (which defines what bone affects which vertices) was a long painful process. I think Character Studio (which I don't have) would help make this "rigging" less traumatic.

In Max you can grab the edge of a polygon and(while holding down shift) you can extend the mesh - creating a new row of polygons. It's a simple and intuitive process. I use this method to build most organic objects such as the woman and the car. The car took me about two and a half days to build this way.

The arch above the doorway is and extruded spline. I bevel cut the ends using Boolean tools. The only trick is to calculate the angle. 

Technically speaking, this picture really isn't about modeling. Sure it's got a human and a car but the big deal here is the textures. And the most difficult texture was that for the balloon. I used cylindrical mapping for all but the rounded end. That section was divided up into five pieces each planar mapped. This made aligning the texture at the edges more complex but eliminated an unnatural stretch that often occurs on curved surfaces.

Though the mapping of the other textures was less complex the development of the textures took some work. The billboard, "Enjoy King Club Soda", required developing the poster image and then aging it. PhotoShop is absolutely awesome for building up layered textures. Most all of the textures have two maps, a bump map and a diffuse color map.

All of the textures require many test renderings because they are sensitive to lighting, angle of view and distance from the camera. To keep the number of test renderings to a minimum I try to work on several textures at once. Each test rendering then tests ten textures rather than just one. This methodology changes the pace of work. Rather than doing a little something then waiting to see how it turns out, if you can test render many things then one rendering while you are at lunch can give you enough to keep you busy the rest of the day. There are exceptions but this idea can save you many hours.

LINKS:
Richard Massey's original image:
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-06-30/thexmyst.jpg
Corrispoinding text file
http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-06-30/thexmyst.txt

A truly festinating account of early flight:
http://www.flyingmachines.org