TITLE: Innocent Shadow
NAME: Mark Slone
COUNTRY: United States
EMAIL: slone@hiwaay.net
TOPIC: Frozen Moment
COPYRIGHT: I submit to the standard raytracing competition copyright.
JPGFILE: ishadow.jpg
ZIPFILE: ishadow.zip
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.5

TOOLS USED: 
    Photoshop 5.0 LE

RENDER TIME: 
    4 days 5 hours

HARDWARE USED: 
    Apple Macintosh Powerbook 550MHz G4



IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


The outline of a young girl jumping rope is emblazed on a wall 
in Nagasaki, Japan. The girl's jump is frozen in mid air, and 
so too is the instant the atomic bomb detonated over Nagasaki, 
August 9th, 1945, 11:02am. 


BACKGROUND:

In elementary school I learned shadows were burned into stone 
and wood by the atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
The haunting images of people's shadows, recording the instant 
of their deaths, had a great impact on me.

The burned-in shadows are the surface's original color, 
protected from the atomic flash, leaving a darker or lighter 
color emblazed around the figures. Since many people are not 
aware of this effect, there are hints in the image that can lead 
them to its meaning. 

The Japanese WWII military flag (rays extending from a sun) is 
represented above the doorway, and Japanese text can be seen on 
the fire hydrant and the tablet. The (somewhat controversial) 
text on the tablet is from a memorial at Hiroshima. In English 
it reads:

        "Let all souls here rest in peace, 
         for we shall not repeat the evil." 

The origami cranes are a reference to the story of Sadako 
Sasaki, who was exposed to the bomb when she was two and died 
of leukemia ten years later. Before she died Sadako folded many 
cranes, following the Japanese legend that the gods would grant 
her a wish if she folded 1000 cranes. Since then schoolchildren 
around the world have folded cranes as a wish for peace.

Only the brick wall was changed by the flash, leaving an imprint 
on it alone. Also, mortar in the brick wall forms the shape of a 
mushroom cloud, and barely discernable images of bombed-out 
buildings are at the base. The leaves and lighting are arranged 
to give the faint impression of a burning city.

The tilted perspective counters the static nature of the image, 
and echos the ominous viewpoint of the bomb. I chose colors that 
lean the image toward a sandy, almost sepia tone. 



DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


Most of the objects in this image are isosurfaces created using 
POV-Ray's text editor. They're lit by seven area lights and 
radiosity. The sun and bird drawings are by my niece, Slone 
Clement.

The cranes are modified versions of "Orizuru" by Mitsuhiro 
Seike. The green plant leaves and the tree (in shadow) were 
drawn using the "Tree macro" by Gilles Tran, Ken Tyler, Steven 
Pigeon and others. The fire hydrant_s chain was drawn using Rob 
Antonishen_s _Chain.inc._ All of these are available at the 
POV-Ray Objects Collection: www.povworld.de/objects. 

The girl_s outline is from a photograph I had taken of my niece. 
I added a dress and other minor changes so it would look like 
the shadow of a Japanese schoolgirl. The nuclear shadow was 
created by putting the brick wall in a light group. The shadows
place the scene about 800 meters from ground zero.

While the flash was fast enough to freeze the girl's image, the 
rope would have been partially blurred. To blur the rope, I used 
multiple copies of a semi-transparent torus, rotated slightly 
from each other so the tied ends of the rope remain sharp.

The wall was constructed using a wrinkle isosurface mortar with 
individual bricks placed using POV's trace feature. A slightly 
different surface was used for locating the bricks so that some 
are washed over by the mortar. Image maps in the isosurfaces 
bring out the mushroom cloud and buildings.

The leaves are a macro in which images of sugar maple leaves are 
mapped onto different sized spheres to add curvature, with a 
granite texture and cone-and-sphere stems. The sphere shape 
helped but the leaves still look a little flat. I created an 
isosurface version that looked better but the render time went 
through the roof.

I used POV's "Original" anti-alias method for the final render 
because it gives the scene a gritty look. It also helped the
render time which rose alarmingly toward the end. 

Everything you need to render this image is included in the zip 
file. The image files are reduced from their original size to 
save space but it will render very close to the entry image.