TITLE: "A Murder in a Mid-Autumn Night", scene 4 of 4

NAME: William Hwang
COUNTRY: Australia

EMAIL: will83hwang@netscape.net
WEBPAGE: http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/~whwa3868/

TOPIC: Mystery
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: rose.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.5


TOOLS USED: 
    POV-Ray 3.5, Moray 3.5 Beta


RENDER TIME: 
    18 hours


HARDWARE USED: 
    Pentium 2 mx 200




IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 

This is my first project using POV-Ray and Moray. This scene was the 4th and
last render of "A Murder in a Mid-Autumn Night" story for my university's 3D
Modelling and Photorealism elective. The rest can be viewed via the webpage
above.

The intention of my scene is to create a mystery/murder themed story inspired
from suspense movies from past and present. The theme of the scene is very much
inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock; and also modern time classic
suspense films such as Scream and The Ring.

The scene involves a house break (render 1 & 2), in which the owner comes down
to only find the intruder waiting for him (render 3); then ending with the
intruder walking away (render 4) without really showing what happened to the
owner of the house.

I concentrated on three certain aspects to create the suspense theme I wanted:
1) Dramatic camera angle
2) Atmospheric lighting
3) Story telling

Cinematography is one of the most important aspects in the movie industry, so I
viewed some of the great horror/suspense films for ideas in terms of camera
views. Scream, a modern horror film classic, used some great camera works to
create that sense of suspense to its advantage. One of the things I picked up
on was the tilt angle (roll angle in moray) of some camera shots; and also the
use of body shots in the film.

Lighting was something I researched into quite extensively compared to the other
aspects. In order to get the right positioning of lights for the scene, I took
photos of certain aspects of light, especially in the effects of light in a
dark room, and also at night time. I was also inspired by the _Hollywood_ blue
light, used by TV shows such as Buffy:The Vampire Slayer and Angel, where a lot
of the settings are at night time.

In terms of storytelling, again I went to movies for inspiration. The story line
for the scene was inspired by the starting sequence of the movie Scream, in
which a break in is involved. My storyline however was more leaning more
towards the suspense theme rather then the horror theme.




DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 

The walls and floors were made from simple cube primitives with image maps and
bump maps. The door (you can just see it on the right hand side) is made from
CSG. The tree shadow casted outside was made by a silhouette. The leaves are
just image maps with transparency. I used an area light positioned far away to
create that blue "Hollywood" light. The broken pieces of the stainglass window
is just an image map with slight filter on them. The water is just a
translational sweep with interiorIOR at 1.33 and reflection.

The shoe's base was made from a CSG involving translational sweeps. The top bit
of the shoe and the pants were made from bezier mesh with image maps and bump
maps to create the folds in the shoes and the pants. The vase from the right
was made from a rotational sweep with interior IOR at 1.5 and reflection.

The entire rose was made from  bezier mesh. I used flat sheets to create the
thorns, petals and leaves. I used cylinder sheets to make the base of the rose.
The rose was the most complex object in my scene.

