EMAIL:			alexandre.dorion@rogers.com
NAME:			Alexandre Dorion
TOPIC:			Fire and Ice
COPYRIGHT:		I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE:			Abandon All Hope
COUNTRY:		Canada
WEBPAGE:		N/A
RENDERER USED:		POV-Ray 3.6
TOOLS USED:		Terragen, Paint Shop Pro 7, Wings3D+KayosIII plugin
RENDER TIME:		26 hours 26 minutes 24 seconds 
HARDWARE USED:		HP Compaq dc7100, Pentium-4 3.2GHz, 1GB RAM
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

For this submission I've tried to stay closer to the topic of 'Fire and Ice'.

The Ninth Circle of Hell (as mentioned in the IRTC topic description) is a place described in
The Divine Comedy written by Dante in the 14th century. The story uses many religious and mythological
concepts to describe a voyage through Hell, and is often published under the title 'Dante's Inferno'.

Accoding to Dante, Hell consists of nine concentric circles, each new one representing further and
further evil. The Ninth Circle is the bottom and is the harshest section, containing Satan, waist deep
in a lake of ice. Satan's wings beat as if he is trying to escape, but the icy wind only further ensures
his imprisonment.

This is the scene I've tried to capture, while using a number of techniques that were a bit new to me
including focal blur, interior media (for fire and smoke) and isosurfaces.

The upper levels are made of multiple offset isosurface rings with noise added in. The granite texture
and firelight makes it look kind of organic and bloody. I used a trace function to randomly drop the flames
over the upper levels. I tried more flames, but the picture becomes too busy. Max_trace_level had to be raised
here to avoid artifacts between the fire and smoke.

The stalagmites are made from a heighfield generated by Terragen, exported to Paint Shop Pro 7 and then scaled
up for the image. I used focal blur to hide the digitizing effect in the closer rocks.

The stairs and landing are made up of isosurface blocks, randomly shifted a bit. This creates a great looking
pattern for the wall, but I still think the landing needs work.

The big guy, Satan, is created from two models. The face and body are actually a gargoyle available for free
for non-commercial use from http://www.3dcafe.com. The .3ds file was first imported into Wings3D, and then
exported with KayosIII's POVRay plugin. The devil's wings are actually based on Tuomas Ojamies' dragon available
on http://objects.poworld.org. I have cropped out the dragon body and heavily modified the wings.
The skulls are also available free for non-commercial use from 3D-Cafe.

The camera angle got tilted after I watched some cheesy horror movie that did the same thing to create
a sense of terror. I think it works here too.