Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 17:58:52 GMT Server: NCSA/1.4.2 Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 20:54:48 GMT Content-length: 2659
This is my first attempt at modeling something glass-like. I used John Snyder's generative modeling system to create the geometry. The base and outer rim are splines which were created by randomly perturbing the control points away from a circle. The colors are simple spirals of blue and green paint. I used John Snyder's ray tracer to create the image from the geometry.
Despite its similarity to an ashtray from the 70's, I am quite pleased with most the image. Unfortunately, the shadow is too crisp; it exhibits none of the light focusing and spreading that would occur if light were sent through a real glass dish of that shape. That led me to the next image:
I looked through some books on Chiluly's art and found that in quite a few photographs, his glass is shown on a black, highly-reflective table. Needless to say, it is a dramatic effect. But more importantly, none of the complicated focusing effects appear in the shadow on the table, because there is no shadow on the table -- just a reflection of the glass.
So in the image above, I placed the glass on a highly reflective table. Since such a table does not send light up to the glass (except in the mirror direction from the lights) the glass would naturally appear too dark. So I made the ``painted'' areas on the glass emit light, giving the work a slightly neon-esque effect. People tell me it comes across as ``dramatic lighting'' so I'm happy with it.
This is a work in progress. I am trying to figure out how to render these things in Greg Ward's Radiance package.