You know that feeling, where you feel like you could conquer the world but you don't have any reasonable justification for feeling that way? I've got that right now. I mean, there certainly reasons for feeling good, but not invincible! But, nothing lasts for ever. So, here's to enjoying that feeling while you can!

Had some real fun with this megalomaniacal face. Not really Rederick's personality, usually, but let's just say "alternative universe". Anyways, tech-wise, this picture uses some of the fancier elements of Mental Ray. In particular, two low spotlights cast shadows of the hands on the face. I enabled ray-traced shadows on the spotlights. These spotlights also simulate firing off photons in the render process. I provided my materials with photon-absorbing elements; those that didn't automatically come with this, I provided a simple photon-capable shader only to the photon material socket. With this, I have the setup necessary to use those photons with enabled Global Illumination, Caustics, and Final Gathering, for that added special touch. Explaining exactly what these technologies do is a way beyond my skill level, but they make things prettier if you can use them right! Caustics are easiest to give an example of: if you shine a light through a class of water, you can observe patterns of glinted light on the table on the other side of the glass. Those are caustics effects. It's not really present in this image, because I don't have any materials that would make them apparent. Global Illumination and Final Gathering have to do with the transfer of the color properties of one surface to another. It's like how you can hold your hand next to a hotrod on a sunny day and your hand will be shaded red like the car. It's much more than simple reflections, though, and this whole system simulates it physically as photons bouncing from material to material, imparting energy on them resulting in the effect. You may notice the tongue, whose material has native photon-processing capabilities, looks significantly different than normal. You might be able to notice the some of the molars have picked up a hue of the tongue a bit.

I also did this sort of photon-based stuff back when I did that fur-face experiment.

Also: Turntable is now available.