Fire and Ice

Member : angela

Image description
Everyone knows opposites attract. At the edge of their domains, the fire man and the ice girl spot each other. She is fascinated by his glow, his warmth, his ever-changing demeanor. He cannot take his eyes from her shine, her smoothness. And yet, like so many relationships where the lovers are polar opposites, their love cannot help but be doomed. Everything is in contrast: their lands--one smooth and cold, the other rough and burning; their feelings for each other--hot passion versus cool attraction; even their very lives, destined to end if they pursue their feelings...

Description of how this image was created
A lot of my image ideas have humans in them. That's tricky, because I'm cheap--I can't afford expensive modelling programs like Poser. When I ran across MakeHuman, I was thrilled. It's a terrific little program with a lot of potential. I'm looking forward to release 1.0, where I hope they have some of mesh issues worked out. This image was also an experiment in media and radiosity. I have never used either much, so I made this image a challenge in those areas. I think I have a better grasp on media, although I'll need to play with radiosity more before I understand it. The two lovers are MakeHuman models. The fire man is completely built of media, with randomly placed media flames on his body. The ice girl is just a model with an ice texture. The hair (the bane of my existence) is layered, cropped CSG with several textures to simulate hair. Steam and smoke is scattering media. Volcano is a union of several heightfields with different textures. Shooting star is a sphere sweep with media, snow is a heightfield with layered textures, and lava field is a cropped heightfield containing an array of light sources. Stars are a tweaked version Jeff Burton's star field from the textures.inc file, mapped on a hollow sphere.

General statistics
No of ratings	:	14
Min. overall rating	:	15 (5 / 5 / 5)
Max. overall rating	:	44 (16 / 15 / 13)
Sum of rating	:	518 / 840
Date uploaded	:	2008-08-01 15:00:27

Specific details Note: The maximum value below is misleading as the voting system has changed. If the member votes for all the entries and has created one him/herself, there is an automatic 20/20/20 score added to the value (This encourages all members who enter to vote).
Rating type	:	Min : Max : Sum : Out of
Artistic	:	5 : 20 : 170 : 280
Concept	:	5 : 20 : 178 : 280
Technical	:	5 : 20 : 170 : 280
Overall	:	15 : 60 : 518 : 840

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   30-08-2008 The artistic is strong, the concept too. I can see multiple layers of contrast (steam and smoke, etc). I like the fact that the comet (made of ice) seems to feed the icefield. Technical, on the other hand, is rather weak. There are a few artifacts, such as hard edges (fire), etc. You should have found a way to blend the volcano ground with the icefield between the two "lovers". This is currently a bit too clearcut. 2.   28-08-2008 Excellent idea! 3.   27-08-2008 Ah, the classic contrast. Good concept. The central figures are pretty well done, although the fire outside the fire man is abit pixelated. Other than that they are pretty convincing. The volcano is fairly undefined. The central dome is clear and looks pretty good, but the reset of it is just muddy. Maybe working with radiosity more and tweaking the lighting on this half will help. I like the comet in the background - it adds just the right amount of balance to the volcano. 4.   27-08-2008 I would say a decent attempt. A little dark on the whole. The lava/hell like world is too dark to figure out. The ice/snow world (initially I thought it was a sort of cape.) could use some more contrast and features to make it more evident. The night sky is a bit boring and the comet out of place. 5.   18-08-2008 I confess that I had to scrutinise a bit this image before I came to appreciate it fully. This is no shortcoming of the image but my own. This image is deceptively simple but I I believe that it is very well done on all fronts. I am interested to see a MakeHuman modeland it looks very promising for further development of the program. Maybe (maybe?) reflection/refraction on the snowfield should be a bit more pronounced? It seems somewhat flat now. Excellent media work btw. 6.   18-08-2008 A lovely image using a fairly clear and obvious contrast. I closely associate with the difficulties of human creation on a non-existant budget, so I am impressed with the prominence of the figures considering your limitations. 7.   15-08-2008 Great idea! I would have tried to make the side images more related (connected) to the persons, and maybe a little more detailed. The comet should be in the middle, and could have been a subject by itself - it's a burning block of ice... 8.   07-08-2008 Technically, it could be improved but artistically it strikes home