Checkmate

Member : Seb_3D

Image description
What better way to describe my picture than : "THIS IS ... SPARTA!!!" I tried to depict the epic scene in the movie "300" where king Leonidas refuses to submit to Xerses' will. Back then and up to the middle ages war was about who had the biggest army. Also it was usually the Queen who started the war :P Chess changed that. In a game of chess two opponents face each other with the same number of "troops" which renders the chances at the begging of the game, equal. Oh... and the Queen usually wins the war :) Spartans were true masters of their craft. They didn't solely rely on brute force and numbers because they were very good strategists, always staying one step ahead of the enemy. In conclusion the only way to master the game of chess is to be aware of your opponents next move and always adjust your strategy.

Description of how this image was created
Everything in the scene was modeled and textured by me, the chess pieces each contain about 500000 faces. The capes for the two kings are simple planes with a Shell modifier and were animated using Reactor. For the red one i used a wind modifier to simulate the king moving forward and for the other one the cape was attached to the rigid body (dark king) and the two objects were released in free fall. Had to add air friction to the cape otherwise the two objects would fall at the same speed, never touching. The grass between the cracks of the board are Instance particles spawned on a grid mimicking the pattern of the cracks. The sky is a bitmap. I had trouble linking the sky to the board and then I remembered seeing a wheat field in the actual scene of the movie so the grass and the wheat are also instance particles randomly scattered around the board. It was impossible to use global illumination because of the particles, it would just take too long so i used multiple lights each working with a specific part of the image, one of which was used only for the particles. Finally I added focal blur and radial blur to add drama to the scene and to make it softer.

General statistics
No of ratings	:	18
Min. overall rating	:	24 (8 / 8 / 8)
Max. overall rating	:	44 (16 / 15 / 13)
Sum of rating	:	648 / 1080
Date uploaded	:	2008-11-10 17:34:51

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	:	8 : 20 : 217 : 360
Concept	:	7 : 20 : 203 : 360
Technical	:	8 : 20 : 228 : 360
Overall	:	24 : 60 : 648 : 1080

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   31-12-2008 A king cannot actually mate another king. But I appreciate your "300" look&feel, it actually works. Unlike most chessboards, yours is not boring at all. 2.   31-12-2008 Nice concept. The only thing that bothers me is the hole pattern which doesn't line up with the rest of the board. I think I would have left it black and maybe have a light shining up from below. 3.   20-11-2008 ("J'adoube!" - Your chess pieces fail to stand on the squares...) Altough an interesting idea, donning capes actually proves inadequate to add dynamics to the static nature of chess pieces. JuuG's approach proved somewhat more successful. Good work on the grass growing in the cracks. Bad work on the chess piece material: They look very plasticky, and the thin grid line artifacts showing in the pattern definitely add to this look. DIrection of light doesn't match the background picture; the angle at which we see the chess board doesn't match the horizon as defined by the wheat field. BTW I really didn't like the "300" movie at all... 4.   19-12-2008 Sort of reminds me of BattleChess from the Amiga days a little. There was one piece that would open up a whole under the other piece when it took that piece.