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Peter and Allison were to be married on October 31, 2006. Sadly, Allison got cold feet at the last minute and couldn't go through with the ceremony.

This webpage depicts the events of the (partial) ceremony.
My fifth entry to the Internet Ray Tracing Competition (Sept-Oct, 2006). The theme was "Absence."


Shortly after getting engaged, Peter and Allison selected a small chapel  near the edge of town. There is a beautiful park across the street - they thought it would make a good venue for photographs.

The "inspiration image" for the church came from a search on Google Images. After going though a number of pictures, I settled on a picture from Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Missouri. Some of the details seen here are not present or obscured in the final image.
Allison's parents take their seat. Allison's father put on a smile, despite being disappointed that her daughter decided at the last minute not to have him walk her down the aisle.




The groomsmen took their place and waited patiently. Peter, the groom, was joined by his best man Jim (an old friend from  football), Russ, a friend from high school, and George, a co-worker. Peter and Allison met exactly five years ago today, at Jim's Halloween party. Peter wasn't so keen on a Halloween wedding, but Allison insisted it would be a fun day to celebrate their future anniversaries.
Amanda walking up the aisle. Amanda was Allison's best friend since fourth grade. Allison was Amanda's Maid of Honour two years ago.
Peter watched Allison's younger sister, Dawn make her way down the aisle next. Man, she looks beautiful. Peter could see her nervousness beneath her forced smile. It was unlike her to be uncomfortable in front of crowds, he thought. His smile decreased a notch in sympathy. Could it be her recent break-up? Was she jealous that Amanda was the Maid of Honour? Or was there something else on her mind...?

The Stephanie 3 model I used for Allison has really distorted arms and shoulders. It's hard to notice on the final scene, but here, you can really see it!
The crowd turned to face the back of the church waiting for the beautiful bride to appear and walk down the aisle. They waited...and waited...and waited. The silence was broken by the groom's cell phone ringing in his breast pocket. The audience turned around, their gaze fixed on Peter.

Peter's legs weakened, a wave of nausea flowed over him. He opened his phone, certain of who the caller would be. Standing behind the chancel railing, he felt like a guilty man in the prisoner's dock about to receive his sentence. He slowly lifted the cell to his ear, unable to muster the strength to utter a word. He stared at the back of the church, avoiding eye contact with his family and friends.

He took a sharp breath when he heard the voice....that beautiful, delicate voice.

His next words were a whisper that were only heard by his bestman.

"You can't? What do you mean you can't?"
This image was submitted to the IRTC.

When the cell phone rang, Amanda knew what was about to happen. She had heard Allison argue with her father a few minutes earlier that she didn't want to be "given away." The real reason, Amanda now knew, was that Allison was planning her escape. But why? Amanda glared at Peter. She never really trusted him. He must have done something to hurt her, she thought.

Uncharacteristically, Dawn burst out in tears. Her mother and Patricia tried to reassure her. Did Dawn know the real reason behind the Bride's cold feet?

A closeup of the bridesmaids. I experimented with a three light technique to get some highlights on the girls. The middle bridesmaid, a Stephanie 3 model, has some pretty contorted arms/shoulders. Again, this detail is hard to make out from the final vantage point.




I had an idea early on that after the cell phone call, the two families would start fighting.. The idea didn't last, because I wanted to capture the moment of the call, rather than the aftermath. This scene shows some of the early textures.
Scene Statistics
  Finite objects:         7817
  Infinite objects:          0
  Light sources:            30
  Total:                  7847

Render Statistics
Image Resolution 1024 x 768

Pixels:           829635   Samples:         1507403   Smpls/Pxl: 1.82
Rays:           30929590   Saved:           1593340   Max Level: 36/50

Ray->Shape Intersection          Tests       Succeeded  Percentage

Box                         2841045115       837659486     29.48
Cone/Cylinder               1096604681       330516001     30.14
CSG Intersection             489449973       114630923     23.42
CSG Merge                     78903945        17311299     21.94
CSG Union                    253569521        49895272     19.68
Mesh                         936672678       517922552     55.29
Plane                        202780204       160752562     79.27
Prism                        510258492        11105675      2.18
Prism Bound                 9265587408      7288058096     78.66
Sphere                       384568184         1859328      0.48
Sphere Sweep                   6495577           55173      0.85
Torus                       1019547327        71379938      7.00
Torus Bound                 1019547327        80531044      7.90
Clipping Object               83442365        35124171     42.09
Bounding Box              159973631868     54195190102     33.88
Vista Buffer                  75404726        48314091     64.07

Function VM calls:               20

Roots tested:            7348772028   eliminated:             20494175
Calls to Noise:            64263815   Calls to DNoise:        16248983

Media Intervals:              22312   Media Samples:            315530 (14.14)
Shadow Ray Tests:        1164951506   Succeeded:             494524105
Reflected Rays:             3076193
Transmitted Rays:          11185369

Radiosity samples calculated:           119407 (0.51 %)
Radiosity samples reused:             23451590

Smallest Alloc:                  34 bytes
Largest  Alloc:            48000032 bytes
Total Scene Processing Times
  Parse Time:    0 hours  2 minutes 19 seconds (139 seconds)
  Photon Time:   0 hours  0 minutes  0 seconds (0 seconds)
  Render Time:   4 hours 26 minutes 56 seconds (16016 seconds)
  Total Time:    4 hours 29 minutes 15 seconds (16155 seconds)
CPU time used: kernel 10.91 seconds, user 16092.72 seconds, total 16103.63 seconds
Render averaged 48.84 PPS over 786432 pixels

POV-Ray finished