Many Replace All commands were harmed during the making of this artifact.

The blue crystal and gold flower models were created separately in my modeler program, as recursively branching structures twisted in interesting ways. The .ray files produced were then extensively edited in WordPad to change the material properties of the objects. The crystal was made transparent and slightly reflective, with an index of refraction similar to that of quartz. The flower, meant to resemble gold, has a fairly dark diffuse color but a bright yellow specularity and reflection. It also has a tiny bit of red emmitted color, which makes it feel just a bit more alive.

The two .ray files were then combined into one via the magic of Copy and Paste. There are three light sources in the scene: one dim point light below the flower and slightly behind it, so the shadowed areas are not completely black; and two more point lights in or near the crystal to light it up dramatically. Lighting the crystal effectively was hard work - putting a light source directly inside of it would make the whole thing too bright to show any interesting detail, while also casting an unappealing green shadow over the flower. Trial and error got me to a decently satisfying result.

And if you're wondering, yes, I got the color scheme from the Protoss in StarCraft.

Alex Cho Snyder