This image was inspired by Juluka's apartheid-era song about a black leader hunted by mysterious gunmen, "Bullets for Bafazane". I don't know who the real Bafazane was, but the song paints a vivid picture of both the hunted man and his pursuers.

The figures are both Poser 4 males; Bafazane is derived from the standard 'Peter' character, the gunman was a morphable Poser 4 male from the Zygote Costume Shop CD. Lots of tweaking produced a sufficiently ugly-looking character, while a pair of Raybans from Greylight gave him that desirable "I'm a government thug" look. The Glock pistols that both he and Bafazane hold are also from Greylight.

Of course, the fact that it's actually night out makes his Raybans a little redundant. Never mind - that's how evil he is, he wears sunglasses even after dark.

My original intention was actually to have the exterior brightly lit, making the sunglasses a little less implausible, but for aesthetic reasons it gradually turned into a night scene. This led to the introduction of a wall with a street lamp, drainpipe and advertising poster. The poster is actually a real wall poster from Southern Africa ... but not South Africa. It is taken from a photograph that I took in Swaziland, and the border is a traditional Swazi design. I suppose that makes it the geographical equivalent of an anachronism, if the Bafazane scene is supposed to be set in the Republic of South Africa.

Technically, the most interesting aspect of the scene is the lighting. Bafazane's shadow on the wall is soft-edged ... even though Bryce doesn't do soft shadows! Bafazane is actually lit by a 'light array', a cluster of lights of different intensities. This technique is described in "Real World Bryce 2" by Susan Kitchens. The lights are also enclosed in a glass sphere with a cloudy texture applied to further diffuse the light. The effect is not perfect - the array uses only about twelve lights, rather than the hundreds recommended - but it's interesting nonetheless.

There are some other lights in the scene as well. The street light which illuminates the outside wall is also enclosed in a glass sphere. Finally, there is a 'dark light' (a light with a negative intensity, which draws light out of the scene) located somewhere above Bafazane's head to reduce illumination on the wall above and behind him.

The evil government gunman doesn't really show up well in the render, but I put a lot of work into making him look nasty, so he deserves his own image. Actually, he doesn't look nasty as much as he looks like Steve Dallas from "Bloom County". Oh well ...

The G-Man [35K]