Hey, everyone -- Well, like the subject said, this started as a 15 minute challenge, but I decided to do it in Carrara instead of Ray Dream Studio, so it took me quite a while longer to do. It's really the first serious modeling, texturing and rendering I've done in C, and I have to say I'm really impressed with how my RDS skills (such as they are) translated directly into C. It was a bit frustrating trying to find things like soft shadows, collision detect and other things I'm really used to using in RDS, but once I found them, they seemed to work really well.... That said, here's the challenge: model and render something on your desk. Use as much time as you need, but the quicker the better. This actually took me about an hour and fifteen minutes, but I did have that learning curve thing going. The purpose behind the 15 minute challenges is to get us to think quickly, come up with creative solutions to challenges you face. Everything here was built in the spline modeler. I've always been comfortable with the free-form modeler in RDS, so this was a natural choice. I just barely dabbled with the shader trees to texture everything, but I'm really impressed with what it does.... So, hopefully on Tuesday when I get back into work and online, there'll be a ton of desk items with war stories on how they were built. Enjoy!