While I cannot say exactly where I got the inspiration for this scene, I know that it was at least in part inspired by the stop-motion scenes in the Matrix. I couldn't resist the name... The scene does a decent job of showing off the various features of our raytracer. Constructive solid geometry (CSG) is very much in evidence; the hollow cones that make up the hourglass, for example, are the difference of two cones. The gratuitous die in the lower left corner also uses CSG extensively (and was in fact one of my CSG test cases). The rectangular base uses solid textures (specifically, the Perlin noise function) to give somewhat of a marbled look.
-Chris Twigg, cdtwigg@cs.washington.edu