Show Us Your Bryce Renders! Part 8

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  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119
    edited December 1969

    Playing with some dragons and an old terain render :-)

    Dragon Night (or Mother-in-laws Meeting :-) )

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  • bytescapesbytescapes Posts: 1,841
    edited January 2015

    After years of not using Bryce because it wouldn't run on my Mac, I've got it going again under the Parallels emulator and I'm rediscovering the joys of Bryce-ing. Here are a couple of recent images.

    In the interests of full disclosure, these images rely heavily on imported (purchased) content, particularly Stonemason's Greeble City Blocks. However, even if almost nothing is actually modeled in Bryce, Bryce provides the essential atmospheric effects.

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  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,639
    edited December 1969

    @mermaid010 - thank you. Great examples with that lens. I like the first better but only because the colour appeals more to me.

    @Sandy - nice scenes, I like the title.

    @angusm - cool scenes, the second looks quite dramatic with the clouds. Nothing wrong with using ready-made objects. It's what you make from them that counts. And you did a great job. Hope to see more from you since you could make Bryce work on the Mac (it's a shame that it doesn't without some tricks).

  • goofygrmom3goofygrmom3 Posts: 160
    edited December 1969

    Sorry I haven't been around for a bit. Real life does have a way of taking up my 'playtime'. Anyhow, I had the time today to finish my Cloud City. FINALLY!!!

    I wasn't happy with the original sky I created from the tut, so I hit the random button till I got some colors I liked. The moon is actually from a photo I took.

    Thanks for lookin'

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  • goofygrmom3goofygrmom3 Posts: 160
    edited December 1969

    I took a wander thru the last few pages. Y'all have been quite busy since I was here. I love the work you do. It always amazes and inspire me.

  • GussNemoGussNemo Posts: 1,855
    edited December 1969

    @Tim: Those new images are really nice looking. Buddha is especially nice.

    @Jay: Amber is awesome looking. Took a second to see the insect trapped inside.

    @hansmar: Newest image is neat looking.

    @mermaid: Love the texture of that abstract. Space scenes are also very nice.

    @Horo: Snowflake image is very nice. Love the background color and effect.

    @Sandy: Both of those a looking good.

    @angusm: Nice composition on both of those images. They both have a great atmosphere.

    @goofy: Great work, and good you stuck with it.

  • Tim82Tim82 Posts: 859
    edited December 1969

    hi everyone, all of the new renders are amazing! ....awesome work :)

    @ Guss, thank you :)

    @ goofygrmom3, really great work with the cloud city tutorial, i think it looks great, awesome work :)

  • mermaid010mermaid010 Posts: 5,486
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Horo, Guss for the nice comments.

    Sandy: Both renders are nice.

    Angusm: Great work on both renders.

    Goofygrmom: Great work, happy you completed it.

  • Tim82Tim82 Posts: 859
    edited December 1969

    I had some free time, this was the result of it :)

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  • goofygrmom3goofygrmom3 Posts: 160
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the compliments Guss, Tim, and Mermaid.

    I love that scene Tim. I could get lost in there.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,639
    edited January 2015

    @goofygrmom3 - congratulation to your persistence. Cloud City looks great.

    @Jamie - thank you.

    @Tim - very nice alpine scene.

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  • goofygrmom3goofygrmom3 Posts: 160
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Horo.

  • GussNemoGussNemo Posts: 1,855
    edited December 1969

    @Tim: Lovely work, very restful looking.

  • Old StuffOld Stuff Posts: 15
    edited January 2015

    Ok, so progress...it has been made :D

    Third and Second is the re-render of my concept VR Workspace Cube. with the panels created in Bryce through the terrain editor, UVmapper and photoshop. Window and Door space are real, and not shopped in, planets all at correct scaling etc.

    First render is a 360 panorama with the Door and Window shopped in from pic below because every time I tried to render Bryce would crash lol

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  • SlepalexSlepalex Posts: 911
    edited December 1969

    I had some free time, this was the result of it :)

    Tim, great landscape!
    How did you do the rocks?
    Forest in the background is a 2D?
    Everything looks very realistic, as the photo!

  • Tim82Tim82 Posts: 859
    edited December 1969

    slepalex said:
    I had some free time, this was the result of it :)

    Tim, great landscape!
    How did you do the rocks?
    Forest in the background is a 2D?
    Everything looks very realistic, as the photo!

    thank you :) ....the rocks were done using mudbox in 3ds max and yes the back drop is a 2d image that i blended with a waterline, as for the overall scene....i just tweaked the lighting as best as i could to try and match the background :)

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,639
    edited December 1969

    I was quite shocked when I realised how much space the few Arbaro trees take up that I replaced them manually by instances. Memory usage dropped to 37% and file size to 27%. I've put a one-page memo on my website (Bryce Documents > Memos > Diverse) how to replace groups by instances (inspired by Rashad Carter's Instancing tutorial, see Bryce Documents > Guests > Objects). The domed building is Arboretum by Firesong (2004), the tower is Onion Dome atop Flute by Colin Swift (2004) made in Bryce. The ambient light and sky from the ErmClouds2_SD HDRI and the key light by the sun. The rest is a triple stacked terrain.

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  • SlepalexSlepalex Posts: 911
    edited December 1969

    Horo said:
    I was quite shocked when I realised how much space the few Arbaro trees take up that I replaced them manually by instances. Memory usage dropped to 37% and file size to 27%.

    Hi, Horo. You unless didn't know it? It that long explained to Hans. This can also be done in instancing Lab. Only you must first create a clone of the group. However, rotation on axis Y won't be!
    Excellent landscape. I will get, perhaps, from an old chest Arbaro's program.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119
    edited December 1969

    slepalex said:
    However, rotation on axis Y won't be!

    You can change the axis by un-grouping the grouped instance then regrouping them again.

  • SlepalexSlepalex Posts: 911
    edited December 1969

    Fishtales said:
    slepalex said:
    However, rotation on axis Y won't be!

    You can change the axis by un-grouping the grouped instance then regrouping them again.

    Yes, that's right! You must first turn the group into an arbitrary angle.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,119
    edited December 1969

    slepalex said:

    Yes, that's right! You must first turn the group into an arbitrary angle.

    I'm not sure what you mean by that. All I do is create the grouped instance, un-group it and then re-group it and then I can move and rotate it any way I want. I can also move and rotate each instance within the group independent from the rest. The only thing I can remember, I haven't paid much attention to them lately, is that when rotating the group the trees inside the group rotate around their own axis at the same time. As I say I noticed it once but I haven't paid much attention to it on any of the rest of the times I have used them so I don't know if they do that every time :-)

  • SlepalexSlepalex Posts: 911
    edited December 1969

    Fishtales said:
    slepalex said:

    Yes, that's right! You must first turn the group into an arbitrary angle.

    I'm not sure what you mean by that. All I do is create the grouped instance, un-group it and then re-group it and then I can move and rotate it any way I want. I can also move and rotate each instance within the group independent from the rest. The only thing I can remember, I haven't paid much attention to them lately, is that when rotating the group the trees inside the group rotate around their own axis at the same time. As I say I noticed it once but I haven't paid much attention to it on any of the rest of the times I have used them so I don't know if they do that every time :-)
    I was referring to the complexity of cloning OBJ-group in Instancing Lab or manually. How to clone in terms of optimizing file size and space in memory, I explained to Hansmar here: http://hansmar.deviantart.com/art/Treeline-494128484

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,639
    edited December 1969

    @slepalex and @Sandy - thank you both. Yes I've heard about all those things but never actually used them. In this particular case, I wanted to keep how I had placed the copied trees. After I had instanced the amount of them needed, I could alt-c a real tree, delete it, select an instanced one and alt-v it. With only a few trees this was done in a minute or two. Of course, the better way is to start with instances.

  • GussNemoGussNemo Posts: 1,855
    edited December 1969

    @DaemonKnight: Those are awesome images. The second and third images have a real nice feel to them.

    @Horo: That's another lovely scene. Great detail in those terrains.

  • SlepalexSlepalex Posts: 911
    edited December 1969

    Horo said:
    @slepalex and @Sandy - thank you both. Yes I've heard about all those things but never actually used them. In this particular case, I wanted to keep how I had placed the copied trees. After I had instanced the amount of them needed, I could alt-c a real tree, delete it, select an instanced one and alt-v it. With only a few trees this was done in a minute or two. Of course, the better way is to start with instances.

    Hehe, Horo. It's good! But what will you do if the trees 100 pieces? Then there are only two ways, no - three.
    1. Manual. Ungroup the original OBJ-group. Command Ctrl + I (cloning), move the mouse or arrow the clone (you can Shift + arrow) for some distance, rotate at any angle to the axis Y. Then, repeatedly press Alt + I (replication). Group one by one all the clones and OBJ-master.
    2. Manual. Same as in para. 1 except replication. Group the clone and the master. Master give former name ("object") a clone give the name of the "clone-object". We use a multi-replication to a clone group (Shift + Alt + D), we set the number of copies, the displacement along the X axis and Z, rotation on Y.
    3. Instancing Lab. Same as in para. 2 except the multi-replication. "Clone-object" along the Y axis rotates by a any angle. If you do not, then in Instancing Lab no rotates Bryce-primitive group only. Earlier, I was wrong. OBJ (3ds) -group beautifully rotates on the Y-axis in the Instancing Lab, if you set rotation of 360 °. Multiply "Clone-Object" in Instancing Lab.

    All three methods give a huge savings of memory and file size. But:
    1. If the change in the original group (master) material of trunk, branches, foliage (and so on), then automatically changes the material in all clones.
    2. Changing the material only in the first clone ("clone-object"). In duplicates of the first clone of material does not change. But you can change the material in the component parts in duplicates of clones. And you will be full of variety, such as foliage.
    3. Same as para. 2.
    If you want to change material in the trunk, leaves (and so on) in all clones and duplicates regardless of the method of cloning, it is necessary to pre-assign a color family for an objects in the group. Choose a color family for foliage and spring forest turns into autumn. :)

    Sorry for my English. Google translate is not quite correct. I hope you understand.

  • Rashad CarterRashad Carter Posts: 1,800
    edited December 1969

    There's also a fourth option once you get the hang of it.

    It's actually far better to import your obj as a single material zone from the beginning, which will mean it will load into Bryce as a single mesh object with all of its individual parts permanently glued together. Such an object will easily accept rotations in the Instancing Lab with no problems. To do this one must take the time to sort our the UV's in UV Mapper or some equivalent (keeping in mind that Bryce has a bug causing it to flip the vertical polarity of the texture when exporting.) You can always flip the polarity in UV Mapper to correct it before re-importing the model into Bryce. You can also fix normals alignment issues which tend to pop up often with models constructed from primitives using Boolean operations are exported. Once you are finished you should should save the model out of UV Mapper telling the dialogue "Don't Save Materials."

    You can also easily apply procedural textures to your now fully fused and UV mapped models in case you don't have tons of image references laying around. You can use Channel A for leaves, Channel B for the Trunk/Stems and you can use a black and white image in Channel C that has all black covering the areas of the map corresponding to the leaves and all white in the areas corresponding to the trunk. Any amount of gray-scale will blend Channel A and Channel B depending on how much. Perfect mid grey blends the two channels at 50% each.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,639
    edited December 1969

    @Jamie - thank you.

    @slepalex - thank you for the tips. Oh sure, "my" method is not for 100 trees, a dozen at best. As you say, starting out with instancing in mind is much the better idea. I took note of your tips above (thanks again) and need to actually experiment with to see what happens.

    @Rashad - that sounds a bit more complicating with the UV maps. Nevertheless, it's good to know that there are means to work with them as well.

    Meanwhile, I do it the cheap way. No vegetation, just a stacked terrain.

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  • dragonfall1221dragonfall1221 Posts: 69
    edited December 1969

    Hi all,

    working on a more realistic lighting for night scenes and messing with the advanced rendering properties. Anyone know how to cut down on redering times when using true ambience? This took about fifteen hours to complete.

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  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited February 2015

    Right... it's been a long week, probably more... as I stated, I've imposed myself the challenge of learning Modo. It's an ongoing project. Modo is quite a substantial bit of software and so far I've only picked away at the edge. Part of this has lead me down the avenue of UV mapping. And UV mapping, if you've explored that to any extent, really makes you appreciate Bryce's procedural texturing strategies. UV mapping is a handful, the textures needed to get anything like as close to Bryce's fidelity need to be huge and as such they eat memory. I've found out, 6Gb is nowhere near enough memory for your PC if you want to match what can be done procedurally. (Image 1)

    One model, one app running, not enough physical memory to render without caching...

    There are other things. And while I'm going to show you a Bryce render, I warn you now it is nothing like as impressive as the examples posted above.

    Image 2 - using Wings3D (good old faithful wings) to make a lumpy plane.

    Image 3 - UV layout (having tried a lot of UV tools, this is the one I can get on with). Don't even talk to me about Wing's UV tools or even Modo's - the stuff of profound headaches. Image 3 shows the optimized UV surface for the lumpy plane.

    Image 4 - without modifying the UV flatten the surface. Make it perfectly flat and export as an obj.

    To be sure what I was seeing was entirely down to UV data and nothing else, I then deleted the mtl file. Just in case...

    Image 5 - on the left the imported object, while perfectly flat generates in Bryce appropriate shadows. As you would expect from a bump map. But there is no map. On the right, after [E]diting the mesh. Either by smoothing or making faceted, this normal aspect of the UV data is lost. And cannot be recovered. Images applied to the surface respect the UV map. But the normal data is scrubbed. Interesting?

    Edit: dragonfall1221 there is a lot of ways of using TA, many are covered on my Youtube channel, it's a big topic though and night scenes are a challenging place to start.

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  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    Amusing myself with the spherical mapper... Made using a galaxy from the Space Construction kit.

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This discussion has been closed.