Digital Art Zone

I have a 2D drawing of a fantasy continent.  I would like to make a 3D model of this continent. Is Bryce a good choice for this?  Is there a way to import the 2D drawing as a background image to use as a template like I can in 3D Studio?

I followed a couple basic tutorials just to get an idea of a few things Bryce can do but that is all I have done.

Ok, haven’t played with Bryce in prob. close to 10 years but yes it can be. Bryce has a feature where you can import a grayscale image or line drawing and get an elevation map out of it. Greyscale gives height based on value… but the area also has way to raise/lower elevation in it, so you could bring in your line drawing and raise/lower elevation to create your landscape. Someone who’s more familiar with Bryce could tell you where this is if you can’t find it poking around.

This area btw was one of the cooler features of Bryce imo at the time. I created some interesting artwork using it and imported line drawings. One picture was a landscape of an eye in lava rock with an actual eyeball in the center all in a plane of water. It was kind of cool for the time.

DarthD - 04 June 2012 05:22 PM

I have a 2D drawing of a fantasy continent.  I would like to make a 3D model of this continent. Is Bryce a good choice for this?  Is there a way to import the 2D drawing as a background image to use as a template like I can in 3D Studio?

I followed a couple basic tutorials just to get an idea of a few things Bryce can do but that is all I have done.

Just load the image in the terrain editor and adjust as necessary. Finally texture it. And thats about all there is to it. This is one of the features that is still ahead of the big boys as far as I am concerned. Zbrush would be next in line. Though I am sure some of the autodesk line has similar heightmap tools. I just haven’t seen them used yet on the net.

Bryce will take a greyscale bump (or displacement) map and convert it to an elevated terrain. I believe this can be exported as a .obj.

pwiecek - 05 June 2012 12:27 AM

Bryce will take a greyscale bump (or displacement) map and convert it to an elevated terrain. I believe this can be exported as a .obj.

Yup certainly can.  This method is used to create a city block - or to create a greeble panel - I’ve done that myself.
I’ve never used it to create a terrain to use as a terrain, i.e. from an aerial view drawing of an island or continent, with shades of grey indicating heights.

Create a terrain, click on the E to enter the terrain editor, click on Pictures, then on Load (see pic 1) then browse to find the terrain map you want to use. Mine are in Progfiles/Daz3D/BrycePro/Terrain Maps – your drawing will obviously be somewhere else.  I’ve chosen ‘City1 mask.TIF’. Click on Copy (step3) then Paste (step 4) (see pic 2) then click on Elevation (step 5). Click on ‘Raise/Lower’ (steps 6 & 7 in Pic 3) Then, (see step 8 in pic 4) click on ‘solid’ before leaving the terrain editor (step 9) and there you have a city block. You can then either texture it with a city map from the presets or export it and add UV maps in another app.

I’d love to see what you end up with from this, DarthD.

Thank you! I’ll try this and see how it works out.

You’re welcome, I’m interested to know how it works out so I hope you post your results DarthD, I love maps and hand drawn stuff.