Digital Art Zone

David Brinnen - 10 February 2013 04:52 AM

BlumBlumShub - 09 February 2013 04:20 PM

TheSavage64 - 09 February 2013 04:14 PM

You could create your own mini terrain object and use the terrain editor to literally paint the cracks and other textures where you want them?
Then you're not depending too much on a texture applied to a smooth surface which in close up can (as you've found out) look less than realistic.

Thought about that but I'm not competent with Bryce at all, which is why this contest has piqued my interest. I've already learned quite a lot about the materials.

Am struggling with terrain too. Want to make a nice reasonably flat terrain (but not a ground plane) for close up view but I'm really not having any luck. Will be playing with this a lot!

OK well I'd say this was a bit beyond what I'd expect to confront a beginner with but since you said you have already leaned quite a lot about materials you can maybe get more from this than most.

Bryce 10 minute material project - grey rock with some cracks - a tutorial by David Brinnen

I've tried to keep it short, but expect in your own experiments to spend at least an hour faffing around with the DTE components. That's what happens to me anyway.

Let us know how you get on.

That's tremendous, David, thank you so much.

I was along the right lines, but I wasn't using half the features you've shown me so it didn't look anything like a decent rock. I had the three procedurals working, the first averaged, the second set to Maximum, but I didn't know how to use the octaves, frequencies, nor exactly what the filter did, though I'd played with it almost randomly and was getting SOME idea. This makes it a lot clearer and I will be squirrelling away all afternoon now!

Thanks again,
Barry.

Thanks for the tutorial. I've been unable to find my very beat up and abused printed out copy of the Bryce 5 manual, which means I can never keep straight what does what in the DTE. I love it in there, but without something to remind me exactly what all the different filters do, all I can do is experiment without much structure, if you know what I mean. But this tutorial helps a lot. Thanks again!

sithkitten - 10 February 2013 09:57 AM

Thanks for the tutorial. I've been unable to find my very beat up and abused printed out copy of the Bryce 5 manual, which means I can never keep straight what does what in the DTE. I love it in there, but without something to remind me exactly what all the different filters do, all I can do is experiment without much structure, if you know what I mean. But this tutorial helps a lot. Thanks again!

You are welcome.

If you check out Bryce tutorials you will find there are tutorials by me dedicated to all the different noise, phase and filter elements of the DTE.

http://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials.html

Might help for want of a manual.

Thanks! I confess, I haven't been through all your video tutorials yet. I've always had better luck with actual printed words in front of me. But I'm adapting. I probably should have made the switch ages ago. After all, the cats can't steal and play with a video tutorial. Or lay down on it, or make me spill tea on it... You get the picture.

Here's my WIP for the contest so far. Still lots of work to do, especially with the background stuff.

Thanks to David, I've got nicer rocks now, though they are very different to the ones in his tutorial, I used the same method, slightly different styles.

I know there are many issues with this pic, such as the background being too low poly, and the grasses needing repositioning, but any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Barry.

sithkitten - 10 February 2013 01:46 PM

Thanks! I confess, I haven't been through all your video tutorials yet. I've always had better luck with actual printed words in front of me. But I'm adapting. I probably should have made the switch ages ago. After all, the cats can't steal and play with a video tutorial. Or lay down on it, or make me spill tea on it... You get the picture.

There are also written tutorials on Bryce tutorials if you would rather. I don't know how printer friendly they are but bear in mind, what is true for Bryce 5 materials and DTE is 95% true for Bryce 7 pro. And anything newer, well you'll just have to put up with me bimbling on.

BlumBlumShub - 10 February 2013 01:49 PM

Here's my WIP for the contest so far. Still lots of work to do, especially with the background stuff.

Thanks to David, I've got nicer rocks now, though they are very different to the ones in his tutorial, I used the same method, slightly different styles.

I know there are many issues with this pic, such as the background being too low poly, and the grasses needing repositioning, but any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Barry.

It is better that you've made the rocks your own. And now you have got something cobbled together, I'd suggest some lighting experiments. Remember to have sun/moon shadows set at 100%. Watch out for any ambience. Make careful adjustment to fog/haze (this counts as lighting since it adds into the light) don't have skydome colour unless you are sure you really want it. Try a HDRI made from the sky maybe? And add the sun back in for a key light. That kind of thing.

BlumBlumShub - 10 February 2013 01:49 PM

Here's my WIP for the contest so far. Still lots of work to do, especially with the background stuff.

Thanks to David, I've got nicer rocks now, though they are very different to the ones in his tutorial, I used the same method, slightly different styles.

I know there are many issues with this pic, such as the background being too low poly, and the grasses needing repositioning, but any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Barry.

Here this might help Bryce 25 minutes on landscape lighting basics - working with legacy skies - by David Brinnen

ok somemore progress on the Cabin scene (I think). changed the sky, tweaked lighting, added some haze to try and get a bit more depth to the background. Added Victoria, (she's on the porch) not sure if she should be moved into the foreground more and off to one side of the camera, I need to play round with it more.

Here is what I have so far..

Rareth - 11 February 2013 09:30 AM

ok somemore progress on the Cabin scene (I think). changed the sky, tweaked lighting, added some haze to try and get a bit more depth to the background. Added Victoria, (she's on the porch) not sure if she should be moved into the foreground more and off to one side of the camera, I need to play round with it more.

Here is what I have so far..

Looking very good, the grass is convincing in the foreground now you have more light.

David Brinnen - 11 February 2013 09:33 AM

Rareth - 11 February 2013 09:30 AM

ok somemore progress on the Cabin scene (I think). changed the sky, tweaked lighting, added some haze to try and get a bit more depth to the background. Added Victoria, (she's on the porch) not sure if she should be moved into the foreground more and off to one side of the camera, I need to play round with it more.

Here is what I have so far..

Looking very good, the grass is convincing in the foreground now you have more light.

it's from your grass tutorial.. with much tweaking

http://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials/realistic-grass-terrains.html

Rareth, that's looking very good! The lighting is much improved, and I love the grass and your choice of sky.

Barry, that's a beautiful scene...I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops from there.

missing bryce 5 manual
I just downloaded one here in about 1 minute and I have slow net
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/media/i3d/01/A/man-migrate/MANUAL000055991.pdf

David Brinnen - 09 February 2013 06:05 AM

Here I've made a short tutorial demonstrating the copy and paste trick and how it could be useful.

Bryce "Nuts and Bolts" - a useful copy and paste trick - a tutorial by David Brinnen

I have viewed your tutorial that is very interesting but... it doesn't work with my scene. Bryce crashes at the final step when i paste the trees.

I have make some tests to understand why and the reason is that my trees are instanced (I have used the instancing lab to create my forest). Even i create an instance with only 3 trees, Bryce crashes. Instances just can't be copied/pasted.

So, i have thought about a different way to proceed and i have used the "merge" command :

1. starting from my scene with the trees that i've renamed "new_user_contest_1.br7"
2. I create a group with all my trees (instances and original trees) and select it
3. File>Save
4. Edit>Invert selection
5. Delete to keep only the trees
6. File>Save as... "forest.br7" (i give a meaningful name to get back it easely)
7. File>Open... "new_user_contest_1.br7" to get back the original scene
8. be sure the group of trees is selected and delete it
9. File>Save as... "new_user_contest_02.br7"
10. Modify the Sky lab and when it's finish save it into the Sky lab preset
11. File>Merge... "forest.br7"

Now, i've got my scene with the trees at the same place as the original scene that i can render.
If the result of the rendering don't satisfy me, i can just delete the group of tree and continous to modify the Sky lab and re-merge the trees when finish.
But now, the problem (a very strange problem) is that if i save my file, it's saved with the Sky lab informations of the file "forest.b7" (those informations are probably merge with the trees, but i don't understand why i can make my render with the other sky). That is the reason why i have savde the sky at step 10 : to reload it before i save the final scene.

Well, it's a little bit complicated, but i don't see an other way to proceed.
What did you think about this ?

The result of my first study of the Sky lab using the IBL :

alanbard - 11 February 2013 10:57 AM

missing bryce 5 manual
I just downloaded one here in about 1 minute and I have slow net
http://ec1.images-amazon.com/media/i3d/01/A/man-migrate/MANUAL000055991.pdf

Hey, thanks! Hadn't even thought to look for it online. It's somewhere in my old computer, but the graphics card is about shot on that one so I never turn it on. Guess I have no more excuses now.