Digital Art Zone

Hello Brycers! Coming in for a visit!

I have a question—is it possible to create skyscapes in Bryce, and then export the results to DAZ Studio (either via bridge or just turning the final thing into a picture); I’m looking to create night skies of various styles (cloudy, with stars, lights, maybe a remote nebula etc etc) in Bryce, and then use those for skydomes in DS. Basically, just sky—no treelines, cityscapes, ground, mountains, or stuff like that.

I have used Bryce only once (just to see that it was working and realized it can do nice skies), and what I got for it is basic free install, freebies from current DAZ site, and freebies from the old archive. (I can, of course, nab freebies off Rendo and ShareCG.)

How do I do it? I’m completely clueless here, so a tip or two would be appreciated. Fast learner, though.

Sounds like a cool idea, would be interested too

There are plenty of sky dome props available for Daz Studio, some free. Properly sized, any rendered image could be applied to a sky dome and shifted around to get the desired effect. You can also apply NASA images to sky domes. There are sky domes and space domes. Look around on ShareCG. Fober’s The Hills is a good one:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/39996/View/11/Poser/The-Hills-environment-for-DAZ-Studio-Poser

Yes, but I want to create my own custom sky, and if it is pre-created to fit a sky dome properly, less work for me in postwork.

OK this is a commercial so look away now if you don’t want to be subject to a product placement…

Righto… Horo and I have been pondering this very problem for a long time now.  Well… a few years… not geological time, but a bit of time.  And we have come up with a solution.  A solution we will put in the DAZ shop, once one or two of the website issues have been fixed.  I know DAZ are hard at work on this, but what I don’t know is how long it will take to before they are fixed.  So as soon as maybe…

What we have made is a spherical mapper.  It takes any Bryce scene, whatever you have in your scene and turns it into a spherical map.  To either use in Bryce or in any other software that can handle such a mapping mode - for example - DS.

So you could render your Bryce sky as a spherical map.  Here’s the promo images to give you a flavour of what could be done.

*falls down to her knees and raises hands to heaven*

So, how much you’re going to ask for this little miracle, when it happens, soonish?

I think… if memory serves… something like $18… certainly not more than this http://www.daz3d.com/shop/bryce-7-pro-scene-converter/ which does something similar but comes with a greater volume of example scenes.  I can’t check directly though, due to the aforementioned issues.  As soon as maybe… it’s all there floating in the aether.

Skiriki - 26 June 2012 03:39 PM

Yes, but I want to create my own custom sky, and if it is pre-created to fit a sky dome properly, less work for me in postwork.

Exactly! I’m a prework kind of guy instead of postwork, which I am not good at. I think all you would need to do is get a suitable dome, and check the pixel dimensions of the image maps that come with it. Render an image in Bryce the same pixel dimensions and slap it on the dome in DS.

David, that spherical mapper looks way too cool. That would scratch many itches…

Well, as you’ve seen the anaglyph’s thread below this, Horo and I put a lot of effort into coaxing Bryce to do things it was never specifically programmed to do and we are always open to suggestions.  If you come up with something, anything, I’m not saying we can do it, but it doesn’t hurt to try.  Most of the things we find come about through experiments of one sort or another.  Looking for bugs or working around them.  Testing features.  Or just a sheer bloody minded desire to try and break the render engine in some new and unexpected way.

:woot: Horo and David to the rescue!

We’ll do what we can, no promises, I’m making enquiries.  I don’t like to pester DAZ too much when clearly they have their hands full.  But we’ll see.

I can wait, I’m not in a hurry.

Skiriki - 27 June 2012 01:24 AM

I can wait, I’m not in a hurry.

Patience is more or less the defining prerequisite of anyone using a render engine.

David Brinnen - 27 June 2012 01:26 AM

Skiriki - 27 June 2012 01:24 AM

I can wait, I’m not in a hurry.

Patience is more or less the defining prerequisite of anyone using a render engine.

True… and the impatient farm it out.

(Gotta get that Reality plugin as soon as it works for 4.5; that way, I could put my four 24/7 computers into good use…)

Here you go…

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/new-releases/bryce-7-pro-spherical-mapper/

To you - Special Price: $12.56

Now that’s what I call service.

ZOMG.

*runs to add to her shopping basket*