Show Us Your Bryce Renders! Part 5

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  • GussNemoGussNemo Posts: 1,855
    edited December 1969

    Gave TopMod a try, and like David finally got something worth saving; it isn't Bryced yet. I even experienced the crashes David was talking about, in a big way. The program hung up, I tried to close it, that got hung up, had to warm boot, and then the program wouldn't open from desktop. Okay, that wasn't a problem, I'll just go into the program and launch it from there. Nope, wouldn't open. I deleted the shortcut on the desktop, fiddled around some more, and finally the program opened. If you get impatient with the program and start clicking around it's going to hang. If you get impatient because an action doesn't appear to be in progress and click around the program will hang. I think if you'd sneezed at the wrong time the program would hang. In short, it ain't a very stable program. And I couldn't find many "how to" videos either, well I did but my translator stopped working before I started the videos. Wait, I don't have a translator. ;-) I even gave the online manual a try but gave up after a few minutes waiting for something to load. I'm not going to uninstall either of the two version I downloaded, yet, but I'm on the verge of doing so. Perhaps it's time to get back to Wings 3D.

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,069
    edited December 1969

    @Guss - I have that at odd times with FireFox. I open the Task Manager, Processes Tab and look for it and end the process. That's quite swift. Try it next time you get such queer behaviour from TopMod.

  • mermaid010mermaid010 Posts: 4,956
    edited December 1969

    Very interesting experiments from David, Horo and Rareth.

    Lovely inspiring renders by everyone.

    Cris333 thanks for sharing your files with us.

    Congrats Guss for completing the Pisa tower, the model looks awesome.

    Dave the sea looks great for the pirate ship render.


    Combining Robin’s Temple and David’s Anisotropic reflection tutorials, for this render which was months in the making, lol

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  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited December 1969

    @FireAngel, I like the scene, but I agree with Horo that the ground could do with some texture in places. It doesn't need much, just a touch. I like the featureless flat plain in general, it reminds me somewhat of the endless miles of flatness of salt flats I've hiked on. (interestingly the salt flats, while perfectly flat from a distance, actually had a network of inches-high ridges, kind of like a negative of cracked mud.). The previously mentioned footprints are a good idea. It might also be rougher by the vegetation as roots and expanding trunks could have pushed the ground up and outward a little, wind may have blown dirt up against the trunks, critters digging around for food may have torn up the ground there, etc.

    One of the last things I will do is add the terrain materials; at the moment all of the terrain elements are using the Bryce default material so that test renders stay fast. Like many of us I often need to do a lot of test renders so I often avoid texturing until the very late stages of building a scene. By doing it that way anti-aliasing of the ground doesn't slow down the rendering the way it will once I add those ground materials and I can render this scene in a few minutes at the posted resolution. Eventually it will be rendered at 4000 pixels wide for possible printing.

  • GussNemoGussNemo Posts: 1,855
    edited December 1969

    @Horo: I did try Task Manager the first time TopMod hung, but things were so hosed Task Manager wouldn't open. Hence the warm boot. I was successful the second time TopMod hung in using Task Manager to close the program. It got to the point I was worried if I looked at it crossed eyed it'd hose up. I'm beginning to wonder if anything TopMod does isn't done better, and quicker, using Wings 3D.

    @mermaid: Thank you. At some points during construction it became a pain, since it appeared some setting in the tables were left off or in error. Really like what you've done with that temple. Reflection is terrific.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    An accidental image that appeared when I was working on setting up the sky, Decided I liked it. Pure Bryce render, no postwork of any sort.

    Who Let The Cat Out

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

    Pam, very dramatic and not at all pastally. A happy accident? The best kind to have.

    Mermaid, well done on setting up your anisotropic reflection, I know it can be fiddly.

    Another experiment from me.

    Using a version of this process Bryce 30 minute project - using Spherical Mapper to remap from HDRI backdrop onto 2D surfaces - a video by David Brinnen

    And one of Horo's HDRI's - "Rosenpass".

    Just a little test for our ongoing vegetation project.

    Stanford Dragon, using a material from one of our material sets. http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro-50-metals-the-treppenhalle-set

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  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Yes I was rather pleased with how it came out. Clicked a preset sky, and when I realised the effect I had I then manipulated it in the sky lab to turn it monochrome, using the colour perspective.

    Maybe I will go back and finish it in colour as well

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,069
    edited December 1969

    @mermaid010 - looking nice.

    @Pam - "accidents" can sometimes be very good.

    @David - shadows look very natural.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited August 2013

    Thanks Horo - and another with one of your plants. Dropped the RPP for this test. There's a big of "grain" in the shadows.

    Edit. And on my other test pic, some vegetation on the hills has been added.

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    Post edited by David Brinnen on
  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited December 1969

    Fire Angel's scene is building nicely, it looks very complex and lush. The camera position, when taking into account the eyeline of the figure on the left puts the viewer close to the ground. This is an unusual choice, particularly if you want the creatures on the right to appear large. I can offer some advice on that score if you are interested in that kind of thing.


    Bryce Basics - Composition part 1: How big is that thing? - by David Brinnen


    Bryce Basics - Composition part 2: Really how big is that thing? - by David Brinnen


    Bryce Basics - Composition part 3: Is that thing big? - by David Brinnen


    Bryce Basics - Composition part 4: Is that thing really big? - by David Brinnen


    Bryce Basics - Composition part 4b: Another version why? - by David Brinnen


    Bryce Basics - Composition part 5: Using Golden Rules Composition Helpers - by David Brinnen

    Thanks, I've been interested in that kind of thing for many years. The low viewpoint is deliberate, and I tried one with the horizon slightly above the photographer's eye-line but the resulting image doesn't look as good to me. The thing to remember about the rules of composition is that they aren't really best treated as rules, but as guidelines. Once you learn about composition you will come across many occasions when not following all of the rules helps your image, as long as you know why you are doing it. One thing I will say about that though is that it is usually best to break just one rule in a given image, though even that shouldn't be set in your mind too firmly.

  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited August 2013

    Thanks Horo - and another with one of your plants. Dropped the RPP for this test. There's a big of "grain" in the shadows.

    Edit. And on my other test pic, some vegetation on the hills has been added.

    On that second image you're solving one of the most important problems Bryce has had for making truly photo-realistic landscapes. I hope there will be a tutorial for that, as it will be a particularly significant contribution to the Bryce user community.

    Post edited by Fire Angel on
  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    An accidental image that appeared when I was working on setting up the sky, Decided I liked it. Pure Bryce render, no postwork of any sort.

    Who Let The Cat Out

    Very nice. I like the way it implies great danger without actually showing the cat being violent.

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

    Thanks Horo - and another with one of your plants. Dropped the RPP for this test. There's a big of "grain" in the shadows.

    Edit. And on my other test pic, some vegetation on the hills has been added.

    On that second image you're solving one of the most important problems Bryce has had for making truly photo-realistic landscapes. I hope there will be a tutorial for that, as it will be a particularly significant contribution to the Bryce user community.

    Yeah, I made the tutorial for this process nearly a year ago now. It's a bit fiddly. Bryce grass terrains - a 25 minute tutorial by David Brinnen

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Doodling with abstract(ish) stuff... Now I've got another photorealistic (paid) render to work on tonight... if it's worth sharing I'll post it later.

    Edit: This one's massive, so click it to see detail. :)

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  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited August 2013

    GussNemo said:
    Gave TopMod a try, and like David finally got something worth saving; it isn't Bryced yet. I even experienced the crashes David was talking about, in a big way. The program hung up, I tried to close it, that got hung up, had to warm boot, and then the program wouldn't open from desktop. Okay, that wasn't a problem, I'll just go into the program and launch it from there. Nope, wouldn't open. I deleted the shortcut on the desktop, fiddled around some more, and finally the program opened. If you get impatient with the program and start clicking around it's going to hang. If you get impatient because an action doesn't appear to be in progress and click around the program will hang. I think if you'd sneezed at the wrong time the program would hang. In short, it ain't a very stable program. And I couldn't find many "how to" videos either, well I did but my translator stopped working before I started the videos. Wait, I don't have a translator. ;-) I even gave the online manual a try but gave up after a few minutes waiting for something to load. I'm not going to uninstall either of the two version I downloaded, yet, but I'm on the verge of doing so. Perhaps it's time to get back to Wings 3D.

    Yeah, Topmod is one of the most unstable bits of software I've run in a long time. It's really hard work. It does some interesting things with crusts and loops connecting faces, but it's so horribly fragile in my hands. Wings 3D is far more robust.

    Speaking of Wings 3D. A new little project for you to try out.

    Wings 3D project - wings things with loops - by David Brinnen

    First render is Bryce using "metals" from the Treppenhalle set. http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro-50-metals-the-treppenhalle-set

    The second render is Octane, again the metal is exported from the Treppenhalle set and the ground texture comes from here, http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-7-pro-gritty-texture-tiles-and-matching-terrain using one of the volume enhanced normal maps supplied and a repeating image.

    Edit, cross-posted Dave, excellent render, great use of DOF, interesting material - looks a bit like a mutant strawberry.

    Material_experiments3.jpg
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    Wings_thing_with_loops1.jpg
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    Post edited by David Brinnen on
  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,069
    edited December 1969

    @David - great example using RTR. The second one with the dragon came out better than the mess I made of it. The trees on the hills are particularly good. Very realistic.

    The loopy thing is a nice object. I like the Octane render more, the gold material on the "rings" looks somehow more adequate while in the Bryce render the object looks more elaborate.

    @Dave - that abstract(ish) doodling looks like a rope mountain climbers use. At least the focused part.

  • JamahoneyJamahoney Posts: 1,791
    edited August 2013

    Sorry, Savage...but I see a bunch of strawberries..hahaaa :)

    David...those metallic thingies are certainly unique, if not extraordinary visually...looks like they would suit for encompassing a slim scarf or modern neckerchief. Wonderful lighting, and effects, though.
    Jay

    Post edited by Jamahoney on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Jamahoney said:
    Sorry, Savage...but I see a bunch of strawberries..hahaaa :)


    Jay

    Could go with The ice cream in the challenge thread :coolsmile:

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Edit, cross-posted Dave, excellent render, great use of DOF, interesting material - looks a bit like a mutant strawberry.

    Thanks to you (and all)... Yes, the material started life as the strawberry material and the shape which is multi-replicated stretched spheres does look a bit fruity. :)

    As for your latest ones. Both excellent (we expect nothing less) but the Octane one is certainly the most convincing one (it pains me to say) from a photorealistic point of view. :)

  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Horo - and another with one of your plants. Dropped the RPP for this test. There's a big of "grain" in the shadows.

    Edit. And on my other test pic, some vegetation on the hills has been added.

    On that second image you're solving one of the most important problems Bryce has had for making truly photo-realistic landscapes. I hope there will be a tutorial for that, as it will be a particularly significant contribution to the Bryce user community.

    Yeah, I made the tutorial for this process nearly a year ago now. It's a bit fiddly. Bryce grass terrains - a 25 minute tutorial by David Brinnen

    OK, thanks for the link. Sadly, it isn't usable here since it multiplies render times too much. I have patience, but I can't have the Mac tied up for 24 hours at a time; testing suggests that using that technique would result in at least 24 hour renders for any decent image size. Some of my Bryce images have to be rendered at 4000 pixels wide for printing, and those would take several days to render.

  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited December 1969

    OK this is now a struggle against Bryce bugs; every time I add another beastie now I have a 50% chance of getting the dreaded "Object Missing" error when reloading the scene. This tells me I can't add too many more of them. Since I want to portray quite a large herd I may have to render two images and assemble them in PhotoShop.

    Oooh, look, a baby one!

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

    Fire Angel, having to wait days for a render, aye I know that feeling. It's not for everyone, but that's not a bad thing, Bryce can accommodate many different approaches, from complex scenes such as yours, to long winded renders such as mine (all be it that the scenes are very simple in my case).

    Dave, yes the light in Octane is magical. It is a bit of a handful setting things up though, it's not difficult as such, but quite involved. If you want to see more Octane renders visit me over at the dA gallery. http://davidbrinnen.deviantart.com/ I've started posting more there since DAZ 3D "updated" their website.

  • JamahoneyJamahoney Posts: 1,791
    edited December 1969

    chohole said:
    Jamahoney said:
    Sorry, Savage...but I see a bunch of strawberries..hahaaa :)


    Jay

    Could go with The ice cream in the challenge thread :coolsmile:

    :) you're more nautier than me...ROFL

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    OK this is now a struggle against Bryce bugs; every time I add another beastie now I have a 50% chance of getting the dreaded "Object Missing" error when reloading the scene. This tells me I can't add too many more of them. Since I want to portray quite a large herd I may have to render two images and assemble them in PhotoShop.

    Oooh, look, a baby one!

    Strange, I rarely get that error, even though I do make some well populated scenes.

    My Bryce just stamps it's feet and screams and throws a tantrum before refusing to do any more.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    OK this is now a struggle against Bryce bugs; every time I add another beastie now I have a 50% chance of getting the dreaded "Object Missing" error when reloading the scene. This tells me I can't add too many more of them. Since I want to portray quite a large herd I may have to render two images and assemble them in PhotoShop.

    Use the instancing lab to replicate your beasts. Smaller memory footprint.
  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited August 2013

    Fire Angel, having to wait days for a render, aye I know that feeling. It's not for everyone, but that's not a bad thing, Bryce can accommodate many different approaches, from complex scenes such as yours, to long winded renders such as mine (all be it that the scenes are very simple in my case).

    Dave, yes the light in Octane is magical. It is a bit of a handful setting things up though, it's not difficult as such, but quite involved. If you want to see more Octane renders visit me over at the dA gallery. http://davidbrinnen.deviantart.com/ I've started posting more there since DAZ 3D "updated" their website.

    Well I have the patience; the longest I waited for a Bryce render was 57 hours. However my Mac is used for work and I can't currently afford to have it idle for too long. The 57 hour render was on my last system and the same scene on this one took a little over one hour using the same version of Bryce. I used the scene as a test to see how much faster this Mac is. In addition to being much faster that comparison wasn't fair to the new system either, since on the old one I wasn't using the Mac during the render, with the new one I checked email, browsed the web and wrote some letters, so it was being used for other things and still rendered the scene that much faster. For some uses it's a mere five or six times faster, for Bryce rendering the difference is huge.

    Post edited by Fire Angel on
  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    The longest I've waited is three weeks. I wouldn't recommend it though. There was a power cut. Read the whole sorry story here. http://www.bryce5.com/details.php?image_id=601&mode=search

  • Fire AngelFire Angel Posts: 229
    edited December 1969

    OK this is now a struggle against Bryce bugs; every time I add another beastie now I have a 50% chance of getting the dreaded "Object Missing" error when reloading the scene. This tells me I can't add too many more of them. Since I want to portray quite a large herd I may have to render two images and assemble them in PhotoShop.

    Use the instancing lab to replicate your beasts. Smaller memory footprint.


    I can only start doing that once I have enough of them loaded with different poses; if you replicate animals in a herd with identical poses it becomes horribly obvious. What annoys me is knowing that on Bryce 5.01 I could have assembled this scene with ease and added at least ten more of those creatures without a problem. I may be starting a greetings card business next year, and if I do I will be buying an older Mac so I can use Bryce 5.01 for building scenes instead of any of the later ones. I have one scene I built in Bryce 5.01 that I would happily let DAZ have to test Bryce next time they decide to work on it. I can load and render it in Bryce 7 to get much faster rendering, but any attempt to save it crashes Bryce 7 every time. Attempts to build the scene in Bryce 7 were also pointless.

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

    OK this is now a struggle against Bryce bugs; every time I add another beastie now I have a 50% chance of getting the dreaded "Object Missing" error when reloading the scene. This tells me I can't add too many more of them. Since I want to portray quite a large herd I may have to render two images and assemble them in PhotoShop.

    Use the instancing lab to replicate your beasts. Smaller memory footprint.


    I can only start doing that once I have enough of them loaded with different poses; if you replicate animals in a herd with identical poses it becomes horribly obvious. What annoys me is knowing that on Bryce 5.01 I could have assembled this scene with ease and added at least ten more of those creatures without a problem. I may be starting a greetings card business next year, and if I do I will be buying an older Mac so I can use Bryce 5.01 for building scenes instead of any of the later ones. I have one scene I built in Bryce 5.01 that I would happily let DAZ have to test Bryce next time they decide to work on it. I can load and render it in Bryce 7 to get much faster rendering, but any attempt to save it crashes Bryce 7 every time. Attempts to build the scene in Bryce 7 were also pointless.

    Agreed. It is very annoying. This same issue also seems to affect the Terrain Editor. Include one planetary resolution terrain in your scene and everything slows down, even going in and out of unrelated labs. I don't know why this started happening and as you say, it didn't have the same impact on earlier versions of Bryce. It would be nice if it was addressed.

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