Part I: Making the Darn Model.

This tutorial will guide you through the steps required to make a fairly simple 18th century cannon model in Bryce 5, as well as prepare the model for animation. Even though this model is fairly simple, the processes and techniques for making this model are exactly the same as what's used for more complicated designs (you'll just have to make more of the same things).

First, create a new document in Bryce 5. Move the mouse pointer until the main menubar appears at the top of the screen. Click on "File" and then select "Document Setup." In the document setup, change the Document Aspect Ratio to 1:1, the document Resolution to 640x640, and make sure that AntiAliasing is selected for Superfine. Click the checkmark to close the setup window, and you're now ready to start modeling.

To create the gun mount, first make sure that the Create tools are selected, and click on the cube to create a cube. Since the Cube, which should be called "cube 1," is already selected, there should be a series of small icons to the right of the object. Click on the "A" icon (top icon box) to edit the attributes. In the top part of the General Attributes are a series of options for boolean editing, and by default "neutral" is selected. Change this setting to "positive." Below the boolean settings are a series of numbers that determine the overall dimensions of the object and its position in Bryce space. Go to the Size boxes, and change the x value to 10, the Y value to 10 and the Z value to 20. Now go to the Origin boxes, and assign 0 to the X and Z values, and 8 for the Y value. Press ENTER or click on the checkmark to close the attribute window and verify your changes, and you now should have an elongated box floating above the ground plane.

To texture the object, click on the "M" icon. Once in the Materials window, click on the arrow at the top righthand corner of the material preview, which will open up your Bryce 5 pre-set materials libraries. Click on the "Simple&Fast" library, and scroll down until you find the wood grain textures. Either the Maple or the Cedar (the texture I used) will work nicely. select the texture, and click the check mark or hit enter to select, and the material will be set. Just click the check mark at the bottom of the material window or hit enter again to close the window and apply the selected texture to the object.

Now here come the somewhat tricky part. Go to the main menu (by moving your mouse to the top of the screen) and select "Edit" and then "Duplicate" which creates an exact duplicate of the selected object at the same exact position as the first. The new object is automatically selected, so edit its attributes, but this time change the boolean setting to "Negative," change the Origin to X=0, Y=12.25, and Z=2.25, and change the Size to X=11, Y=2.50, and Z=5.50, hit enter when done. There is no need to texture the object, since the textures were automatically copied during the duplication process. Now select both the first cube and the second cube by holding Ctrl and clicking on the first cube, and a list of selectable objects pops up. Since Cube 2 should already be selected, release the Ctrl key and and hold the Shift key while clicking on the "Cube 1." Now that both cubes are selected, there should be a new icon to the right of the objects that is labeled with a "G." This is the Grouping tool. All you have to do is click it, and the objects are now grouped. In the prieview window in the upper lefthand corner of the screen, you should now see that there is a gap in the first box that's the same size as the second box. By assigning a positive value to the first box, a negative value to the second box and grouping them, you've essentially told the program to subtract the second object's volume from the first object. This is known as boolean editing. If you want to do anything in Bryce, you'll be doing this a lot.

Now that you've created your first boolean, here's a quick way to finish off the gun mount: Select the negative object by holding Ctrl and clicking on the second box to bring up a list of objects as before. This time, simply release the Ctrl key and click on the "Cube 2" object, and that will de-select the group (which by default is called "Group 1") and highlight just the negative box. Duplicate the negative box as stated bofore, but change the Position and Size to 0,11.25,-5.25 for the Position, and 11,4.50,10.50 for the Size. If you didn't already notice, this duplicated object has automatically been included in the boolean group. This, ladies and gentlemen, saves a HUGE amount of time when working with complex designs. Now if you look at the preview window (particularly the side view) you should start to see that the cannon mount is starting to take shape. To put a cap on the base mount, simply duplicate the object currently selected, and change the position and dimensions to: 0,10,0 for the Position, and 5,7,22 for the size.

What you have, thus far, should look like this:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Step1.jpg

Now to move on to the next part of the model: the Wheels.

This stage is fairly simple. First create a cylinder, then assign the following values to it: Origin: X=0, Y=3, Z=7.5; Size: X=2, Y=17, Z=2; Rotate: X=0, Y=0, Z=90 degrees. For texture, go to the texture menu, open the preset library, and go to the "Metals" library. Select the "Cast Iron" texture and apply it to the object. Duplicate the cylinder, and change its Size to 6,2,6, and Origin to 6.5,3,7.5. Duplicate this object, and change the X value of the origin to -6.5. Select all three cylinders and group them. Go to the group's attributes, and change the name of the group to "Front Wheels" (this helps keep track of the objects for when you start animating). Now duplicate the group, and change the group's origins to 0,3,-7.5 and re-name this second group to "Rear Wheels."

Your cannon should now look like this:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Step2.jpg

The barrel and accompanying parts gets a wee bit complicated, so pay close attention. First create a torus, and rotate it 90 on the Y axis. Change the Size to 4.5,4.5,1.5 and the origin to 3.25,11,2.5. The texture used in this demonstration is the "Hammered Steel" preset found in the "Metals" section of the preset library. Duplicate this object, and change the X origin of the new torus to a -3.25. Now you have the clasps for securing the barrel done. For the Barell itself, first create a cylinder and make the rotation 90 deg on the Z axis, position it at 0,11,2.5, and change the Size to 2.5,9,2.5. Rename the cylinder to "Barrel Pin." The reason for this will be explained later. Edit the materials, and apply the "Hammered Steel" texture, however, instead of just applying it, we're going to play around with it a bit to make it look like that ol' black cannon steel. Change the diffuse color to a slightly darker grey, and the ambient color to an equally dark grey or brown color. Also, add the texture to the diffusion mapping by clicking on the circle in the "A" column. Your texture window should now look like this:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Material.jpg

Before closing the window, click on the "copy" button below the preview, then either hit the Enter key or click on the checkmark.

Create a new cylinder and assign it a positive boolean value before moving it to an Origin of 0,10.5,0, rotating it 90 degrees along the X axis, and changing its Size to 5,20,5. To apply the previously copied texture, edit the material and click the "paste" button under the material preview, then press Enter or click the checkmark. Now duplicate the cylinder, and change its size to 4.5,5,4.5 and its position to 0,10.5,14.5. Duplicate this one, and where the toolbar is on the top of the screen, click "Edit" There should now be a seris of boxes representing various editing opetions, as well as a small Icon that looks like this: <--> Click the two arrows, and a list of the various objects that can be created in Bryce will pop up. Hold the mouse button and drag the cursor to the torus icon and release the button. You have now changed your cylinder to a torus. Edit the torus' attributes, and give it the following values: Rotate: 0,0,0; Origin: 0,10.5,12.5; Size:6,6,1. Duplicate this Torus, and assign these values: Change the Z Origin to 16.5, and the X and Y sizes to 5.5.

Duplicate this torus, and use the Edit tool to change the new object to a sphere. Change the Sphere's Z origin value to -7.5, and change the size to 5,5,5. Duplicate this spere, and change the Z Origin to -10.25, and change the Size to 2,2,2. Now one final bit for the Barrell: Select the first cylinder made for the barell (the one created AFTER the Barrel Pin cylinder was), and duplicate it. Make the new cylinder Nevgative, change its z position to 7.5, and reduce the X and Z values to 3.5. Select all these objects EXCEPT THE BARREL PIN CYLINDER AND THE FIRST TWO TORII MADE, and group them. Name the resulting group "Barrel" Edit the attributes of the "Barrel" group, and select the "Linking" tab. Click on the box below where it says "Object Parent Name" to display a list of linkable objects, and select the object you re-named "Barrel Pin" and press enter or click the check mark. Now, whenever you move or rotate the Barrel Pin, the rest of the Barrel will move with it.

For the final part of the model, Select the "Gun Mount" group, The "Front Wheels" and "Rear Wheels" groups, the Barrel Pin cylinder and the first two torii created and group them in one big group that we'll just call the "Carriage." The almost complete cannon should now look like this:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Step3.jpg

Now to get the cannon looking right, select the Barrel pin and change its y rotation to 10 degrees. If you didn't already, you'll have to clidk on the "General" attributes tab to hide the linking options and bring up the standard attribute editing options.

One last step, and your model will be ready to animate. Bring up the main menu, select "File" and "Document Setup," and change the Document Resolution to 140x140 (a good size for most Civ III units this size), and click on the check mark or press enter. Go to the Camera view. On the left side of the screen, just right of the zoom, trackball, and view controls are four downward pointing arrows. Click on the second arrow down from the top and it will bring up the camera menu. Select "Edit Current Camera..." to bring up the camera attribute menu. This menu should look familliar, since it's almost identical to the object attribute menu. Click on the Linking tab, and assign Plane 1 (the default ground plane) as both the Object Parent Name AND the Track Object Name. Click on the "General" tab, and change the origin to -4500, 3500, 4500, the FOV to 1 degree and the Scale to 150%. Finally, click on the "Sky and Fog" toolbar and enter the skylab by clicking on the small icon that looks like a cloud and rainbow. For Sun and Moon, put the sun controls at the bottom right corner and leave everything else alone. For the Cloud cover, deselect everything, leaving a blank blue box for the preview. For the Atmosphere setting, deselect everything except the Fog and Haze, and set BOTH those to 0 density. Now click on the arrow to the right of the preview box and click the Add button at the bottom left corner to add this sky to your preset skies, since you'll be using these settings for all your future units.

Congratulations, the unit is now ready to animate. The finished product should look like this:

Default, Fidget & Run animation tutorial:

Okay First up is the default and fidget/fortify/victory animations. Actually for our purposes, they'll be one and the same (sort of)

Now that you have your cannon model compelted, go to "File" and "Document Setup" and set the animation to 8 frames. Now save this file as CannonFidget.br5 (or something like that, just so you remember what it is). this way if you screw up the animation, you have the default un-animated model as backup.

Next, sellect the "Barrel Pin" object, and direct your attention to the lower left-hand corner of the screen. There should be a bar with a series of tick marks and a slider. The darkened tick marks are the frames that make your animation up, and each tick mark represents 1 frame.

Now Click and drag the slider to frame 4, and edit the attributes of the Barrel Pin object, changing the Z rotation from 10 back to zero. Now move the slider to the last frame and change the rotation back to the original value.

If you're not already in the camera view, switch to the camera view and move the slider back to frame 1.

Minimize Bryce (after saving your work), and create a new directory on whatever drive you'll be rendering to (name it something like "In Progress units" or "Renders" or whatever will help you remember what it's for). Inside of this new folder, create 8 more folders. Name one "N", one "NW", one "W", one "SW", then "S", "SE", "E", and "NE". These folders are where you'll be rendering each direction of your animation.

Close your "My Computer" explorer window and restore Bryce 5

Select the ground plain (By holding CTRL and Left clicking anywhere on the plain object). Go to the "File" menu and select "Render Animation". When the Animation render window pops up, click on the bar that says "AVI Sequence" to open the output dialog box, then select "BMP Sequence" from the options. Where it says "Output Directory", click on the folder and select the "SW" folder inside the one you previously made, then click on the checkmark. Now you'll have to wait several minutes (depending on how fast your computer is) while all 8 frames are rendered out.

Once the rendering is done, you'll see the photo browser pop up, and you can sequence the images to get a rough idea of what your unit will look like animated. (the barrel should bob down then back up). Close the photo browser and you'll see that the animation in Bryce is on the last frame.

Move the slider back to the first frame, open the object attributes of the ground plain (Plain 1) and rotate it 45 degrees along the Y axis (Y Rotate=45). Now the cannon should be facing S. Open the File menu and select Render animation again. This time, the only thing you have to change is the output directory. Go to the folder you named "S" and click on the checkmark (or press enter) and the South facing direction will be rendered. Repeat this process 6 more times, incrementing the rotation by 45 degrees each time and rendering in the appropriate folder.

Once you're done rendering, save and close bryce 5 and open one of the images in PsP or Photoshop and find out what the exact values of the pink background color are. Write them down and open Stephs SBB program (if you don't have it already, go to the utilities section and download it). Select the "Single Unit Storyboard" option, and under the "BMP file path", go to one of your sub-folders and Click on the "CannonFidget0000.BMP" file and click "ok". Once you do this, you'll see a preview of the animation in the small window, as well as all 8 direction boxes checked off. over on the side you'll see a color with editible RGB value boxes (set to 255 0 255 by default) followed by an "=>" and another color with editible RGB value boxes. Select the first set of RGB boxes and enter the RGB values you got from your paint program, and SBB will also automatically change the BG to the proper color.

Now click "Generate Storyboard" and once it runs through, close SBB and open FLICster (again dL latest version from utilities if you don't have it) and generate a new Storyboard (.FXM & blank PCX) file with the following properties: Size: 140x140, Frames: 8, and Speed: 100. Generate the Storyboard file and minimize FLICster. Open PsP (or Photoshop or GIMP or whatever paint program capable of handling custom palettes you have) and (I reccomend) once you've extracted a palette for a similarly colored unit by using FLICster (generating a FXM file from an existing unit will also output a JASC (PsP) palette file automatically), and load the palette into your true color BMP storyboard file. Now save this over top of the "CannonFidget.pcx" file that was generated by FLICster, and minimize or close your paint program.

Restore Flicster, and click on the "animation preview" tab, and you'll be able to see your unit in action. Go to the Export tab, and export it as a Civ III .FLC file. After you've checked your newly generated FLC, re-export the FXM file, but change the number of frames to "1" and change the file name to "CannonDefault", and now you have your still default animation, and that wraps up the Default/Fidget/Fortify/Victory animation tutorial (we'll be using the Fidget animation for the Fortify and Victory as well)

Sorry about the long delay, gut my time has been short latley....

Anyways, here's the attack animation in a nutshell:

Create a new Sphere that's as big around as the inside of the cannons barrel (4.5,4.5,4.5) and place it into the cannon's barrel. Go to the Texture Lab, and choose the "Fire 6" from the User Material library (after downloading and unzipping the file attached in the next post into your Bryce 5 folder). Next, set the animation to 10 frames (frame 0-9), and start the sphere for the fire at 0% density for frame 0, then for frames 1-6, set it to 100%. Then make frame 7 80%, fame 8 70% and frame 9 0% again. At the 3 frame mark, move the sphere just outside the cannon barrel and make it long the direction the cannon is facing, and fiddle with the X and Z rotation to get it to match the barrel's direction. At Frame 6, move it so that it is further away from the cannon, spherical and 2x as big as the original (9,9,9). For frame 9, leave the sphere at it's current position, but expand it until it is 13,13,13 in size.

Congratulations! Your attack animation is now done. The death is similar, except that you put the sphere at the center of the cannon, and leave it where it is and make the barrel assembly lift up and turn around a bit before it falls back on the chassis (or ground if you want a BIG explosion). Rendering is the same as before.

Misc data & other Helpful stuff:

UPDATE: For those interested in using Bryce to do Humanoid or walking units, here's the entire Galbadian Elite Soldier animation file set, including the un-animated rigged base model:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/43985/GalbadianModels.rar

First up is the Fire & metal presets I use in most of my units. Just download and unzip into your bryce 5\presets folder, then use the material option "Import" and select the Fire&Smoke.mat and Metals.mat files.

Smoke, Fire and Metal texture presets (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Presets.zip)

Next is three pre-fab objects that I've used in some of my units.... The leftmost one in the preview is the 14-inch twin turret from the Land-Battleship, which I also used on the Land Ironclad. It has three hidden objects; LFwd14inElev and RFwd14InElev allow you to independently raise and lower the barrels, and Fwd14InRot (hidden cylinder directly under turred) enables you to rotate the whole turret assembly. The middle one is a generic gunflash that I've used in EVERY full-auto MG/light cannon sequence (Death machine & Custom Sweeper attack b, Advanced Airship Mk II attack c, Gatling Gun, etc). Just link it to the gun turret that you're using, and set the Material density to 0% until you begin firing, then alterante between 0% and 100% to get that full-auto gunfire effects. The last one is a generic Missile that I used in the Highwind attacks and the Advanced Airship Mk II attack A. Just move it from point a (launcher) to point b (target).... It's that simple.

Bryce prefab pack #1 (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/BrycePack1.zip)

Nice. Look forward to using it in a little while after I get Bryce.:)

You gonna be finishing this?

Would begging help? :D

^Hehehe.
I'd like that too, but for much later(I have a dream, to make naval units as good as Wyrmshadow's. Though that's probably gonna stay a dream! :p )

Patience, please!! I've been spending about 10 hours a day working on Leader Heads, searching the WWW for Poser Props, and starting on the models for units I've promised to do for the Steampunk mod. I'll be getting back to this soon enough (not right now, though, since my PC is occupied with rendering another LH, and that's going to take at least 4 hours).

One quick question on the first part: How do you get the back ground pink?

any idea on what i can use to animate my model or how? :confused:

Well, If you've made the cannon by the instructions I've set forth in the first part, I'll be writing a tutorial for the basic default, fidget and run animations. For instance, the barell pin allows you to raise and lower the barell, so for the fidget, I was going to tell you to set the animation time length to 8 frames, and move the slider to 3, select the barel pin and rotate it back to its original configuration, and at frame 8 return it to the state it was in frame 1 (as it was at the end of the first part of the tutorial). That way, when you render out the fidget animation, you'll see the barell tilt forward, then return to its original position. I'll be posting more detail sometime tomorrow. I won't have any pictures, because I don't have much time with all my other projects, not to mention that if you did everything like I said in the first part, you should be able to easily select the part I name in the animation section, and manipulate it from there.

Marine Corps: you get the Ground pink by selecting the ground plain that's automatically generated with every new file, then go to the materials lab and change the diffuse, ambient and specular colors from gray to magenta. Of course, since bryce doesn't display a RGB value readout when selecting the colors, you'll have to guestimate. I do have a texture that I've ALMOST got dead on. When using the sky/lighting preset I described in the first part, the final rendered ground was 255,58,255. I'll most likely be compiling all the best textures I've managed to make or gather into one easy to download User texture library file which you just have to merely unzip inot your Bryce 5 folder. I'll be adding this info to the Errata/tips section.

when i render the cannon while im making it it looks flat. im using the ceter render button on the create screen. am i doing something wrong.

Umm... Go to "File" on the main menubar, then to document setup. In the document setup, it wll have a "Anti-Aliasing" box with two choices: Standard and Superfine. Make sure that "superfine" is selected. (I can't believe I forgot to mention that)

good point, you did mention, i forgot

will this be finished? i really want to make units...

Quizny, It is pretty much finished.... All that you really need to know for making units in Bryce is in this thread. The rest you just gotta kind of experiment with.... I WILL be posting my personal texture library (including all the some and fire effects as well as the metal textures I used on the Tesla Tank, Land Battleship and Highwind).

I'll also post the attack animation files for some of my simpler units so that you can pick them apart and see how I did it. The problem is that I'm too busy MAKING units to write a tutorial on how to make them, however, if you have any particular difficulty, just PM me and I'll try to help you out.

hey Hikaro, this is all I have so far, it doesnt even look close to what you have, can you help me? here is a screenie, and a zip w/ my save files, just tell me what I did wrong, Please.

Well, looking at your file, it's simple: You created two Paralell lights (which, BTW are good for some fancy lighting FX) rather than two cubes as you intended. In the creation menu, all the lights have a sort of light beam behind the object and are yellow... Your geometric solids are blue and larger than the lights. You can change the two paralell lights into cubes by clicking on the "Edit" menu, then click on the small icon that looks like this: <--> and drag the mouse over to the blue cube that appears. You'll have to do this for both paralell lights. Also, FYI, you don't want to include the ground plane in your object group, as that can have wierd results, especially if you need to move the group around.

is poser easier to use, because Im getting it tommorow, off my friend, its poser 4, dont really know much about poser, just when I used it today, it was really funny, I liked it, didnt seem too hard.

Well, in some ways it is (namely you don't have to make your own models), but in others it's harder (animating, especially making a good run animation). Did you get your model to work?

Bryce isn't hard to use, just time-consuming.....

well, im going to work on it sometime tommorow evening, when I get Poser 4, do you have any complete files I can look at for bryce?

Did you download my Bryce 5 object pack? it includes a complete model of a 14-inch twin gun turret, a gunflash prop and a Missile, and they are all in separate complete bryce 5 files, so you can pick them apart.

never mind Bryce, I have Poser now, so now Im gonna learn Poser.

howed you get bryce 5?????

He bought it like plenty of people have told you.

No, I got it for free, that and Poser 4. absolutely free.

Well, I wouldn't boast about being a pirate if I were you. Not exactly encouraged on these fora.

Except Goldflash, we encourage him to be a pirate :)

what is bryce 5 never heard of it. can u help me ? please respond

bryce 5 is a 3d modeling program. it costs about 80 US $.

that's a whole hell of alot is it new?

For a 3D program $80 is cheap hell for a graphics program period. Look at the proce of lightwave or 3D Studio max if you want to see some high prices. Also Bryce like most programs has evovlved over time bryce 5 is the 5th version the latest one out right now is version 5.5.
Did you download my Bryce 5 object pack?
Where is that posted?

near the end of page 1, post 4.

no its not pirated, I did not make a copy of the cd-rom, I just put the whole thing on a jump drive, and thats how I got poser 4 as well.

hey hikaro, how do you export a model to 3ds? the option of expoting is greyed out.

hey hikaro, how do you export a model to 3ds? the option of expoting is greyed out.
http://www.brycetech.com/tutor/bryce/export.html

yeah, i found that out after i posted this. its a pity really, but i realise how impossible it is.

exporting what is impossible? I do it all the time. Quite easy. Was just easier to send you the link than to explain it all.
Are you asking how to export booleans? That is gonna be an option in Bryce 6.0 which is due out before christmas (no clue on the actual date).
btw: Several months back I saw Bryce 5.01 at Fry's for only 29.00 (for those who don't have it yet). 5.5c is the current version but typically runs around 80 bucks.
Those that have 5.5 will supposedly get a very good upgrade price on v6.

yeah, i meant exporting booleans. i understand that terrain is possible, but booleans aren't due to the whole possitive/negative settings and that only visible in rendering etc..

oh, and cheers for the info!

now that bryce 5 is free, ill start using this tutorial, im glad its here...!

Ok...Hikaro, or anyone else familiar with Bryce...

I am at the end of the first post...I am pretty sure I have the geometric part figured out...negative spaces and what not...linking, grouping etc...

My problem is, I couldnt follow this part:
"Select "Edit Current Camera..." to bring up the camera attribute menu....".......up until the end of the post

I dont see tabs in my camera attribute menu(free version?)...I dodnt understand at all what you mean by "Lower right" for the "Sun"...in fact none of the lighting part makes any sence to me...Im sure Im just missing something...

what I have looks like this:

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6517/firstunitpreviewmn1.th.jpg (http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=firstunitpreviewmn1.jpg)

Like I said, the actual cannon was a breeze...I just cant seem to grasp the lights yet...

set the sun thing directly downwards (well, thats what i do) like so.
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/9652/brycecu4.jpg

as for the camera, its here:
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/112/bryce2te5.jpg

ok, I dont want to load up Bryce...but when I click that arrow, my little box doesnt have those tabs...just the general one

[edit] I cant explain without showing...so I opened it up :)

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/8578/bryceviewac5.th.jpg (http://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bryceviewac5.jpg)

See...no tabs...am I in the wrong place??

Oh and thanks for the sun tip...worked great

it should have an "edit current camera" thing at the bottom. click on that and this'll come up.

EDIT: your in the wrong camera. select the secondary camera.

I did...its at the very bottom of the menu...I posted a pic of what came up **points to above post**

does bryce import lwo files?

Poly, yes, i does.
Spacer, select the secondary camera. change from "director" to "camera".

Hmmm ok...lemme see what I can figure out...I'll post my results later

swap from this http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4671/bryce4lw4.jpg to this http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8042/bryce5fj9.jpg by draging that thing by draging the mouse to the right a bit.

Ha Ha...that did it!!...I was on some weird locked camera...ok...new preview...

does this one look more like it should?...

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/2858/bryceviewps4.th.jpg (http://img243.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bryceviewps4.jpg)

on to the animation...Im hoping to add a little backwards motion to the tutorial...Ive read it once over...we'll see...

generate a new Storyboard (.FXM & blank PCX) file with the following properties: Size: 140x140, Frames: 8, and Speed: 100. Generate the Storyboard file and minimize FLICster. Open PsP (or Photoshop or GIMP or whatever paint program capable of handling custom palettes you have) and (I reccomend) once you've extracted a palette for a similarly colored unit by using FLICster (generating a FXM file from an existing unit will also output a JASC (PsP) palette file automatically), and load the palette into your true color BMP storyboard file. Now save this over top of the "CannonFidget.pcx" file that was generated by FLICster, and minimize or close your paint program.


Stuck again...My question sounds stupid no matter how I ask it...I dont think I understand SBB, or flicster, or both...

[edit] download removed...problem solved

Duplicate this one, and where the toolbar is on the top of the screen, click "Edit" There should now be a seris of boxes representing various editing opetions, as well as a small Icon that looks like this: <--> Click the two arrows, and a list of the various objects that can be created in Bryce will pop up.

Please show me whit the screene where it is! :(

does bryce import lwo files?
yes it does load both LWO and LWS, but only file format 5.6 or older.
Deep exploration can fix this, if you have to work alot with newer Lightwave files. If you are a student, you can get DeepExploration for around 20-25 bucks. Otherwise it is 120-150.
However given that there is more content then most of us have disk space, you can probably find all you want in LWS/LWO 5.6, 3ds, cob, obj, etc not to mention native Bryce and Poser stuff.

here is the camera angle I use.
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/7620/camerabj5.jpg
I originally had a more complex way of doing it, but Wyrmshadow showed a simpler system. It works very well.
I use the above settings, tweaking them a bit for each unit. I have the camera locked (parented) to the ground. I then rotate the ground plane and the camera maintains perfect settings and the unit is not moved. This makes animating complex units MUCH faster.

With SBB & Flicster, it is pretty simple but horribly complex (the first few times only)
For SBB, you just make a folder... say
cannon
Within this I like to make yet another folder called FRAMES.
within that make subfolders
cannon\frames\e
cannon\frames\se
cannon\frames\ne
cannon\frames\n
cannon\frames\nw
cannon\frames\w
cannon\frames\sw
cannon\frames\s
tip: make a folder called templates
within templates make a folder called frames with all the sub folders. All should be empty, then for each new unit copy the needed folder tree over from templates to speed things up.
Within Bryce render your cannon in some facing.
Lets say east
make sure you use good names
cannon_Default0000.bmp as your first file
then rotate your scene 45 degrees. If you linked your camera to your ground plane, just select your ground plane and change the facing on that
render in the new facing (se for example) and continue rotating and rendering until you get back to your original facing.
You are now done with defautl.
Open SBB, navigate to a folder with the frames. Select the first one, and it will make the storyboard for you.
that should be enough to get you started. Let us know how it goes.

Ok...I got that far already...I have a file structure like this:

+New Unit
+N
+S
+W
+E
+SE
+SW
+NE
+NW


in each file folder I have rendered the animations frames for the direction. they are BMPs...9 in each folder...(they are called "spacers CannonS0000" - "spacers CannonS0008")

This is where Im stuck:Open SBB, navigate to a folder with the frames. Select the first one, and it will make the storyboard for you.
that should be enough to get you started. Let us know how it goes.

please see my attachment a few posts ago...I think I made the Storyboard with SBB, but I cant open it with flicster

and Bjorn, thanx for posting the camera settings...and whatever help you are willing to give...

SBB makes a single pcx image. You can't open that with Flicster. What you need to do is create a storyboard file, which includes (among other things) the pcx created by SBB.

One thing you need to do is to get the palette right with your pcx image. Quite a few of the colours can't be changed from the normal unit palette - especially the civ colours, which are kept in a certain part of the palette. The best thing to do is to get a palette from an already existing flc and edit it.

As I said, you also need to create a storyboard file. The easiest way to do this *and* to sort out the palette is simply to get some other flc that already exists (and is of the right dimensions), open it in Flicster, and export it as a storyboard. That creates four new files - the storyboard file, the storyboard pcx, and two palettes. One of these palettes is for shadows (I think) and shouldn't be fiddled with. The other one is the main unit palette. It's easiest to use PEdit (downloadable for free) to alter the palette so it suits your unit.

Then it's a matter of simply replacing the storyboard pcx with the storyboard pcx you created with SBB, and replacing the main palette file with the palette of your storyboard pcx. Then open it again in Flicster and export it as a flic.

This is all actually simpler than it sounds, honest. Utahjazz7's unit-making tutorial takes you through the whole thing step by step (his tutorial is for Poser, of course, but once you've rendered the images it's the same whatever program you used).

hello is someone gonna help me?

thanks Plot...

Partzan...I figured out what you need...I think:
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/3250/bryceviewfm7.th.jpg (http://img219.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bryceviewfm7.jpg)

basically what plotinus said except the part about using a pre-existing unit. This often doesn't work unless you planned to do this in advance and set your new unit to use the same frame size and same frame count and be in roughly the same color scheme.


once you have a storyboard the remaining steps are:
1: create a blank PCX with flicster (or Civ3FLCEdit). You need to take care to make sure that that frame size and frame count match those of your rendered frames.
2: make a copy of this "blank" and your new storyboard (just in case).
3: Set the palette in the blank to match the color scheme of your unit. Lots of various methods here, everyone has a favorite, but for your first (and experimental) unit it really doesn't matter that much.
4: once the palette in the PCX is set, use the backup of the storyboard and set it to indexed colors. Gradually reduce the colors (method varies depending on your tools) until you get to 200-160 range. You can be more or less precise depending on your quality bar and your patience.
5: Now paste the storyboard in to your blank PCX, and save it.
6: open flicster (or civ3flcedit) and convert this new PCX into a FLC.

It is only confusing and frustrating the first time or two. After that it seems easy and you wonder why it wasn't more obvious the first time (honest).

Please show me whit the screene where it is! :(
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/4954/brycearrowszd5.th.jpg (http://img244.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brycearrowszd5.jpg)
click to see larger image

flicster doesnt open PCX files for me, maybe Im doing it wrong??...I'll try civ3flicedit...

Yep, that's exactly what I was talking about... It took me about 3 months to figure that out on my own, which is why I included that operation in the tutorial (Plus, once you get familliar with the program, that function can save a lot of time for certain operations).

does anyone have a link to civ3flicedit?...I cant seem to find it with search...

[edit] its on the first page...*slaps self*

here is is, since others will need it soon:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=91253

If its not one thing, its another...the program wont open...here is the message:

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/7319/issuesbk3.th.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=issuesbk3.jpg)

it says(in case you cant read the dark BG my son set up):
This application failed to start because GraphicX.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

Woe is me...I was hoping this would be, not easy, but less hassles...I know the second unit I try will be so much easier...

i think there's a patch in the thread itself IIRC.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=2728571
links to the current version.
You must be in 32bit color for it to work. I had quite alot of problems getting this app to work. But it works just fine for me now.
I have never had any problems with Flicster.
I find it works best if the PCX is created in the app you are going to be compiling it in to a FLC.
Also, remember to save the palette too.

this is the version that is linked to in both of the above posts:
Civ3Flc

Download Civ3Flc v.1,0,1,24 (540 Kb):
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/...c_1.0.1.24.zip

But I see a refernce to:
v.3,0,7,90 Jan 20, 2005

In the thread the instructions say to open "Civ3toFlicEdit"
it also says I need:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Civ3Flc_1.0.0.20.zip
which is unavailable
and:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Civ3MM_DLL.zip

I can now get it to open, but still cant seem to understand the prog...browsing the thread, it seems Im not the only one who doenst get it at first

[edit2] I cant get Civ3flic to open PCXs either...only Gimp that I have will open them...I have a PCX with my 8 framesX8 direstions...but I cant find a prog that will convert PCX to FLC...the only step left is conversion to FLC...I didnt set the pallet properly(I wanted to take time to learn it better) , but I understand how to, and will be create preset ones that I can just load and use...but that doesnt effect the conversion process...

what prog converts PCX or BMP into flc??

flicster converts pcx to bmp. see, you need to make a storyboard in flicster the right size, animation lenght, and civ colour pallette, and open that and paste in the bmp (well, make your modifications to the pallette first) then save it, open it in flicster, and convert to flic.

{edit} deleted whiney post

Thank you all again, now I may continue until the next bump! ;)

Part I: Making the Darn Model.

...click on the arrow at the top righthand corner of the material preview, which will open up your Bryce 5 pre-set materials libraries. Click on the "Simple&Fast" library, and scroll down until you find the wood grain textures.

i cant find what you described, this is what my screen looks like:

also, as a suggestion, could you upload those pics in teh first post in imageshack, than post them as thumnails, cuz, since they are big pics, we have to constantly scroll right and left in order to read the text.

thanks

how do you copy an object?

you duplicate an object by scrolling to the top of the screen, and clicking the file menu...down the list is "duplicate"

as far as the textures...See the ball with the blue sky, that looks like its on the ground??? there is an arrow on the upper right of that box with the ball

it says:
Copy Paste (ARROW)...follow the right arrow up to the top of the little box...whala...textures!!

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/9053/brycematrj6.th.jpg (http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brycematrj6.jpg)
click to enlarge
That is the arrow that bring up the list he was talking about.
You copy an object just like you would anything else in windows.
Select it and hit CTRL + C and then CTRL + V to paste. Or, you can use the menus to copy. There is also multi-replicate to make a whole lotta something.

When I click on that arrow, I don't see any libraries.

When I click on that arrow, I don't see any libraries.
Then you probably didn't download the "extra" content.
As I understand it from reading on the Daz web site there was some more stuff you can DL once you get your serial number from them.
It should look like this:
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5200/brycemat2ai3.th.jpg (http://img101.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brycemat2ai3.jpg)
again click for larger image


Spacer One, typing a reply to you too...

Okay, I saw the extra download, I just didn't spend the time to do it. I'll do it and report back.

Spacer One,
With Civ3FlcEdit I am using version 3,1,7,101. Works just fine.
Perhaps make a copy of an existing FLC, and practise converting it to PCX and back again?

To Convert a PCX to a FLC you must first create the PCX with either Flicster or Civ3FlcEdit.
With Flicster,
open the app.
select file menu, then new
The default is for 1 frame of animation (such as a static default animation), for your BMP set this to 8
Set the frame size from 16 to your frame size.... probably 135 x something
save the PCX to some easy to find location.
open the PCX (using Photoshop, PaintShop or Gimp) copy the BMP in. Save the PCX.
Load the FXM file with Flicster, select the export tab, click on the export button... and voila.

With Civ3FlcEdit
open the app
select new storyboard
click on output and set the save location
change the frame size and the frame count to match your BMP
click on the create button.
Open the PCX in your paint program
paste in the storyboard
open civ3FlcEdit
go to File\Open
navigate to the place where you made the PCX.
select the c3f file.
go to the files menu, select Export to FLC
and you're done

I entered Bjornos camera angle, but now when i render the colours are replaced with white and sky blue:

I entered Bjornos camera angle, but now when i render the colours are replaced with white and sky blue:
You also have to turn off most of the sky... ooops I forgot to mention it. Sorry

Attached is a sample blank scene. This one is not square, so I have to change the vertical offset slightly to get the unit perfectly centered.

var, clear the haze and cloud cover in the sky lab. hikaro already mentioned it in the tutorial.

Alcosta: I have a custom tex library, mostly fire, metal and smoke textures uploaded here, and you can download it in the third or fourth post of this thread (the one with some bryce model presets I also uploaded)

WHoooo hooooo

here it is...my first working FLC!!..

I know there is some kind of fuzzy line around it in a view or two...and the barrel isnt connected(typo in position I assume...but when I do my own units, I will synch up by eye...Im better that way, than with numbered coords)...the point is...I made a functioning FLC...

I will now go back to the Bryce save before I rendered, and correct the barrel...rerender, correct the pallet(tho with only minor adjustments, it came out fine...and I suspect that I can keep 3-5 pallets saved to save much time)...and redo the flc...just for myself...Im not making this a working unit(unless you just want it to roll around and waggle its barrel at things) because I dont want to learn how to do smoke and fire yet...Im gonna stay basic for now...

WHoooo hooooo

here it is...my first working FLC!!..

Congratulations!

thanks so much Bjornlo, Hikaro, Quinzy(I feel like I won an award), Wyrm...etc...I hope this is the start of a new day for me & Modding... :)

taht was fast, you created a unit in no time, :goodjob:

Fantastic! A new unit maker emerges.

Looks like you've got the technique worked out now. Looking at the flic, one point I would make is that the shadow doesn't look very good. You've got solid grey shadow, but for it to work in Civ, it needs to be dark pink, since that is displayed in game as dark transparent. I don't know how this should be done in Bryce, though...

Fantastic! A new unit maker emerges.

Looks like you've got the technique worked out now. Looking at the flic, one point I would make is that the shadow doesn't look very good. You've got solid grey shadow, but for it to work in Civ, it needs to be dark pink, since that is displayed in game as dark transparent. I don't know how this should be done in Bryce, though...


actually, make th eshadow lime green, so it does not blend in with the background therefore becoming transparent. So, lime green should work, then fill up the last two lines of the palette with lime green, this tells civ it's a shadow, so it will cast a black shadow in game. Just remember that when your editing the palette, to leave magenta as the last space.

Ok:

A) its NOT a new unit...its a half @$$ed flc...among the other issues noted is the fact that in E & W facing, the barrel isnt connected...or that there is no alpha blending in flicster
B) Thanks again everyone :)
C) Plot...the colors in the flic are NOT right...I skipped the "tweak th pallet" step because Im using GIMP, and I know how to do it...this was to learn Modeling and rednering/converting which it did nicely...now Im gonna get started on my first unit :)
D) is the last spot on the palett magenta(magic pink) or dark purple??I have it as both depending on the flc I convert

Fantastic! A new unit maker emerges.

Looks like you've got the technique worked out now. Looking at the flic, one point I would make is that the shadow doesn't look very good. You've got solid grey shadow, but for it to work in Civ, it needs to be dark pink, since that is displayed in game as dark transparent. I don't know how this should be done in Bryce, though...
The shadow is not hard to do correctly in Bryce. Spacer One did it this way as a learning exercise. If he uses the blank scene I posted (which I got from Wyrmshadow and mildly tweaked to my own tastes) his shadows will display correctly in game.

Also, Space one... this really was fast for a first unit. A new 3d program, plus having to learn SBB, Flicster/Civ3flcEdit all at once.

D) is the last spot on the palett magenta(magic pink) or dark purple??I have it as both depending on the flc I convert
Take apart a few existing units to see how the palettes are organized.
In Gimp, the last two lines are smoke and shadow. The first 4 lines are reserved... Civ colors, etc

Ok, I'll admit it, I'm a lazy SOB, but what I've done, for the most part, is take pallettes from Kinboat's units that most closely match my unit's color, and then tweak it to fit... the shadow color set up that Kinboat uses is one of, if not THE best, IMO, so in the cases where I used pallettes from Firaxis units, I always changed the last two rows to the same values that Kinboat used for his units' shadows.

Hope that helped a bit :)

Bjornlo...I did take apart a few units, and in a few the last color is a weird dark purple Ive never used before...

Hikaro...I will keep that in mind...good tip

thanks for the great encouragement...you guys are a great learning environment

the last color needs to be whatever your background is, it can be dark blue , as long as your backgournd is bark blue. What civ does is convert all the colors with the same value as the last one on the palette, to transparent. If you need help on palette editing, i have a whole tuturial based on it...

What did you use for that blue-and-pink background? All I get is a sky background.

What did you use for that blue-and-pink background? All I get is a sky background.
download the scene I posted. It has the right camera angles and colors.

Here is the glass I use.
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/6267/brycewindowdy1.jpg
I vary the transparency from 40 to 80 depending on how much of the interior I want to show.
It is a teal color which does not change to civ color.

Hey, BryceMasters, I have a question, how do you make explosions and lasers? I know Hikaro and Bjornlo have done these, so how?

How do you edit the colors?

Edit: Figured out.

Thanks for the tutorial! I learnt a lot from it.

But I have a question: How do you select exactly the object you want? I can't seem to select what I want, but just what is in front of my object... I wasn't able to complete the cannon from the tutorial just because I got stuck when I couldn't select one of the cylinders.

hold the ctrl key, and click over the item you want to select...a menu should appear with a list of every item in the stack...

Yeah and if I click any of the items in the menu, the item I selected first is automatically deselected.

then use the shift key.

Thanks, you are right, it works!

Edit: figured it out.

Hey, BryceMasters, I have a question, how do you make explosions and lasers? I know Hikaro and Bjornlo have done these, so how?

I missed this; have you figured it out or is this still something you want help with?

Thanks for the tutorial! I learnt a lot from it.

But I have a question: How do you select exactly the object you want? I can't seem to select what I want, but just what is in front of my object... I wasn't able to complete the cannon from the tutorial just because I got stuck when I couldn't select one of the cylinders.

Items can be selected individually or by groups.
They can be selected by color as well (which color group you assign them too from the table of 25 colors.
You can click on the little globe in the lower right corner and toggle back and forth between the animation stuff and the editing stuff.
Tha animation stuff includes settings for frames, etc.
The editing stuff includes a menu (on the bottom tool bar) which allows you to select individual meshes, if you imported any, and groups of items as well.

just out of curiosity, is there a way to negate all animations in a file? like, if i had something animated, could i click a "wipe animations" button that cancelles all animations?

Bjorn, I need help with those animations. Also, how do you get a unit perfectly centered in your template? I have the change the coordinates for every direction, and I'm sure that will screw things up when I work on the animations. Also, does anyone know how to get GIMP to load pallettes?

just out of curiosity, is there a way to negate all animations in a file? like, if i had something animated, could i click a "wipe animations" button that cancelles all animations?
The shift key held down while clicking on the - (minus) key in the key frames. Then imediately keyframe again so that the current setting is taken for all frames.

Bjorn, I need help with those animations. Also, how do you get a unit perfectly centered in your template? I have the change the coordinates for every direction, and I'm sure that will screw things up when I work on the animations. Also, does anyone know how to get GIMP to load pallettes?
You do not rotate the unit. You center it just once. Then you parent the main camera to the ground and rotate the ground... sorta like that moutain and mohmed thing taken to the logical extreme....

If the mohamed can't stay centered while spin around to look at the world, the world must spin around him while he stands still.

This is not my idea, this is another Wyrmshadow tip.

It works much better. No re-centering. Just spin and render.

Oh. Ok. How about lasers and explosions?

laser are just cylinders with a very high ambient color. and a some specularity, but the specularity and highlight color must be near matches to the diffuse and ambient colors, not the typical grey.

Explosions are not much more. Just big expanding balls of fire. Occasionally other colors and debris included. Just remember with fires you need to use key frames on the material so it is not boring, but seems to pulse and flow like real fire.

There was a link either in this thread or the "Bryce is free" thread with a tutorial on really nice flames for fires.

My color when it appears is more purplish. There is barely any magenta. On the blank, it has the magenta, but on the document, it's purplish.

My color when it appears is more purplish. There is barely any magenta. On the blank, it has the magenta, but on the document, it's purplish.
If you used my blank, and it turned weird colors, you did something to either the lighting, sky, or camera. Check those things.... if you did not use my blank as your basis, maybe it would save time to start over, and call this a learning process.

Also, before you go straight into units, I suggest you learn Bryce a little. Just play with. Make small but fun goals.

Make a ocean
make an island in this ocean.
Make a fishing dock.
Make a cabin by the dock.
Update the cabin to include hallow interior, openings... have the interior wallpaper be different than the outside. Add a fireplace add a chimney. use boleans to make the chimminey actually connet to the fireplace.
Add a chair, a cabinet and a crude table for your fisherman.
add a distant island.

Baby steps are as exciting, but are a good place to begin.

Ok, as my gift to the community, I've uploaded all the BR5 files that I used for making the Galbadian Elite soldier... Hopefully it will help with those attempting to create Humanoid units In Bryce 5.

Um...where?...I cant find em...

post 4, spacer.

Ahaaaa...thanks Quinzy, and Thanks Hikaro...that is exactly what I wanted...a humanoid model that could be experimented with

Hey, Hikaro, I remember you mentioning that you can make one model invisible, and make another model kind of... go on top of it, and have them do the same animation, like you said with the X-wing and Z-95. Perhaps that can be done with the Galbadian soldier animations, so that other humanoids can be made? If so, teach us how!

**stirs up the crowd**

Teach Us! Teach Us!

Well, the X-wing thing works with simple (i.e. not a whole lot of moving parts) models... The only way I can see the Galbadian Soldier thing workig would be to put the corresponding parts over top of the arms and such, and link them to their counterparts in the galbadian soldier (i.e. link the right upper arm of the new model to the R UpperArm group on the Galbadian soldier, the Right Lower arm of the new model to the R Forearm group of the galbadian soldier, etc). IMO, it would be much easier just to rig the new model, and copy the parameters of the various joint objects at the different keyframes, and manually set them in the new model, which would also eliminate the problems caused if you use a model with different proportioned arms and/or legs than the Galbadian SOldier.

I already see what you mean, and it seems less trouble to just copy the attributes etc...tho, I never wanted to copy the animations, I just wanted an idea of things like: how far a foot moves per frame, and what moves other than feet/legs...and it did that great...but Im trying to get GOOD at modeling before I try animating(unless someone Bryces together a beaver...then animating it will become my new goal)...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/83393/Camera.jpg
Hears my camera settings why is there only one TAB up there?

Hears my camera settings why is there only one TAB up there?
Thats is how it is supposed to look in the directors mode.
Change the mode by clicking on the little blue chair.

You're in the director view (symbol looks like a movie direcor's chair), when you should be in the Main camera view mode (looks sorta like a reel of film or an arrow with a circle attached to the ritght side), THEN edit the camera settings.

Here's some pics that Quinzy posted to illustrate what I'm talking about:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4440755&postcount=50

Hey, I'm having some trouble with an animation. I set it up for 10 frames, and in it, I have 3 orange/reddish spheres expanding to create an explosion (since it was a royal pain in the ass to get any kind of actual fire to work, :angry: ). I increase their size frame by frame, but it only stays at one size for the animation. I don't get it. I use the scrubber bar to change the frame, change what I want, and then move on, but it doesn't do anything; all the frames are the same as the one I just edited. What's up with that?

Hi Odin, sorry to hear of your problems... there are almost always moment of frustration for all of us as we learn new tools.
Have you tried the fire tutorial? It maks great fire and is very easy to do.
I have used varations of it in quite a few of my units deaths and in most of the muzzleblasts... it takes a little tweaking.. the muzzle blast I make hotter and more solid, while a vehicle burning might need more oil and I want it to pulse and stuff.

On to your animation issue.
Do animations like this:
Key frame all the items in frame 0 to lock the starting positions.
Key frame all the items in the final frame to set the final position. Once you get used to it, you can get fancy by adding an extra frame and then deleting it so it loops better... otherwise you have a 1 frame pause where it is in the exact same position for slightly too long.


The next varies depending on what you are going to do. So here is a simple example.
Suppose you want a ball to bounce.
The first frame would be at the top and fully round.
the impact frame would be at on the ground and it would naturally rebound through the final frames..
You notice it stays completley round... Hmm. so you key frame the frame before impact, so it won't compress in flight. You squish it on the ground and on the return bounce it will now expand as well as return to position.
You are working with 3 spheres... the simple thing is to plot (on paper or in notepad) what they will be doing and so on...
Then you see what points you need to key frame. Key frame only the points that you need to. Let Bryce do the menial work in between for you.
When you do the strubber, be careful. If you are in the wrong frame and ease all the animations, your current frame becomes the new default settings.
So for example, you didn't like the animation squence and wanted to do it over. Go to Frame 0 and do the SHIFT key and click on the - (minus) key.
Also, you can animate objects independently of each other. You have to select the object you want to change before you hit the key frame (+ or -). And be cautious of grouping and ungrouping once you start animating. Because animation is applied to the object selected... you can get some weird cases where objects with a group are animated independently of the group they are in.
For example, add the bounce to the ball. Group the ball and make the group swing left and right... The bouncy ball will typically still bounce, plus it will now swing. Ungroup and regroup and it may still both bounce and swing.
One thing that helps is to remember not to group just because something is going to be the same color or texture. Use families for that (color groupings), you can assign a family to something by using the colored square when you select an object.. The default is a grey one.

I think I got the fire to work! But I had to make it orange since my civ color was yellow, :wallbash:. I won't make that mistake next time. How do I set up keyframes, though? And I want to setup the ship to go like this, how do I do rotate it to do this?
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7620/untitlediq4.gif (http://imageshack.us)

You can probably do that in 2 key frames.
in frame zero, select the animation controller for the ship (the item which you parented the ship to) and click the + key down on the lower left.
move to the frame you want it vertical, rotate the ship by using the thing which looks like a gimble or 3 hoops for the 3 axis. Since the ship is not going more than 80-85 degrees, you probably won't need the key frames in the middle unless you want it to sink slowly at first and then faster.
In which case you start with frame 0
go to the next frame you want a key in the specific frame will vary based on your frame count.
and so on.

Once you're done rendering, save and close bryce 5 and open one of the images in PsP or Photoshop and find out what the exact values of the pink background color are. Write them down and open Stephs SBB program (if you don't have it already, go to the utilities section and download it). Select the "Single Unit Storyboard" option, and under the "BMP file path", go to one of your sub-folders and Click on the "CannonFidget0000.BMP" file and click "ok". Once you do this, you'll see a preview of the animation in the small window, as well as all 8 direction boxes checked off. over on the side you'll see a color with editible RGB value boxes (set to 255 0 255 by default) followed by an "=>" and another color with editible RGB value boxes. Select the first set of RGB boxes and enter the RGB values you got from your paint program, and SBB will also automatically change the BG to the proper color.


Hi HT :)

Are you using an older version of SBB? Since the one i just dled does not seem to have anything like "bmp file path". Here is a pic of what it has:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/36763/SBB.PNG

I could not get it to generate a storyboard. Can you explain the steps for it, or provide your own version of the program if it is different?

Also there are various different pinks in my bryce bmp file.

just click on browse and navigate to your bmps. The storyboard will be built 1 level above your e\ne\n\nw\w\sw\s\se folders. I prefer to have all my BMPs render into the same folder.
Note: The BMPS can not contain numbers as part of the name... so if you've been working on tat worm of yours and wish to FLC the run... and your file name is wormy_run12.br5 save yourself the grief and save it as wormy_run.br5 before you start. Bryce will ask you to navigate to the folder... which folder will depend on your facing... but it it is
D:\civunits\wormy\anims\e all your east facing anims can go in there. SBB automatically sorts out which ones it should select. Also, it doesn't matter if you use select wormy_run001.bmp or wormy_run010.bmp... SBB will still grab the entire facing. It will also assume you have a file path similar to the one I laid out above and will go from E\ to SE\ etc and grab all your run anims without more work from you. Steph did just a fantastic job with this utility.
The simple way to fix the different pinks is to post process the storyboard in Photoshop (or equiv.).
Also I suggest you use the bryce blank scene I posted above. Should help eliminate the multiple pinks.

You mean the Ohmu unit :)

Im not sure what i will work on first. The Ohmu needs a completely new skin, that is for sure, since atm it does not look much like an Ohmu.

I think that the fault was that i did not create any direction folders. I considered that secondary (im an artist, remember ;) ). It seems that it is crucial (?).

Also if i decide to make smaller units (up to 12-16 frames at most for any animation) i can pretty much build them manually anyway, as if they were copy/pasted. Only the mammoth units will really need the SBB.

edit: ok, i now managed to make the storyboard using the SBB. Ty! :)

Woo! I found out my problem; I was adding the keyframes before I changed the animation, :crazyeye:. I finished the attack, and my first Bryce unit should be ready tommorrow.

hurrah for odintheking! can't wait!

Ok, I've run into yet another problem. I rendered the SE direction of the death last night, and then saved. I tried to change the directions, but when it renders it ALWAYS reverts back to SE. What's going on? I didn't have this problem with the other animations...

Ok, I've run into yet another problem. I rendered the SE direction of the death last night, and then saved. I tried to change the directions, but when it renders it ALWAYS reverts back to SE. What's going on? I didn't have this problem with the other animations...
You must have key framed the ground plane.
Just go to Frame 0 select only the ground and while holding down the shift key while clicking with the mouse on the Minus key.

Yeah, just select the ground plain (like Bjorn said), and click on the "Next Key Frame" button, and hit the small minus button (delete keyframes) on the animation pallette, and repeat, if necesary, so that the only keyframe left is frame 0.

I've done that before by accident, and kicked myself repeatedly for doing that, and went back and deleted the keyframes that I'd accidentally added to the ground plane.

Thanks guys! It should be ready soon, but not today since I've got band.

Sorry to double post, but it won't be ready as soon as I'd hoped. I'm unhappy with the attack and death, and might make a good run. I need help, though, on making fire. I read the tutorial on fire I saw in the Bryce is free thread, I tried it and I'm unhappy with it. What values do you guys assign to what material?

I have had very good luck with just the numbers posted here:
http://www.brycetech.com/tutor/bryce/fire_n_ice.html#Fire
I vary the ambience, quality and density a bit as suits me, but the basic numbers are good.
the only thing it does not do right in v5.x is that you can not layer volumetrics.. this includes having them overlap but not touch. There are work arounds, but they are time consuming. Best idea is just 1 volumetric per image or if you need multiples, make sure they do not touch nor overlap (ie 1 behind the other visually). If you must over lap them, you are better off making the unsual shape in Truespace. If you dont wanna do that, then try making all the fire positive and grouping them and applying the fire material only on the parent group.

Hmm, i seems too "thin" to me. When I see your units, the fire is full, and mostly red, when I do it, it looks...weird. I'll experiment.

You can make it redder by dropping the ambience down. You can play with the texture transformation settings. I move them up and down over the course of a units death to create part of the pulsing buring effect.
Also, make the volume color redder. Try dropping the green and blue frmo 255 to 160. Dropping the quality settings down is also interesting. It renders faster and sometimes gives a better effect Try a quality setting of 35 for a completely different look.
Also have an object at the center of the fire, or close to the surface even which is not volumetric and is not transparent but fuzzy and a darker (perhaps red) shade. Transparencies give odd results when mixed with volumetrics.
You can experiment with additional volumetric and/or transparent objects. Sometimes the way they erase each other creates interesting effects. Just be patient if you do so. Because you will probably have to do it over a few times and render times can climb fast.

btw: the bug I describe, and the work arounds are all fixed in Bryce 6.0
If you act fast, you can get Bryce 6.0 for 6.00 if you are a platinum club member. Or 36.00 if you are not (6.00 plus 30.00 for 30day membership)
---edit---
Ok in little more testing, the bug is nearly gone. I can still reproduce it, but it took allot more objects. It is basically useable. Meaning you can use multiple volumetrics and mix them and transparencies better than before.... just not perfectly. There might be a work around, I haven't had much time to test it.

question...is it possible to make a "rock" cause a negative space?...

What Im trying to do is:

use a rock(in negative) to create a "blown out" hole in a building...If it can be done, can someone explain the basic steps to make it happen?...Ive tried and tried, and it just isnt happening...

i've just tried and it works perfectly.

remember to make the wall positive and the rock negative and group them together

Ok thanks...Im having trouble getting it to work...

To be sure Im doing it right:

The building must be ungrouped from anything else
The Building must be positive and the rock negative
once both are in desired positions, I just group them for the "hole" to appear"

right??

[edit] do textures make any difference?...should I take the texture off the building?

Spacer: Try using Terrains for the holes... Just create your building, then create some terrains (hilly bumpy things), rotate them, and have the bumpy parts sticking through the buildings... The resulting holes (and divots from the other secondary ridges of the terrain) will, IMO look more realistic for war damage.

Other than that, do what you've been doing with the rocks.

Hmmm...I shall try that as well...

the texture of the rock will derermine the texture of the inside of the hole (the thickness of the wall)

the texture of the rock will derermine the texture of the inside of the hole (the thickness of the wall)
The texture of the rock can determine the texture of the inside of the hole.
This is useful for painted surfaces. But for solid color surfaces (bricks, logs, concrete, etc) you just set the negative object to NOT transfer its texture.

oh jeez...how do I do that?...

but if I want to, it CAN transfer the texture?...so If I have a blue rock, the hole will be blue...?...how do I set that to not happen?? seems useful both ways...

i think there's a clicky button in the texture selector..

i think there's a clicky button in the texture selector..
Actually the clicky is where you set an object to positive or negative. The object attributes. CTRL + A (or click on the A gadget).

There is a check box that says "transfer material of negative boolean".

If you leave this checked (the default). And you use a blue square to drill a hole into a red square you get a blue blue square with a red dent.

If you unchecked this. And you use a blue square to drill a hole into a red square you get a blue blue square with a blue dent.

When I change the barrel pin to 10 in Frame 4 and back to 0 in frame 8, it goes back to 0 in frame 4.

add a keyframe in frame 4

Still not working.

Hey anyone transfered to Bryce 6.0 yet?
I'd like the setup file for that if anyone of you did.

How do you add multiple keyframes?

Go to whatever frame and click the wee key so it goes yellow.

I'm having a strange problem...


One last step, and your model will be ready to animate. Bring up the main menu, select "File" and "Document Setup," and change the Document Resolution to 140x140 (a good size for most Civ III units this size), and click on the check mark or press enter. Go to the Camera view. On the left side of the screen, just right of the zoom, trackball, and view controls are four downward pointing arrows. Click on the second arrow down from the top and it will bring up the camera menu. Select "Edit Current Camera..." to bring up the camera attribute menu. This menu should look familliar, since it's almost identical to the object attribute menu. Click on the Linking tab, and assign Plane 1 (the default ground plane) as both the Object Parent Name AND the Track Object Name. Click on the "General" tab, and change the origin to -4500, 3500, 4500, the FOV to 1 degree and the Scale to 150%. Finally, click on the "Sky and Fog" toolbar and enter the skylab by clicking on the small icon that looks like a cloud and rainbow. For Sun and Moon, put the sun controls at the bottom right corner and leave everything else alone. For the Cloud cover, deselect everything, leaving a blank blue box for the preview. For the Atmosphere setting, deselect everything except the Fog and Haze, and set BOTH those to 0 density. Now click on the arrow to the right of the preview box and click the Add button at the bottom left corner to add this sky to your preset skies, since you'll be using these settings for all your future units.

There is no "Linking" tab....

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/6029/nolinkingir4.png

OK, I created a cannon. I converted it into a bmp storyboard. Now how do I convert the bmp storyboard into a Flc file? I've tried everything I can think of. There seems to be a missing link in the process somewhere. :(

Thanks for any help.

For that you must use flicster or civ3flcedit. check out them threads to see how it's done :)

Mirc, you may be using the wrong camera.

Okay, i've checked- you are using the wrong camera :)

For that you must use flicster or civ3flcedit. check out them threads to see how it's done :)


Many thanks for the quick reply Quinzy! I actually have flicster and civ3flcedit and have been trying for the past few hours to figure out how to convert the files with them. I tried it one more time just now and wouldn't you know I finally figured out what I was doing wrong! Guess I should have slept a little last night to get a fresh take on things! :lol: :)

I've attached the finished fidget flc in a zip file.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115930/Cannon_Fidget.zip

My next step is to figure out how to attach annimations to a thread. Then of course there's the attack annimation to tackle! :eek:

Mirc, you may be using the wrong camera.

Okay, i've checked- you are using the wrong camera :)

So, what can I do to fix that? :)

I did this:
"just right of the zoom, trackball, and view controls are four downward pointing arrows. Click on the second arrow down from the top and it will bring up the camera menu. Select "Edit Current Camera..." to bring up the camera attribute menu."

There is a thing at the top left that looks like a miniature bryce scene and a directors chair. You must drag that mini scene so the chair turns into a wierd little symbol that looks like a... heck, I don't know wat it looks like. This yolk: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8340/brycethingdd0.png

From tehre, you can do what you were doing.

Thanks, I managed! :D

:) You're welcome Mirc.

Hi Guys,

Bryce 5 is amazing!! After dabbling with the tutorial cannon and a couple other attempts I made this generic flak tank in Bryce. I just need to figure out how to do all the annimations I need for it now. It's a little more complicated than the cannon. :(


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115930/Picture3.jpg

EDIT: And one more.... :)


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115930/flak_tank.jpg

Sorry...one more. This is really exciting! I'll post the unit as soon as I finish up on the annimations. :)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115930/flak_tank_w-armor.jpg

Nice flak!

The grey thingy is civ-colored, right?

Oh, and a different texture for the tracks and the fuel barrel would be nice.

Thanks Stormrage! I'll get to the fuel barrel and tracks as soon as I get off work today. I've also been toying around with a Self Propelled Artillery piece based upon the same vehicle and a slightly modified turret. :cool:

As for the turret I've tried to make the little triangle civ colored. I suppose I'll have to work on some civ color highlights as well.

Looking great!

Firstly, reduce your shadows to about 20 :) It makes them nicer.

Secondly, just play around! You'll get the hang of it quickly. :)

Colors looked washed out. Are you using Gamm Correction with it too? I'd turn that off. You can find that in Render Options. Thats the little triangle at the same level as the BIG render button.

Also, check out the ambien colors and settings you are using for you textures. I use either the texture it came with (check in the column just like the diffuse color) or go with black. That should take out the washed out color look as well.

Thanks for the tips all,

I'm slowly getting the hang of the software as I go along. I'll check out the above mentioned settings.

One more question though. I don't see any way to make curved lines in the software. Am I missing something or do I just have to fiddle around with boolean negatives and positives until I get the shape I'm looking for? :confused:

Thanks again.

Gary

Bryce is definately NOT a good modeler. If you want anything approaching a smooth line you will need to create some boolean model using cylinders or combination of spheres.

Bryce is definately NOT a good modeler. If you want anything approaching a smooth line you will need to create some boolean model using cylinders or combination of spheres.

I'm definitely starting to see the limitations in Bryce. I've been toying around for the past several hours trying to get the lighting effects that I want in the Flak model but I'm not having much luck.

What would be good 3d modeling software in which I could build complex designs such as ships, aircraft etc? Can you build non-human units with Poser or is that just for creating 3d people? Basically it seems I'm limited in Bryce to only what I can produce using basic geometric objects.

Thanks, :)

Depending on how you model, almost any modeler will do.
Poser is not a modeler, it has far less modeling capability than Bryce. It is for posing and animating stuff created with an external modeler. It is the best tool under 5000.00 for creating humans for Civ3. Cost varies. For Civ3, there is little difference between v5, v6 and v7.

Complex modeling.... well the best modelers are: Lightwave, 3d Studio Max and Cinema 4d. Also popular (and high end), but not quite as fancy are: XSI, Truespace and Cararra.
Good "pure" modelers (these lack most 3d fucntionality, but are just for making objects for use in another app (in order from coolest)) ZBrush, Hexagon, AC3D and Shade.
Popular free programs Wings 3d (a pure modeler), Truespace 3.2 (older free version), Blender, (hard to master), OpenFX, Milkshape 3d (a pure modeler),POV-Ray (text based), MORAY (GUI version of POV-RAY), you can even use Google Sketchup Freeversion (a pure modeler, it requires that you use either Blender (free) or VUE (not free) to get the stuff in to Bryce.

Bottom line is this. Civ3 scale is tiny. The graphics are pre-rendered stills. So nearly any modeler will be good enough. Start cheap. Go expensive after you are certain of what you want.

However, if you have fallen in love with Boolean modeling (such as Bryce uses) your only real choices are Truespace of Cinema 4d. There is a free version of Truespace from downloads.com. I have a basic tutorial on how to model with it using booleans here (the same boolean modeling can be done in any modeler with boolean support including Bryce). The best Boolean modeler is Cinema 4d. But it is not cheap. If you decide that is what you want, find a student to buy it for you, but remember that student version may not ever be used for commercial products.
http://www.studica.com/products/product_detail.cfm?productid=51980
The same is true for most high end products. Retail purchase for real work. Or if you can afford it and want the full support package. Bryce, Poser and other entry level items are often as cheap or even cheaper direct (not student version).
Also consider getting Deep Exploration for format converstions (30.00 student, 150.00 full)

When it comes to animating:
the best hard surface tool is Bryce.
the best gooey surface tool is Poser.
no disrespect to the fine work by Aaglo, orthanc with POVRay, and the many other excellent artists using 3d studio, OpenFX, etc.
I define best simply. What is the easiest for the average person to learn to turn out high quality work with.

On your AA unit.
Use some transparency map on the treads and texture them seperately (darker).
Excellent work for a 1st attempt at Bryce modeling.
But, Lighting is not related to modeling. Do not use lighting in a unit without careful consideration. It plays hell with the palette. Instead use globes with alot of diffuse, ambient and specularity. In Bryce these will seem to glow. The texture you use should not be volumetric as these layer badly and there will be palette issues and worse due to a bug in Bryce.

That thing looks amazing, for an experimental fiddle with new software.

Poser will animate pretty much anything, but it's true that you can't really model in it (although it's surprising what you can do with primitives). It is designed primarily for animating figures, not necessarily human (there are many animal/monster figures available for Poser).

Complex modeling.... well the best modelers are: Lightwave, 3d Studio Max and Cinema 4d. Also popular (and high end), but not quite as fancy are: XSI, Truespace and Cararra.
Good "pure" modelers (these lack most 3d fucntionality, but are just for making objects for use in another app (in order from coolest)) ZBrush, Hexagon, AC3D and Shade.
Popular free programs Wings 3d (a pure modeler), Truespace 3.2 (older free version), Blender, (hard to master), OpenFX, Milkshape 3d (a pure modeler),POV-Ray (text based), MORAY (GUI version of POV-RAY), you can even use Google Sketchup Freeversion (a pure modeler, it requires that you use either Blender (free) or VUE (not free) to get the stuff in to Bryce.



Thanks for the informative post Bjornlo. This weekend when I have more free time I'll look into downloading some freeware and try importing more complex annimations into Bryce. You have a good point, since the scale in civ is small Bryce should be sufficient for probably 95% of what I want to do. And you can't beat the price (Free)!

I actually did make a ship annimation using elongated cylinders and a cube for the mid section. It didn't turn out too bad I guess. It was one of my first projects after the cannon.

EDIT: The bow and stern are actually elongated cylinders that stretch far down below the ground plane to make the sides fairly vertical.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115930/Battle_Cruiser.jpg

That thing looks amazing, for an experimental fiddle with new software.

Poser will animate pretty much anything, but it's true that you can't really model in it (although it's surprising what you can do with primitives). It is designed primarily for animating figures, not necessarily human (there are many animal/monster figures available for Poser).

If I can do what Bjornlo was talking about and import more complex shapes into Bryce from other software then I'll be set for just about anything. :)