Bryce City making tutorial

[Kyriakos]

From time to time i plan to update the tutorial, alongside the creation of the new city set, a medieval russian one, which will be used to depict how you can create various objects in Bryce.

Step 1- Setting the isometric camera

This is a very easy step. Just dl and open this. It is a Bryce5 file, loaded by Bjornlo some time ago.

Now your file should look like this:

As in all steps, if you are brave enough you can start your own creation from them, not waiting for the next update. I will include a file with each update in the end of each new step, but you can always try to experiment without waiting for the whole tutorial to be completed. In the end of the tutorial you should have a complete city set, with terrain, lighting and everything else needed so as to procede with 2d editing, which will be the final step.

You can comment from now, since i will not be updating this all at once

 

[Blue Monkey]

Glad to see you started this. Hope you will soon show us some steps. Then we can show you our WIPs as feedback. I'll certainly be showing some Mauryan cities as the basis of questions.

 

[Kyriakos]

Step 2 - Some basic actions, and creating a texture for your objects.

The file you dled in the first post is not yet ready for optimal use. First you have to change the camera zoom, so that it is identical in the render with what you see on the screen all of the time. To do that first go to the File menu, and choose Document Set up.

Then change the aspect ratio to 1:1, and the Document resolution to 200X200.

Ok, you can now try to render if you want, by pressing CTRL+R, and see that the image is in the same zoom level as it is outside the render.

We can now move on to the textures. I use some very basic textures, since my experience has been that complicated ones show up as a blur, and destroy the delicate details in modelling.
The first step to create your texture is to make a .png pic of it. I created a white wall texture out of cutting part of the wall already made in my cities, and pasting it in a new file so as to save by itself.

This is the png of the white wall:

Now that you have your wall texture, all you have to do, most of time, is just load it. But in this case there is one extra step. Currently there is no simple texture loaded in Bryce, and simple textures are the only ones that- i think- you can alter. So first click on Plane 1 (the plane object below the square object) and then click on M.
This opens this screen:

Click on the arrow i have circled in yellow. Then click on Add. This will allow you to add the magenta texture in your library of textures. Click on the yes option to complete this. By now your library of textures should be looking like this:

Now return to the regular view, the screen with your objects, select again Plane1, click on M and notice that now there is a new option existant in the upper right part of the screen. Click on the circle highlighted:

In the new screen that opens click on Load.
This is the final part. All you have to do now is load your png texture

When you return to the main Bryce screen, you will see that your object has the new texture.
Now add that texture officially in the texture library, like you did for the magenta. Also change the texture of Plane1 back to magenta, and use the new whitewall texture you made onto the cube. (Iirc for some reason there were 2 cubes around, both in the same position; if that is true just delete one of them).

That is it, you now have the new texture in the cube

This is the end of this step. The only other thing i did was begin morphing the cube so as to create a house. If you want to have that morph just dl This file.

So now your file should be looking like this:

**Important**

This step and onwards requires that you have Bryce6. The file i uploaded only opens with Bryce6. So better dl it from somewhere, or buy it.

 

[Kyriakos]

No responces? Is anyone following this?
It takes time to write it, so i would like to think that it is usefull. And if i really bother providing detailed walkthroughs for the creation of specific shapes and complex objects, i need at least an incentive to do that, which would be the belief that people will get something out of this (and also worship me for being so talented and intelligent ).
So dont refrain from posting

 

[nick0515]

I've been reading your tutorial. Haven't had a chance to practice any of it yet. Plus I only have Bryce 5.5, but I'm looking into getting Byrce 6.

I appreciate you doing this Varwnos and I can understand you don't want to go to all the trouble of doing it if there isn't that much interest in it.

Cheers

Nick

 

[nick0515]

Ok so I finally got Byrce 6 but I've hit my first problem very quickly. How do I load the first Bryce 5 file in Bryce 6?

 

[Kyriakos]

There is an option to open any type of file, it is just that if you do not choose it you can only load bryce6 files. Infact there is an option to specifically open Bryce5 files

 

[Blue Monkey]

Hopefully you will soon have the time to add the rest of the steps.

 

[Kyriakos]

I would not count on that... Currently i am utterly involved in literature and the book publication which will be in December. I do not feel any urge to create gfx..

 

[Kyriakos]

Ok, time to resume the attempt to teach you how to create a city in Bryce

Dl This

Now you should be seeing this, when you render:

Apart from the city, which is of obvious use (i would keep the houses as they are, and change the centerpiece with your own, and the colours) there are four objects which are building blocks for orthodox cathedrals. These are:

1) An octagonal dome
2) Ornamental protruding wall with windows
3) The main part of the church. In order to make a cross copy/paste and turn it 90 degrees.
4) A 16angled dome.

Have fun with these Remember that i model the cities only in the two directions one sees in isometric.

**Some notes on the city**

The city is made out of several parts. There are four small houses, two taller houses, and one centerpiece. There are also two radial lights, one positive, above the city, and one negative, only used to cast a deeper shadow on the centerpiece.

The terrain consists of four individual terrains.

The background was chosen so that the shadows would have a slight greenish colour.

 

[nick0515]

Awesome Varwnos! I haven't really had time for any civ lately and probably won't for another month or so, but after that I'll definitely play with this.

Cheers

Nick

 

[Kyriakos]

Glad you liked it
If you were one of the five people who already downloaded it then you should dl again since there was a small mistake (two cubes were painted brown when they should have been grey). Now it is fixed

As for the centerpiece of this city, know that it is built using these building blocks, only needing a cube and a pyramid on top of it to serve as the base for the domes. You can examine how it was made, and then try to build it yourself, as as exercise of familiarisation

In the next step, when i come round to describing it, i will show you how to turn a bryce scene into a graphic ready for use in civ3.

 

[Kyriakos]

In this post i will show you, as i mentioned above, how to arrive from the screen in Bryce, to a graphic ready to include in a pcx for civ3

Step 1

Render the finished scene and then press ctrl+prtScn, so as to save the screen.

Open your graphics manipulation program and paste the screen there. I use microsoft paint and Gimp.

Open the file of the screen you saved with the Gimp.

Step 2

Choose the irregular selection tool, and surround with it the edges of the actual city, with only a very small part of the background in as well. Don't worry if you don't know how much to choose, it does not matter unless you choose a huge part of it (but for ideal results pick something like 4 pixels). What is important is that you have all of the different colours used in the city.

Open a new, empty gimp file, and paste your selection there.

Now save that file as one that uses 256 colours. This happens in the gimp when you use the fifth category, then the second sub-category, and finally the third option in it.

Now go back to your first file, copy it all and paste it in the second file. After you have done that copy the new image and paste it in the first file. Congratulations, now you have the image in 256 colours, along with the background which is severely simplified (which was the point of all this.

Save the file.

Step 3

Open the file with the program you use to manipulate an image.

The following is my own way of doing this, there are others, but i am familiar with it and although it is a bit boring it doesn't take much time.
Click on the tool that fills an area with the selected colour. Now click on the tool that selects a colour. Hover with it above the background and select randomly one of its colours, then fill in in other areas with it.

Repeat this untill all of the background colours are one (it should not take more than 10-15 clicks).

Fill in with your own background (i use deep blue) and save the image.

Step 4

Open the new file in Gimp. Now all you have to do is to make it a 256 colour one. To do this follow my tutorial which is found here.

Step 5

After you have done that for all four city graphics you are ready to place them in a city file.

Open one of my city files (my completed files, eg rroman.pcx). Save it as a true colour image (alternatively you can just copy paste it into a new file, which already is true colour).

Zoom in the new file. Open your own city file and zoom in. Now select the graphics, one by one, placing them in the same area as my own ones were.

Save the image as a 256 colour one.

Repeat the same process for the wall file.

That is it! You now have two completed city files, eg rroman and romanwall and you can use them in your game

 

[T-mun]

Cool I'm gonna play with this ASAP. Finally I may find a use to Bryce

 

[Kyriakos]

Dl this

You now have the walled town

 

[Kyriakos]

The following days i will upload the two other towns
By then you should be able to build an alternative orthodox set, with a little imagination.

 

[Kyriakos]

Dl this

You now have the size 2 city

 

[Kyriakos]

Dl this

You now have the size 3 city.

This concludes the tutorial, or at least its main part, since now you have all the files you need, and some information, so as to create your own analogous city sets. Hopefully someone will find a use of this

 

[Takhisis]

It's not bad, but it's for Bryce 6 and I'm not willing to pay for it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Saying "it's not bad" really is a ludicrous thing to say.