Bryce Question

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

I've a question about Bryce that the Tutorial does not cover. I haven't delved into Bryce yet, but I'm curious about its less obvious capabilities. With regards to more complex structures, is there a way to directly move the vertice points (similar to the way it is in GMax and 3d Studio max) of polygons. For example, if I wanted to create the "flying eaves" effect on a building, in 3D Studio Max (the demo version, at least), I would make a pyramid, "Slice" (creating new vertice points), and manipulate the shape of the pyramid by dragging the vertice points at the bases. Could this also be done in Bryce? If not, then how do you make more complicated figures (without using the Terrain Editor Tool)?

 

[Wyrmshadow]

No, that is impossible with bryce. It is not equiped to do that. You'd need a dedicated modeling program like the ones you mentioned.

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

How would you make more complex objects? I've seen some nice examples of stuff made in Bryce such as a Taj Mahal or a Chinese-style pagoda. Is there some other way to alter the shapes of basic polygons?

 

[Wyrmshadow]

No, you cannot alter them the way you may be accustomed to thinking.
Pure Bryce modeling is nothing but booleans and primative objects. Sphere, Cone, Cube, Torus, Pyramid. You can change the dimensions, you can add or subract boolean shapes using other primatives, but you have to work with what you have. Are you sure what you saw was purely done within Bryce or were the objects imported from something else?

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

They were supposedly done purely in Bryce. Don't know if I believe that, though.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

And it's not actual boolean subtraction, its only Boolean rendering so it can be completely reveresed any time you'd like.
If you want to see some amazing Bryce modeling then you should check out this guy
http://www.bambam131.com/

 

[Bjornlo]

Bryce has a very limited modeling engine. It can do almost anything if you are patient.

For example, you can import a mesh (3ds, LWO, OBJ etc), and use booleans (postive and negative spaces) to delete part of it. For example, my Hummer avenger is more then 1/2 bryce booleans and roughly an egual part 3d meshes.
I got a Hummer I liked, and deleted part of it via booleans.
Some where (in one of roman legions threads) I posted an image I made entirely of bryce booleans. (a small house on an island, etc).
The strength of Bryce is its simplicity. Most 3d apps are time consuming. Bryce is not.
The other advantage is cost. Bryce costs 1/10th as much as most of them.
Finally there is the superduper way it animates.
The cost is: pisspoor modeler. slow as stink renders. And inability to export 90% of what you make to other 3d apps.
WRT the pyramid.

I can make a pyramid. I can make a copy. I can then delete (via booleans) the lower portions of this pyramid. I can then with change the height, width ratio of the remaining portions.


Here is a sample pyramid. I textured it with this gradiant color so you could more easily see where I cut and where I resized. I made the 1st pyramid, made a copy. Re-sized it. applied a few booleans. I'm not nearly as good as Wyrmshadow (4+yrs of experiance vs. 4 months).. and even so, this took me less then 5minutes.

Parts of everything I have released has included some booleans. Some more then others. It is so simple. Wyrmshadow is constantly scolding me for over thinking things and makeing Bryce far harder then it is.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Odegai, it is possible to do such things in Bryce, since all of my building and wonder graphics were done in such a way. What it comes down to is textures, boolean shaping, and a fair amount of time. You can also create fairly complex symetrical meshes (which can then be exported for use in other programs such as Poser), by creating a "Symetrical Lattice" (the icon is next to the create stone icon and looks sort of like a spindle). Once you've created said lattice, you can then go to edit it, where you can see the "terrain Lattice" from which you can import an image, and it will use the shading values to determine the height of the object, and black being 0 height or not there. I used this method to create a replica of Squall's Griever pendand, which I then exported as an .obj file and then imported it into Poser and used it for the Squall LH I made. If you want, I uploaded the base model (without animations) of the Land Battleship I made about half a year ago, and you can play around with it a bit to see how to do such things. You can also lift the textures off of it and save them to your texture library if you want to as well.

Here's a Link to the file: http://www.ninjaweazel.com/rev/steamer.zip

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

Thanks.

I'll look into it. I've only fiddled around with the Terrain Editing tool. It seems pretty straightforward enough. Haven't looked at the Boolean tutorials yet, but I'll get into that as well.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Booleans are simple to implement.
The only hard part is to visual an object as a combination of positive or negative shapes.

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

I've been fiddling around with the terrain editor in Bryce (using Grayscale image bitmaps) and this is what I came up with in less than 5 minutes. It seems that the some of the Bryce examples that I mentioned earlier were made by primarily by Grayscale imaging and Symmetrical Lattices. It appears that I can transfer my usual pixel-by-pixel style into Bryce.

Is there a way to set certain faces to have different textures? I haven't looked at the manual yet so I'm basically doing nothing but pure experimentation.

I just need to figure out boolean and textures. Anyone know a good place to get free textures? I'm too cheap to buy them.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Well Bryce comes with an ASS LOAD of preset textures and you can always make your own. There is even a radomize button within the texture editor that you can play with to your hearts content.

Yes there is a way of applying textures to only certain sides... but only after a fashion, one texture per object.
What you are wanting is UV-mapping. Bryce doesn't do that. If you have a complex object like that house and you'd like a different texture for each side, Bryce cannot do that for you. You would need to import a pre-made object that came with its own textures.

What you could do is work around that by making your house out of several objects instead, and applying Textures to Top/Front/Side of your various parts.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Which example of a non-unit dealie I made in Bryce last night.

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

So I'd have to make each component an individual part? That shouldn't be too difficult. It'd be a bit more time consuming, but Terrain Editing seems simple and straightforward enough.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

Yes, you just need to start thinking a little differently when you use this program. Since it is a little contradicting about how limited or powerful the program is, you need to start thinking out of the box of the usual gfx program. Once you do, things come fast and easy... Just like for aaglo a text interface is quick.