polyphemus
join the long blue line
now that bryce 5 is free, ill start using this tutorial, im glad its here...!
How to Make Units With Bryce 5
- Thread starter DJ Bonebraker
- Start date
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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:
Like I said, the actual cannon was a breeze...I just cant seem to grasp the lights yet...
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:
Like I said, the actual cannon was a breeze...I just cant seem to grasp the lights yet...
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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
See...no tabs...am I in the wrong place??
Oh and thanks for the sun tip...worked great
[edit] I cant explain without showing...so I opened it up
See...no tabs...am I in the wrong place??
Oh and thanks for the sun tip...worked great
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I did...its at the very bottom of the menu...I posted a pic of what came up **points to above post**
polyphemus
join the long blue line
does bryce import lwo files?
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Hmmm ok...lemme see what I can figure out...I'll post my results later
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Ha Ha...that did it!!...I was on some weird locked camera...ok...new preview...
does this one look more like it should?...
on to the animation...Im hoping to add a little backwards motion to the tutorial...Ive read it once over...we'll see...
does this one look more like it should?...
on to the animation...Im hoping to add a little backwards motion to the tutorial...Ive read it once over...we'll see...
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Hikaro Takayama said:
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
Partizanac
Serbian Ambassador in CFC
Please show me whit the screene where it is!
Bjornlo
Deity
yes it does load both LWO and LWS, but only file format 5.6 or older.polyphemus said:
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.
Bjornlo
Deity
here is the camera angle I use.
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.
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.
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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:
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...
+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:
Bjornlo said:
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).
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).
Partizanac
Serbian Ambassador in CFC
hello is someone gonna help me?
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thanks Plot...
Partzan...I figured out what you need...I think:
Partzan...I figured out what you need...I think:
Bjornlo
Deity
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).
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).
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