How to Make Units With Bryce 5

[Mirc]

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....

Spoiler :

 

[Gary Childress]

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.

 

[Quinzy]

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

 

[Quinzy]

Mirc, you may be using the wrong camera.

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

 

[Gary Childress]

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!

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!

 

[Mirc]

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."

 

[Quinzy]

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:

From tehre, you can do what you were doing.

 

[Mirc]

Thanks, I managed!

 

[Quinzy]

You're welcome Mirc.

 

[Gary Childress]

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.

EDIT: And one more....

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

 

[Stormrage]

Nice flak!

The grey thingy is civ-colored, right?

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

 

[Gary Childress]

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.

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.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Looking great!

 

[Quinzy]

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

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

 

[Wyrmshadow]

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.

 

[Gary Childress]

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?

Thanks again.

Gary

 

[Wyrmshadow]

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.

 

[Gary Childress]

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,

 

[Bjornlo]

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.

 

[Plotinus]

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).