This is how the final image will look.
Starting from scratch (......Part
1 of 5 )
This is the first in a series of 'basic' tutorials which will show some of the techniques I have learned and will hopefully be of use to those of you trying to get to grips with Bryce3D. There are so many options in Bryce that there just isn't the time to dwell on each one in complete detail. So although we start off simply I have to assume you will continue to experiment, If at the end you feel I have missed out something important or over simplified the obvious let me know. I always appreciate feedback, good or bad.
One thing to bear in mind is that in Bryce there are often different ways to complete the same task. Although I may show one way of completing an action, you may already know and prefer to use a different method, thats fine - there is no right or wrong way - use what suits you best.
The screenshots throughout are from Bryce3D, but there is nothing shown here that cannot be done with Bryce2.
In the Beginning:
The scene we will create is shown below and is built from a single Terrain object. There are several advantages to this, render speed, fast screen updates, large ammounts of ram and fast processor speeds are not essential ( though they are always useful - if you have them ). The landscape is not particularly beautiful, I prefer to call it 'moody', but it will introduce you to some of the clever features available within Bryce.
This is how the final image will look.
With Bryce running click on the 'Create Terrain' object (1), refer to fig 1 if necessary. A standard randomised wireframe Terrain will appear in the Editor window, it is coloured red as this is now a 'selected' object. As we are starting from scratch, click on the large 'Render' button (2). The resulting render shows a grey lump on a equally grey ground plane with a plain blue sky and bright horizon line.
[fig 1]
Lets start to improve things.
Press the Escape key to restore the wireframe view.
Note: there are three objects visible at the moment, our Terrain, an Infinite Plane and the Camera. The view we see is taken from the 'Directors Chair'. You can check this by looking towards the top left of the screen and underneath a column of buttons there is a chair icon. More on this later.
First delete the infinite plane which will just get in the way at the moment. It will be put back later but for now I want to keep things as simple as possible.
Click on the 'infinite plane' selector (5) the previous red Terrain object will change to grey and the infinite plane will now turn red indicating that this is now the currently selected object. To delete it simply hit the 'delete' key.
Now click on the select Terrain icon (6) just to the right. The Terrain will now be selected and shown in red. Bryce created this Terrain at random and although it might be useful in some scenes it is not what we want here. So we are going to change it for something better.
Into the Terrain Editor:
To change the appearance of this Terrain click on the 'E' (4) to call up the Terrain Editor.
[fig 2]
The terrain editor initially looks somewhat daunting.....
it isn't... there are lots of options and buttons to play with but for now though
just concentrate on the functions we need.
One of the great features of Bryce is the way it handles Terrains, in addition
to creating random Terrains it is possible to use an image from any source you
like. Bryce will convert the light/dark areas to height variations. The only
limitations is that they should be .BMP or .TIF files and preferably - though
not essential - a square format (128x128, 256x256 etc.).
As the Terrain we are using will be close to the camera we want as much forground detail as possible. The default resolution of 128x128 will look too 'blocky' so we need to change it BEFORE the image is loaded. For this exercise 512x512 will be adequate. Referring to fig 2 click on the 'Grid' icon (1) and from the dropdown menu select 512.
Import the Image:
Click on 'Picture' (2) and from the file selector choose the
image you want to use, either one from your own collection or the example I
use here shown in fig 3.
The image I have used is a Fractal, part of the Mandelbrot Set and was created
with a program called Fractint. If you would like to use this same file yourself
then Shift-click here (42Kb)
to download it.
Note: I have converted it to jpeg format to keep the filesize down, you will
have to load it into a paint package and convert it to a .bmp or .tif before
it can be loaded into Bryce.
Before
we move on, take a moment to look at this image and compare it with the final
rendered landscape. Although this (fig3) is in colour (Bryce uses only the greyscale
information), the lighter colours will render as highland and dark colours as
lowland.
Notice how the dark blue areas are the lowest and the sharp trasition from dark blue to white/pink results in a near vertical cliff face on the final render. If you can develop a knack for 'seeing' these flat images as 'heightfields' you will be well on your way to generating many interesting landscapes.
[Fig 3]
A greyscale representation of this image will appear in the right hand editor panel and a 3D view of this Terrain at the lower left (3).- Click on this image and you can preview the Terrain in real time.
