Show Us Your Bryce Renders Part 10

Hansmar

Slepalex: indeed, extra objects that provide shadow are very helpful.

I made a new landscape, with World Machine. Inspired by Dave Savage, I made several renders of the same scene with different skies.

Jamahoney

Last one, Hansmar is my fav - hint of some exo-planet somewhere in the Universe.

Below: ...'I've been waiting'.

Jay

Jamahoney

Dave Savage

Re Footprints: All good information... but I really don't see them as being the wrong way. Alex: the render with just the footprints was lit by Bryce sun with soft shadows enabled... The terrain was smoothed/dampened after I'd painted the footprints on. My main criticism with them is that they are way too close together. If I re-did the exercise, I'd do individual left and right foot ones. As it is, they are a pair, but that makes it difficult to change direction... I've added it to the list of things to do.

Hansmar: That's a great looking terrain... If you have the Pro Materials (they were free with Bryce 7Pro, but not everyone has inslalled them)), I'm sure you'd find a great one to apply to it... It's just they have a ton more detail in them than the standard Bryce Terrain materials)

Jay: Great red light effect at the end of that corridor

For me, I'm inspired by Alex's landscapes, but this one is nowhere near as good... All it has going for it is that it is entirely Bryce, no imports (with the exception of Horo's HDRI sky which is heavily mixed with a Bryce sky).

And another tip for anyone using the Instancing lab: Instancing anything remotely complex is going to be hit & miss for crashes or memory overloads. If you get your instancing wrong and have to 'undo' it all takes time. So instead of instancing for example Trees, instance spheres. It speeds the instancing up and once you're back on your scene it's easy to see of the density and distribution match what you had in mind. If it does, Select the group called Unnamed Group, ungroup it and give all the copies/instances their own colour family, reduce or enlarge your spheres so they are about tree sized (as they are ungrouped, they will all change size in proportion). Save the document and then simply go to the Edit tab and use the replace feature to replace all the spheres with trees. This takes the time, but you already know mostly that it looks how you want it to look. This has the advantage that Bryce chooses random materials for the trees in creates so they don't all look exactly the same.

Also (sorry this is turning into a long post ) On the render below, because I didn't want to instance trees in the water, I go to the Terrain editor and use the Filter Bracket to filter out the lower levels... This way the Instancing Lab won't ever put any copies/instances where the water is because there is no terrain for it to instance onto. When that's done, go back to the TE and put the bottom of the terrain back on. Hope this makes sense and helps people.

Horo

Slepalex - yes, that is what I meant with context. Nice desert scene render.

Hansmar - thank you. Nice terrain renders. My favorite is the third because of how the valley at the far side looks.

Jamahoney - very nicely lit super sharp render.

Dave - very nice river view. Thank you for the two great tips: start with spheres to instance and replace them by trees. I've got to test this out. To clip the terrain by the brackets for instancing is a very clever idea, too. No trees in the water but likewise it could be used to have the mountain tops free of trees or stop the vegetation halfway up the slope. Another great idea I have to play with.

Dave Savage

Horo said:

Dave - very nice river view. Thank you for the two great tips: start with spheres to instance and replace them by trees. I've got to test this out. To clip the terrain by the brackets for instancing is a very clever idea, too. No trees in the water but likewise it could be used to have the mountain tops free of trees or stop the vegetation halfway up the slope. Another great idea I have to play with.

Yes indeed Horo the top yellow bracket setting can also be used to prevent instancing on the higher areas.

Also the instancing spheres can be used for stones... Follow same procedure but then 'replace' with stones and Bryce chooses random stones so they don't all look exactly the same shape and as they are single mesh, the rotation works in the Instance Lab. :)

To add: If after you've instanced the spheres you want an extra accurate way of having them sit correctly on the terrain instead of having some floating slightly above it, make the (ungrouped) spheres as small as possible (so they nearly disappear), lift them slightly and then hit the "drop to the floor" button. They will more accurately sit on the terrain. Then make them the right size and convert them to trees or stones. After you've done that, then you can lift them as a group to your desired height so roots don't show or so there are no floating stones.

Slepalex

Dave Savage said:

For me, I'm inspired by Alex's landscapes, but this one is nowhere near as good... All it has going for it is that it is entirely Bryce, no imports (with the exception of Horo's HDRI sky which is heavily mixed with a Bryce sky).

And another tip for anyone using the Instancing lab: Instancing anything remotely complex is going to be hit & miss for crashes or memory overloads. If you get your instancing wrong and have to 'undo' it all takes time. So instead of instancing for example Trees, instance spheres. It speeds the instancing up and once you're back on your scene it's easy to see of the density and distribution match what you had in mind. If it does, Select the group called Unnamed Group, ungroup it and give all the copies/instances their own colour family, reduce or enlarge your spheres so they are about tree sized (as they are ungrouped, they will all change size in proportion). Save the document and then simply go to the Edit tab and use the replace feature to replace all the spheres with trees. This takes the time, but you already know mostly that it looks how you want it to look. This has the advantage that Bryce chooses random materials for the trees in creates so they don't all look exactly the same.

Also (sorry this is turning into a long post ) On the render below, because I didn't want to instance trees in the water, I go to the Terrain editor and use the Filter Bracket to filter out the lower levels... This way the Instancing Lab won't ever put any copies/instances where the water is because there is no terrain for it to instance onto. When that's done, go back to the TE and put the bottom of the terrain back on. Hope this makes sense and helps people.

 

Very bad idea! When converting spheres into trees, mesh objects are obtained. And you need clones (instances). As a result, the file size and memory space will exceed all reasonable limits. Then, you have to make oak, maple, birch, etc. from each tree by default, which is obtained as a result of conversion, and also assign trunk and leaf textures to each tree. Well, you understand ...
The remaining tips, especially about color families and clipping the bottom of the terrain are quite suitable. 

Slepalex

Horo said:

Dave - very nice river view. Thank you for the two great tips: start with spheres to instance and replace them by trees. I've got to test this out. To clip the terrain by the brackets for instancing is a very clever idea, too. No trees in the water but likewise it could be used to have the mountain tops free of trees or stop the vegetation halfway up the slope. Another great idea I have to play with.

Horo, I repeat that converting spheres is a very bad idea! And I quite successfully use the cutting off of the top and bottom of the terrains in order to plant trees (stones) at the right height.

Slepalex

Dave Savage said:

Horo said:

Dave - very nice river view. Thank you for the two great tips: start with spheres to instance and replace them by trees. I've got to test this out. To clip the terrain by the brackets for instancing is a very clever idea, too. No trees in the water but likewise it could be used to have the mountain tops free of trees or stop the vegetation halfway up the slope. Another great idea I have to play with.

Yes indeed Horo the top yellow bracket setting can also be used to prevent instancing on the higher areas.

Also the instancing spheres can be used for stones... Follow same procedure but then 'replace' with stones and Bryce chooses random stones so they don't all look exactly the same shape and as they are single mesh, the rotation works in the Instance Lab. :)

To add: If after you've instanced the spheres you want an extra accurate way of having them sit correctly on the terrain instead of having some floating slightly above it, make the (ungrouped) spheres as small as possible (so they nearly disappear), lift them slightly and then hit the "drop to the floor" button. They will more accurately sit on the terrain. Then make them the right size and convert them to trees or stones. After you've done that, then you can lift them as a group to your desired height so roots don't show or so there are no floating stones.

Performing the procedure "drop to the floor" (Land Objects Down), I managed to drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette. So advice: never apply this option to more than 10 objects. Before this procedure, save the scene, close the program and open the file again. If you have a weak computer, then these procedures may take several minutes and the system may display a message: "this program is not responding." Do not worry, wait for the response of the program and more often save and close / open the scene during operations in the Instancing Lab.

Dave Savage

Slepalex said:

Very bad idea! When converting spheres into trees, mesh objects are obtained. And you need clones (instances). As a result, the file size and memory space will exceed all reasonable limits. Then, you have to make oak, maple, birch, etc. from each tree by default, which is obtained as a result of conversion, and also assign trunk and leaf textures to each tree. Well, you understand ...

The remaining tips, especially about color families and clipping the bottom of the terrain are quite suitable. 

Having never managed to succesfully make true instances of trees, I don't see it as a problem Alex... The idea is meant as a very quick way to get randomness in smaller sets of trees and most likely in the background because as you correctly point out, the Bryce default tree is a bit generic shape-wise, but doing it by the conversion method at least Bryce introduces different leaf and bark colours to the random trees it converts.

My scene above was done using this method for trees and stones. There are over 300 trees and over 400 stones. The file size is 103mb. Yes it could be a lot smaller using true instances, but it's not really that big.

Slepalex

Before you perform any action in the Instancing Lab, assign a color and a family name to each object. Family name copy in the attributes of the object. Then you can select all the clones (and also the terrain at the same time, etc.) by the name (color) of the family and use the "Solo" mode to edit, delete individual clones. In this case, the group does not fall into the "Solo" mode, which is very convenient.
If trees in a group are hanging in the air or are not submerged enough in the ground, then select the group and lower it a bit with the Alt + Page Down key combination.
Here is an example of a color family in this my work.

Slepalex

Dave Savage said:

Slepalex said:

Very bad idea! When converting spheres into trees, mesh objects are obtained. And you need clones (instances). As a result, the file size and memory space will exceed all reasonable limits. Then, you have to make oak, maple, birch, etc. from each tree by default, which is obtained as a result of conversion, and also assign trunk and leaf textures to each tree. Well, you understand ...

The remaining tips, especially about color families and clipping the bottom of the terrain are quite suitable. 

Having never managed to succesfully make true instances of trees, I don't see it as a problem Alex... The idea is meant as a very quick way to get randomness in smaller sets of trees and most likely in the background because as you correctly point out, the Bryce default tree is a bit generic shape-wise, but doing it by the conversion method at least Bryce introduces different leaf and bark colours to the random trees it converts.

My scene above was done using this method for trees and stones. There are over 300 trees and over 400 stones. The file size is 103mb. Yes it could be a lot smaller using true instances, but it's not really that big.

There are very few trees and stones in your scene. If you used the Instancing Lab, the file size will be 5 MB. If you use a few thousand trees and stones, Bryce’s memory is not enough.
And yes, I don’t trust the random selection of red and purple textures with metal combinations, etc. How do you make pine from the default tree?

Jamahoney

Cheers, Dave...and the instance-tut is quite useful (need to put this, and follow-up comments by Horo and Slepalex etc.,) in a separate file, as I just know that several weeks from now, one would have difficulty finding it again in the Forum.

Thanks, Horo...yes sharp - I find when I post a reduced rendered-image size into the Forum, it automatically defaults to a slightly blurry version (is concept context?).

Jay

adbc

Horo : interesting terrain, nice sky.

Hansmar : great set of world machine terrains. 

Jamahoney : Great red light reflection, very original.

Dave Savage : Superb scene. Thanks for the tips concerning the instancing lab.

Slepalex : I'll save your comment as well.

Dave Savage

Slepalex said:

There are very few trees and stones in your scene. If you used the Instancing Lab, the file size will be 5 MB. If you use a few thousand trees and stones, Bryce’s memory is not enough.

And yes, I don’t trust the random selection of red and purple textures with metal combinations, etc. How do you make pine from the default tree?

Alex: There is only you (and Rashad) who have the skill and patience to use thousands of trees in a scene.

I'm ok with just a few hundred... The scenes I make with Stonemason's models and 50's cars etc. are over 500mb (no trees included) so to me, 103mb is small.

I'm not saying it's the way to do it, just one way as a quick method of getting random tree looking things into your scene.

 

Horo

adbc - thank you.

Slepalex - thank you for your additional remarks. I'll take them into account when I experiment and watch memory use in Bryce closely with Process Monitor (file size is not reliable because the source file is compressed).

Slepalex

Dave Savage said:

Slepalex said:

There are very few trees and stones in your scene. If you used the Instancing Lab, the file size will be 5 MB. If you use a few thousand trees and stones, Bryce’s memory is not enough.

And yes, I don’t trust the random selection of red and purple textures with metal combinations, etc. How do you make pine from the default tree?

Alex: There is only you (and Rashad) who have the skill and patience to use thousands of trees in a scene.

I'm ok with just a few hundred... The scenes I make with Stonemason's models and 50's cars etc. are over 500mb (no trees included) so to me, 103mb is small.

I'm not saying it's the way to do it, just one way as a quick method of getting random tree looking things into your scene.

 

Dave, I suspect that the lion's share of the Stonemason's models file size is huge raster textures. Very often they can and should be reduced, and some replaced with procedural ones. I know how to do this in a few mouse clicks. I already wrote about it here on the forum. If the object is in the background, then the texture size can be reduced to 256x256 or even 128x128.

Jamahoney

Thanks AdBc

Jay

Dave Savage

Using the method I described above, this was made in 5 minutes (rendered in 16 minutes at low settings).

About a thread dedicated to these types of things... Yes, I agree it is useful to split off some of the subjects that crop up in this main render thread.

As soon as I get time, I'll be writing up my recent erosion tests and TE experiments and will start such a thread.

Hansmar

Dave and Alex, thanks for discussing these instancing options. And indeed, it would be a good idea to have such specific tricks in specific threads. I can never find all those good tips after some weeks; must be a case of memory overload!

Dave Savage

And with the trees then 'replaced' with Stones randomly chosen by Bryce.... You can of course then select them all and make them all the same material if that suits your needs better... But you still retain the random variation in size and shape.

Hansmar

Dave Savage said:

Hansmar: That's a great looking terrain... If you have the Pro Materials (they were free with Bryce 7Pro, but not everyone has inslalled them)), I'm sure you'd find a great one to apply to it... It's just they have a ton more detail in them than the standard Bryce Terrain materials)

Yep, I do have those Pro materials. I just liked these ones! The last one of the terrains has a sky with hazed stars (is that how we call them), that is why you see the orange glow in the water.

Jamahoney: very nice render. Waiting for...?

Hansmar

Another view from the last World Machine landscape. By the way, in this case, I pasted four terrains, made from adjacent WM outputs, together. Not as easy as it sounds. You can put the output fields precisely using x and z values in WM. However, similar to Terrain Party, the outputs still do not fit in Bryce. Either the height output (or total output) is rather inaccurate, or the y-is not absolute, but relative to the lowest point or to the difference between low and high. What I did was to put it in Photoshop elements and to use some tool to retouch it, so that the sharp changes (which did not lead to very large differences, but were quite visible) were modified into a smooth transition. 

Again, with stacked (2) landscape and two different sets of sky/materials. Another view is brewing right now. And I made more landscapes, waiting to be output from WM and rendered in Bryce. I like playing with it. This way, I'll never get into the new contest, I fear!

Jamahoney

Hansmar...'waiting for ...?' - a partner, a loved one, a friend...or, perhaps, given its modernivity...alien

Horo, Dave and Slepalax - all super developments and research.

Brew it, Hansmar.

Jay

Eugenius Maximus

Horo said:

Horo wrote:

Eugenius - thank you. Very well done models, terrain also looks good. The render looks a bit flat to me. I see from where the sun shines but the shadows are very weak. Did you use a white Sky Dome?

I was having a difficult time with lighting on this project for some weird reason. I used Blue SkyDome and light Haze and a Distant Light to control the shadows. I may have added Boosted Light in the rendering options :-/

Eugenius Maximus

mermaid010 - Very nice anaglyph render. 

Dave Savage - Really good Bryce Terrain Editor tip and very nice scene. 

Slepalex - Amazing autumn landscapes.

Hansmar - Awesome work with WM! The fact that you're exporting 513 resolution and making it look better than I could.

Eugenius Maximus

I exported several Canadian mountains heightmaps from Terrain.party from the same mountain range, however, used different heights. The river valley is from 8 km, the mountains behind them are about 12-15 km and the mountains in the distance are from about 20-25 km. The terrains are set at 1024 resolution.

Jamahoney

Super, EugeniusMaximus - very atmospheric (perhaps, reduce the wave amplitude, their frequency down, I don't know, a litttle to suit the scale of the scene). Again, atmosphere is perfect.

Jay

mermaid010

Thanks Dave, Slepalex and Horo for sharing your expertise with us. I need to read the additional info about the footprints and try the Instancing Lab again. Good idea from Jay to make notes, thanks.

Horo-your renders are all awesome, the Chiseled Land very unusual.

Hansmar – cool set of World Machine renders

Jay – love the lighting for ...I’ve been waiting.

Dave-  love the New Valley

Eugenius Maximus – very nice render

While everyone is playing with World Machine, World Creator and whatever else for terrains, here’s a Bryce warped terrain using Horo’s pdf. Thanks Horo.

Slepalex

mermaid010 said:

Thanks Dave, Slepalex and Horo for sharing your expertise with us. I need to read the additional info about the footprints and try the Instancing Lab again. Good idea from Jay to make notes, thanks.

Horo-your renders are all awesome, the Chiseled Land very unusual.

Hansmar – cool set of World Machine renders

Jay – love the lighting for ...I’ve been waiting.

Dave-  love the New Valley

Eugenius Maximus – very nice render

While everyone is playing with World Machine, World Creator and whatever else for terrains, here’s a Bryce warped terrain using Horo’s pdf. Thanks Horo.

Very original turn out!