Adding thumbnail of downloaded Terrain to material lab
I am going to import some user terrains to my Bryce 7.1 app. When I do, the thumbnail of that terrain material does not show up even though it is in the folder with the particular terrain. How do I include the thumbnail so I can see what it looks like?
Thanks,
Jmi Lawrence
Comments
Where are you looking for a thumbnail, or can you provide a screenshot?
If you mean that when you select create from the Bryce menu, at that point you should either be able to select a folder that contains your .obp file and see the thumbnails for that .obp (or if you have products within folders, of course go to the appropriate subfolder.) If that's where you are looking and you don't see the folder(s) you were expecting, or the thumbnails, maybe you have installed your products incorrectly. Some of the Bryce products must be manually placed somewhere before Bryce will see them. See screenshot for an example of one folder and how it looks in Bryce as compared to in Windows.
Here is a very detailed tutorial describing how to install Bryce content, which should have everything you need: http://horo.ch/docs/mine/pdf/BryceContent_v4.pdf
If you feel overwhelmed, let us know what product you are trying to install/use with a few screenshots and we can try to step you through it or provide a quick summary.
I am Looking for a thumbnail in the Materials window when you click the flippy triangle next to edit and go in to terrains, say to pick a terrain to use. I have terrains I have downloaded from different places and would like to put them in a category called user terrains in that window. The downloaded files are .mat files and each one also has a jpg picture file associated with it which I am assuming is used for the thumbnail. I remember doing this quite a while ago when I was running Bryce 4 but got away from it and now can't remember how to do it.
Jim L
In Windows, right-click on your Bryce desktop thumbnail and select Properties from the context menu. Click the "Open File Location" button. That should take you to wherever you have Bryce installed on your PC. From here, go into folder Presets/Materials. Within this Materials folder, create any new custom folder(s) you want like "user terrains" (or maybe you meant "User", which I think is already there.) Put whatever .mat files you want in this folder. When you next start Bryce, you should find your content.
As far as I know, your .jpg picture files are not used in any way by Bryce. I have none. The thumbnails you see in Bryce are embedded within the .mat file. Perhaps these .jpgs are a form of documentation or promo images to go with readme files.
You can do the same type of thing with other types of files, such as Presets/Objects for .obp files, Presets/Skies for .bsk files, etc., Of course, always make backups of these files or remember how to (re)install them. Personally I keep all this Bryce content in three backup folders, then whenever I need to reinstall or transfer to another PC, I just do the following:
Copy the folder "sean sky presets" into "C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ 3D\Bryce7\Presets\Skies".
Copy the folder "sean materials" into "C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ 3D\Bryce7\Presets\materials".
Copy the folder "sean objects" into "C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ 3D\Bryce7\Presets\objects".