Bryce Planet Creation?
dsmccurdy
Posts: 0
I was thinking about different ways to make a planet in Bryce but i don't want something as simple as applying a texture to a sphere. I was thinking a full in depth planet from one side of the globe to the other. Is there by chance anyway to maybe make a sphere (as the core) put a bigger water sphere over top of it (to represent the ocean) and possibly pull ground up from the core (for the land) and just add forests and things from there? I know i could make individual scenes like a forest or a city and etc but does anyone have any ideas how to make a full blown planet you could quite literally travel from one side to the other and even go under the ocean. All suggestions are greatly appreciated even if its just a small idea I'm open to anything. Thanks in advance.
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In theory it's possible. The problem being that you'd most likely run out of memory in Bryce and it would either crash out or take 2 hours to complete every tweak.
Rather than create the whole planet in detail, why not show it from space with seas,
land etc, and give the impression you're going to land, then just create terrains to mimic the
landing zone?
That seems more do-able.
Sounds like a great project, and one I'm working on for Mars.
I would really like to do the full thing. I'm not to big on the movie magic thing although that seems like the only option at the moment. Id really like to be able to show the whole thing instead of only showing it in pieces. You know what i mean? It is much more do-able than the whole planet but I'm not ready to give in lol. Can you think of anything else?
Unless it's a reeeeaaaallllly small planet. :lol:
Look at Sci-Fi movies and how they handle it. I don't think I've ever seen one
like you're trying to do.
If you're doing just stills, you can only see so much at once, and if you are
doing an animation, again you can only see so much at once.
Instead of one long scene and perspective, it's more interesting anyway to break it up into
cuts from different camera angles, and perspectives, e.g. from the cockpit,
in back of the ship, from a distance in front, back, side, etc.
I'm no expert, just thinking of how I've seen it done professionally. :)
E.g. the ship in Forbidden Planet approaching and landing.
Yes, it already exists, it's called Google Earth. :lol:
dsmccurdy,
In this archive thread you will find a tutorial of sorts describing how to make planets in Bryce in just the manner you need. I never finished the tutorial so if you get started on it let me know how far you've gotten and I will begin preparing the other part of it. To display the archive properly you might need to utilize this script by GreaseMonkey.
http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=182419&highlight=planet
Cyberfox’s GreaseMonkey script? http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/4005/
Lots of fun.
The closest to what you are looking for was achieved by a program called "MojoWorld":
http://www.pandromeda.com/products/
A set of fractal algorithms was used to create sand grain level detail at any point on a planet (model). The use of fractals enabled the detail to be created on the fly instead of all being held in memory at once. The landscapes created weren't random, the same view would be seen on repeated visits to the same spot. The planet models were small enough to share online, yet anyone with the program could zoom in to the highest detail.
All extremely clever, but as you've probably guessed from my use of the past tense, it's now sadly an abandoned or suspended project.
I have to agree with TheSavage64, one huge continuous planet with enough close up detail you could travel to different locations on it and render a decent looking scene is just too much to expect from Bryce and a desktop computer. Now a smaller planet that is only meant to be viewed from space but detailed enough to make out bodies of water and land masses that would be doable but if you actually went to the surface of it to render a scene it wouldn't look like a compelling 3D world.
To do what you're describing would require so much more power and memory then any computer available today. Plus if you were to make it from scratch and wanted it to look as good close up as it does from a distance, you'd likely need a good number of years to complete it and you'd likely end up with a scene file that is 1 terabyte or more in size.
It sounds to me like you're thinking about the 3D world the same way you think about the real world. You can't really do that though because while it looks very much the same it isn't. The bottomline though is there is no need to have a whole world that's detailed enough you can just go to any spot on it's surface and be able to render a detailed scene. What it would take to have that would outweigh any benefit one might realize from having such a world. So instead we as 3D artists learn to adapt by only creating just enough to fill the camera.
Having this technology in Bryce would be super... but I guess for the time being DAZ 3D have got enough to keep them occupied...
"MojoWorld" - is/was that not Doc Mojo's (Ken Musgrave's) product?
I'm sure I read that one of the people involved in creating Mojoworld was one of the early Bryce developers too.
@TheSavage64 - in a nutshell, Ken Musgrave was an assistant with Benoît Mandelbrot and the first one known to use those fractals to create landscapes on the university computer. Eric Wenger took those ideas and wrote a program for the Mac. That was the seed of Bryce. Ken had worked for Bryce at Metacreations for quite a while. Another important name is Kay Krause, who designed an interface for the artists, not the scientists.
Yes, still is his baby. I've detected some conflict and politics (with a small p) behind the scenes adding to the basic issue of profitability preventing things moving forward. No idea on the details as I've not followed it that closely.
I purchased MojoWorld 1 to support the project as I thought (still do) it was amazing, even though I knew the interface was impenetrable for me. The manual still glows in the dark (literally) on my shelf.
Certainly, Bryce "as we know it" really came about when Eric Wenger's work was combined with Kai Krause interface notions, though the input of Sree Kotay and Phil Clevenger should not be overlooked. Those four are listed as the original creators of Bryce in the manuals for 2, 3 and 4. (No mention of any since, perhaps for legal reasons.)
Ken Musgrave had direct involvement in the development team for Bryce4, mostly by adding significant fractal capabilities to the terrain generator.
Hard to believe it was that long ago.
Interestingly enough my serial number for Bryce 5 starts with KAI. (Corel version on CD)
Those are worth a fortune on the collectors market.
At the time they cost a fortune!
They ain't getting mine. Collectors or no collectors. I still have the manual, in pristine condition as well.
My manual is not looking so hot now. It's been used and referenced many times - particularly during the 6 dev cycle (but the least said about that the better).
Wow i wasn't expecting so many comments to explode overnight. I greatly appreciate the help you guys have provided.
@Rashad Carter i will be sure to look them up to see what you have created and if i use them i will let you know as i go through them
@LordHardDriven yes i was actually looking at it as if we looking at the real world. now granted i may not need it and it would take forever to create i do think it would be fun. but ill have to deal with the fact that i need a whole lot more power to do what im looking for. in the long run i may create one with the movie magic method but i appreciate your opinion.
@Everyone Thank you all once again i really appreciated all the comments. Maybe ill be able to find a program to suit my needs like the one _PJF_ suggested
MojoWorld gone? That's very sad. I hope it will resurrected.
I downloaded the demo, but couldn't get a registration code......the form won't offer a
security question.
Almost bought it a few years ago, but it seemed difficult to use. But would like to have
another try at it if it was available.
re: Kai......have always felt grateful for the creative interface he gave Bryce......and in
an era when gui's were so utilitarian and boring.
Bryce still has the most creative and inspiring gui of any of the 3D apps, imho.
Terragen 2
http://www.planetside.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=170
Certainly it could be quite fun to create your own world and roam about, it would be like playing God. Think about it though, the Earth as planets go is somewhat on the small side and yet look at all the complex diversity there is, not just worldwide but even within continents. As mere mortals it would take a lifetime to create something comparable to Earth even if it's just a virtual world. Now setting that aside consider this. A compelling complex scene can take hours even days to render, even on the best machines available. So to be able to move thru this world visually with the visuals being anything other then wireframe mesh would be excruciatingly slow. Even wireframe mesh would be slow in a part of the world that had lots of features, like a forest, because you'd be maxed out on memory capacity and would be constantly dumping old and loading new data with every step you took as something new comes into view.
Unfortunately with the limitations of current technology the reality in 3D is you got to stop thinking real world and start thinking as the world being as small as your viewport in your 3D program. Also, if you haven't already realized this, in working with characters, even though they have every clothing imaginable you don't dress a figure up like a doll. Meaning you don't put on clothes under other clothes unless of course you plan on showing those clothes underneath. Even then if doing an animation you'd wait until the frame just before the underclothes first start to become visible before you add those underclothes. No point in burdening a scene with things that will never be rendered.
My copy of Real World Bryce 4 is now in two halves. The spine tore down where the color plates are when the book fell from a shelf. I grieved the tearing...
...But now, I'm kinda happy about it. Paperbacks tend to absorb water no matter what the environment, so a big manual turns into an even bigger one, sponging up atmospheric dampness. These days I only use the second half for reference, which has the plates and the complex sections, and occasionally use the first half for the history.
I don't encourage ANYONE to destroy books deliberately, but I have to say: I had no intention to keep this book as a collector's item, so the practicality of having a manual in two volumes has sincerely been a net positive experience for me.