Creating a asteroid belt ( 2 different tutorials )

Jamahoney

David...it really isn't a problem as such, it's just trying to remember where each is at e.g. when one is in a normal Byrce view, and how one eventually gets to them from there. It's then easy to follow the instructions being given.

The controls are also my problem again - I don't know how many times I'd have to, say, use the correct x, y, and z bar in the rotate ball thingy, or, say when using it with the CTRL, ALT and Shift keys. It's not the demonstrator's fault, but simply the new user to these areas that require constant practice until they eventually become second nature. BTW, thanks also for directing me/us to Horo's export render as HDRI vid, which I just watched now.

Horo...excellent vid on the why we should export renders as HDRIs - very clear all the way through. Have it in my Fav folder, and will have to watch it again, but this time using Bryce opened and going through the actual steps.

Jay

GussNemo

@Horo: While I'm no where near needing to consider using the contents of that video, it's still a very informative one. And even though I consider myself still a new user, one even I could follow. Well done.

LordHardDriven

David Brinnen said:

Also, I have been meaning to ask, and doubtless this is a daft questions but who is Mr Green?

Mr. Green is the name of one of the old smilies I believe. It's a common smiley option on most forums and gives you a green smiley with a big cheesy grin.

For Cjreynolds, I offer this image I picked off the internet. To answer an argument about how Unicorns fly. Since Unicorns are not real, their wings are not real either, so they cannot generate lift in ordinary "real" air - the wings must be just be for show. The answer I discovered was rocket power. (And this also explains where rainbows come from - see image). Rainbows, also, are clearly not real. Given the "output" of the Unicorn shown in this technical diagram of one in flight - I also concluded that they must feed on fairies. Careful examination of the plate shows it to be a copy of an image from an early cave painting dating back to 40,000 BC and may well have provided the inspiration for Leonardo Dicaprio's helicopter sketches, basing the "aerial screw" on the mistaken belief that it was the rotation of the twisted horn that lifts the Unicorn into the air and that the rainbow is just an escape of exhaust gasses. It turned out though that it was all just a dream within a dream...

Ah yes, that crazy Leonardo Dicaprio, what movie did he do those sketches in, "Catch Me If You Can" or "The Aviator"? Also since when did unicorns have wings? Perhaps they only show up after the Unicorn is tamed by a virgin and since there are so few of those accounts for why you almost never see a unicorn with wings? :)

LordHardDriven

Jamahoney said:

In reality, however, I would rather just push a button and have it all done for me :)

Sounds like you need one of these :)

Horo

Jamahoney said:

Horo...excellent vid on the why we should export renders as HDRIs - very clear all the way through. Have it in my Fav folder, and will have to watch it again, but this time using Bryce opened and going through the actual steps.

@Horo: While I'm no where near needing to consider using the contents of that video, it's still a very informative one. And even though I consider myself still a new user, one even I could follow. Well done.

Thank you! By the way, a transcript is available on my website under Documents > Video > Horo - direct link http://www.horo.ch/docs/video/pdf/Transcript_HDRIexport.pdf

Thanks also to David who is so kind as to host my videos on his YT account.

@LordHardDriven - that's the button. We'll suggest it when the new dev cycle starts.

Jamahoney

Lord......good one - where can I get one of those? I also need one for money making, too :)

Jay

Chohole

but if you hit it too hard with the mallet it will explode.

Peter Fulford

David Brinnen said:

But what I couldn't tell myself just by looking was which images were artistic impressions and which were space photographs (if any?).

The ability to distinguish will come with experience. Like Horo, I've been an astronomy anorak for (too) many decades. An accumulation of such largely useless knowledge does inform that humanity and its robots have been hardly anywhere in the universe, and so dramatic vistas of distant places are very likely to be artificial.

There are two mains sorts of real "space photos". One is long exposure, colour enhanced shots of the deep heavens taken from the Earth or in near orbit (Hubble telescope). These tend to be visually attractive, with oodles of contrast, detail and colour. The other type is shots of places we've been to, in person or via robot probe. These images tend to be much less visually interesting, with dull colours, awkward contrast and unexciting angles.

The asteroid belts seen in this thread, and in many books, comics and movies, are visually interesting but completely unrealistic. Actual asteroids are very rarely close together (a few are double bodies or have little asteroid moonlets), and a whole belt couldn't be seen at these scales surrounding a star. The reference image that inspired you doesn't represent an asteroid belt as such, it depicts how scientists imagine the very early solar system looked as the disc of gas, dust and rocks that surrounded the young sun began to differentiate and coalesce to form the planets.

A "serious" space artist will attempt to accurately illustrate how things would look from an interesting vantage point we can't yet achieve, applying knowledge and theory to fill in any gaps. There will always be some compromise between art and accuracy, but astronomy scribblers tend toward the latter.

I'm too lazy to be serious, so just take reasonable stabs at it (or did). This one (an old Bryce5 image re-tweaked today) represents the planet Uranus as seen from the surface of its moon Titania, with Umbriel and Ariel interior.

LordHardDriven

Jamahoney said:

Lord......good one - where can I get one of those? I also need one for money making, too :)

Jay

I'm not sure if it's still available anymore. If I remember correctly it was given out as a freebie sometime in the past couple of years. The creator was Blondie9999 but when I search thru her products it doesn't show up.

Horo

@_ PJF _ - this is a very nice rendition of Uranus. I like the faint ring.

Kerya

@tlantis: thank you - and a special thank you for the "pictures with text" style tutorial.
(I am one of those dumb persons having problems with video tuts)

David Brinnen

PJF, thank you for the explanation. Well, your planet looks very good, I like the glow around the edge you have achieved. I do not think though that I will be converted to realistic space imagery. I'm too much a fan of the bright lights and glowing atmospheres - that sadly, are the fiction of film makers and their artists.

cjreynolds

David Brinnen said:

For Cjreynolds, I offer this image I picked off the internet. To answer an argument about how Unicorns fly. Since Unicorns are not real, their wings are not real either, so they cannot generate lift in ordinary "real" air - the wings must be just be for show. The answer I discovered was rocket power. (And this also explains where rainbows come from - see image). Rainbows, also, are clearly not real. Given the "output" of the Unicorn shown in this technical diagram of one in flight - I also concluded that they must feed on fairies. Careful examination of the plate shows it to be a copy of an image from an early cave painting dating back to 40,000 BC and may well have provided the inspiration for Leonardo Dicaprio's helicopter sketches, basing the "aerial screw" on the mistaken belief that it was the rotation of the twisted horn that lifts the Unicorn into the air and that the rainbow is just an escape of exhaust gasses. It turned out though that it was all just a dream within a dream...

ALRIGHT!! If there's no such thing as a black pegasus, there's DEFINITELY no such thing as a rainbow-farting unicorn!!