Here is a very simple way to animate clouds.

Open a new document in Bryce and set the size, I use smaller sizes so they render faster.

Click on Sky & Fog and then double click the dark circle to enter the Sky Lab.



In the Sky Lab click on Cloud Cover.



Here you have the cloud motion contols. A circular shaped control to the left, the wind direction control, as well as the speed and turbulence. Be aware that the small ball you move for the wind direction is where the wind will come from and it will be pushing the clouds.

Make sure the time line is at zero. You should adjust the wind speed up some and place the ball in the +z position. Go to the + sign next to the yellow Key symbol to set the first key frame. When you click hold the button for a second to bring up the sub-menu, move your mouse over 'Sky" to bring up the next sub-menu and click on 'Wind Dir' . Do the same thing but this time click 'Wind Speed' if you like.



Now move the slider on the time line over until you have 3 or 4 seconds, set the Wind Direction to the +x position and set the key frame again the same way as before, + > Sky > Win Dir and + > Sky > Wind Speed. ( You can adjust the time line scale just above the check mark on the right to see it better or keep the mouse button held while you roll the mouse for the time ).

Thats it ! Go back to the main screen and render your animation.

There are lots of possibilities here with different combinations of the controls, you'll have to experiment.

At this point I use Animation Shop to convert the avi movie to gif.

Thank you very much for this Odidio!!!

Hey Odidio I just need a few precisions... When you open your document in Bryce, did you do any change to the camera view? If yes, what view did you have? Also, I noticed that you move the timeline only once, is that right? And you also changed the settings of the animation (speed, turbulence, direction ) only one time too right?


Thanks!!!

Nice work Odidio! :)

Uguel, when I started the new ducument I resized it but I left the camer at the default position. But you could move the image to where ever you would like to start. The time line and settings were only moved that one time also, but again for a more dramatic look to your clouds you can change the settings at say one second intervals on the time line, just be sure to set key frames each time you do.

Chachazz, thanks.

Oh, in case you're working on an animation where you don't want the clouds to move at all, click in the center of the wind direction control, it will flash yellow and set the speed and turbulence to zero.

Thanks for your reply Odidio. I think I had the director's view instead and that might have played agains me.
For whatever reason, even after clicking on the + sign in the Timeline Bar, once or twice, nothing was "moving".
Also the + sign doesn't change colour when clicking on it so we are never sure if click on it properly or not.
In the end I tried all sort of settings and finally almost got it once. It is a little too short and the clouds
don't move smoothly

Hey Uguel,

For this type of animation you won't see any changes when you click on the + to set your key frames. When you set the first key frame, the point where you are just starting your animation, it will tell Bryce where to start including all the adjustments you want to start with, and once you move the time line and set the second ( last ) key frame (in this case) this tells Bryce what to do for all the frames in between. It will calculate what what needs to be there when you render the animation.

From: http://www.brycetech.com/tutor/bryce/key1.html



This is a cool part of Bryce, you can tell it to go from point 'a' to point 'b', 'c', etc... and it will calculate itself what is needed between those two/three/four points.

For your + sign not changing color, just hover the mouse over it and you should see the sign change a shade of light green, also to the left you'll see the ' TIME' and ' Add Key frame' text come up.



But you should hold down the left mouse button for a second to get the sub-menu to give Bryce extra instructions on what to add between frames.



Sounds confusing but it's not realy.

Hey, thanx Odidio! Well, I held on a bit before answering for I wanted to see if it would work or not.
I think that I do exactly the same things but do not get the same results all the time. Hmmm...perhaps it is
caused by some computer glich or that I go too fast ; tonight I went slowly and waited a bit between each step
and I could do a small one....Eventually, it will be good if I disable some of the applications running
in the back while doing an animation. :(

Also, see how my animation window looks like...a bit different from yours, hey?




Thanx again for your help!!!!

Same here, LOL. Each time I try it I get different resaults, guess it's kind of hit and miss.

Yea the screen shot I gave you is from the main screen, there's realy only the small time counter to follow in Skylab.



You can turn on the Cumulus clouds and cast shadows for more effect too.

Right, it was not activated in the screenshot I sent for I was not working on any animation
when I took the screenshot.