Well, I hope other people will join in.....whether you start in Bryce or not.
I was thinking of giving "The Forest" as a theme. It has to be an image/images done in Bryce or
at least, a part of the image must be done in it and then you can use a 2D program to help
you achieve what you want to do. It can be any forest in the world. Remember that you can use 2D images of animals
and import them on a 2D surface (Leo) into Bryce. Sometimes the 2D animals look even better than the 3D ones.


All the animals in the picture below are 2D animals except the wolf.
.....I don't think that the 2d ones or raccoons look bad compared to the wolf, hey?
LOL, notice that wolves would not attack or being interested by raccoons in real life,
they each go their own way. Oh and the pic is not completely finished yet.....!

Looks great Uguel.

I got the Smoke and Mirrors Masters Series Tutorial for free when I downloaded Bryce 5.5 so maybe I can join you soon, if I can figure out the tutorial, LOL.
It's quite long and complicated.

I got the Smoke and Mirrors Masters Series Tutorial for free when I downloaded Bryce 5.5
so maybe I can join you soon, if I can figure out the tutorial, rofl6.gif. It's quite long and complicated.

I had a look at it at the tutorial at DAZ Studio, it sounds like a good tutorial but maybe a bit long to make
like many good tutorials. Well, do join in Odidio I'd like to see other people work, it's much more motivating
to have more people around.

.... Oh, I also noticed that DAZ changed the design and templates of their website, it looks pretty good like that.

I might finish the forest picture when my hand will heal. I had to go to the emergency yesterday
for I had a little accident at home. I can't type much. Hopefully, it'll be alright in a couple of days.

that sounds like an OOPS I goofed thing...Know about that hand thingie real well...

Do take care and let it heal right'''



Grand Dad

Thanks Grand Dad. It happened when using a brand knew knife. I cut veggies and suddenly the knife slipped
and the blade went right into my thumb. I applied pressure and raised my arm but after half and hour I decided to get some
help for the cut was deep and I wanted the flow to stop. I went to the emergency and they applied a very stong
bandage that tight the skin and it stopped afterwards. I am much better now.... thank you!

I made another image today with an eagle in it.
I like it but I find that the mountain in the left is too greenish, what do you think?
..and the striped on it could be soften, hey?
thanks!

Well here I go again Yep alittle to green. How about adding a Snow cap to the more distant ones just to see how that looks....

All in all looks good and the Eagle is the main theme as your eyes go to it HooRah.. or will after reducing the green.

Reflections in the water look good..



GD

yep, I agree a little too green and the stripes got to be soften accordingly.
hmmm...snow on the mountain...maybe I will have to back up the one behind even more
I'll see what I can do. Thanks!!!

Here's my latest. Instead of modifying the mountains that were in the foreground,
I added more in the background and reduce the green intensity of the mountains
in the forground. I might also try a more winterly look for the next one.

TTFN!

:thumbup:

Looks great, I like the reflections in the water.

You are right about the Smoke and Mirrors Masters tutorial, I didn't download all of it, what I have of it now is 100 megabytes or more and very complicated. It does look good but will take a while to go through it.

I like the improvements in Bryce 5.5.

hey, thanks folks!



100 megabytes that's a lot! If I remember well they were movie tutorials, hey?
....ok, here's the same image with a bit a fog in it. I think it looks more finish like this.

Hello Uguel,

What happened to the "forest" theme?(I have been away too long). I have been trying to create good looking trees for a while ROTFL (OK, without success), certainly most of the "tree" creation programs are not "great" (unless a large payment is made for the software). I am starting again with this, and going to roam the local park to take pics (well my memory (I have found) is certainly no good for this).

(by the way) Nice work :thumbup: on the thread. (but please be careful with sharp objects )

Regards,

...... I just noticed your reply when I was ready to add to this thread!

you wrote
What happened to the "forest" theme?

Well, I haven't decided what to add in the scene instead of the wolf. I hesitate between a bear cub or a porcupine.
Anything that might be interested to join the raccoon party will do but I am not interested to put a predator
or anything that represent a threat to the raccoons. I want the image to be cheerful.
ANW, the wolf texture isn't that great, it looks like an old toy from an antic store. :)

Oh, I will certainly have another try at trees later. But, eh, I noticed that 3d trees are becoming
less and less popular. More and more software companies are turning towards "billboards" instead.
These are trees stuck on a vertical disk or surface....I don't know if you heard of them.....
There's also a company named SpeedTree that creates very beautiful and realistic trees based on that
principle. It is very useful when you need a forest and do not want to add to much .mb to your render.
The only glitch is the price, not affordable, well, not realistic for someone who does graphic just for the pleasure.
Many game producers or professionals would use this software to add movement to the trees. You can have a look here

SpeedTree

you wrote:
(by the way) Nice work good.gif on the thread. (but please be careful with sharp objects

thanks!

.....I certainly will





Here's my latest the "harfang des neiges" or snow owl. It is the bird emblem of Quebec since 1987.
The white of its feathers symbolizes the snow and the long and cold winters of a semi Nordic territory.
...Done in Bryce. The bird was a 2D picture I made transparent then imported and pasted on a vertical disk.

Hi Uguel,
Yes, this is basically the same as using the "2d picture object" in bryce.
I looked at this while searching for tree creation programs. There is another I looked at "Bionatics natFX". There is info and a comparison of these for those who are interested:- http://www.cgarchitect.com/news/Reviews/Review011_1.asp (these are the plugins for 3dmaz/maya/viz)

I think that using "billboards" (or 2d picture object) can give some good output, but trees close to camera (personal opinion) need to be 3d. So I personally would go with a combination of both.

I will continue to attempt to manually build trees, if I ever get anything that looks ok, then I will upload them to share.

Hi Stem!




Well, it is built on the same principle except that it is more subtly refined.
For instance, you can have 2 to 5 disks grouped together instead just of one.
Most of the time, the disks would cross each other perpendicularly and sometimes diagonally.
So when you rotate the tree or plant or can get 2 to 5 views depending on how many faces/ discs it has.
That is why it is very useful for positioning your tree/plant in a scene or for animation, you just rotate the tree,
say on the y' axis and it takes a different aspect.There are techniques to imitate the movement of the wind too.

Here's a small animation I did to show you how these flowers were assembled together.
As you will see the bigger flowers on the left have 2 disks whereas the other ones are made of 4 disks.
They came like that when I bought them at DAZ. I just resize them smaller than they were.
Of course, the more disks/faces they have the more choice you get when comes the time to position them.





it looks promising too and it also makes me think of the x-frog tree program that they released for Cinema 4D



Well, I'm afraid you're right... for I always have to do a bit of post work after the rendering... and this, only to hide a white halo around the shape.
I read on a tutorial at DAZ that you can duplicate the disk to make the colour comes out more...it works...but the halo becomes
more visible too.

This is nothing new (I used to do this many years ago (just after the release of TrueSpace2)), its just that now they have given it a name.

This is a problem with Bryce, as it does not correctly handle Alpha channels when placing an image(with alpha) onto a 2D vertical disk/plane, the render shows an "halo(as you mention) or makes refraction through the alph channel(this shows as a slight offset of the background). Only the 2D picture object works correctly with this(to brighten/bring out the colors, use the "Ambience" setting.)

Hi

Might try a Deer or Deers in Forest pic..Doe and Fawn might worl as a non threat..

Owl looks good..

Trees are hard to do for sure as they have to be from the region that the picture is from...

Grand Dad

Hello Grand Dad,
Well, at the moment, my attempts at manually building trees look like they come from region "Planet X" LOL

Hi Uguel,

I have been playing with the 2d picture object, to use as billboards for trees. First efforts are not too bad, still need work, but are better. Here is the first tree I have made with this method (it is 3d, so can be viewed from any angle)

you wrote

This is nothing new (I used to do this many years ago (just after the release of TrueSpace2)), its just that now they have given it a name.

Sorry if I misinterpreted what I read. To me, they sounded like guys who had just invented hot water.
And...it was also the first time I saw the term "billboards" used for trees.


This is a problem with Bryce, as it does not correctly handle Alpha channels when placing an image(with alpha) onto a 2D vertical disk/plane, the render shows an "halo(as you mention) or makes refraction through the alph channel(this shows as a slight offset of the background). Only the 2D picture object works correctly with this(to brighten/bring out the colors, use the "Ambience" setting.)

Right, but there's something else I got to try. I can't say if it will work but it might be worth trying.

from Terry

Hi

Might try a Deer or Deers in Forest pic..Doe and Fawn might worl as a non threat..
Owl looks good..
Trees are hard to do for sure as they have to be from the region that the picture is from...
Grand Dad

Yes, a deer or fawn will be as good idea. And....I was thinking also of adding an owl like the Grand Duc
or Great Horned Owl depending how things will go.




I like this one!
So that's from a picture that you made transparent yourself?
wow, it really looks like a 3d object to me. :thumbup:
..............................................

On my side, I had another go at building Halloween trees.
This is a drawing I made and that I imported from the terrain editor and pasted on a lattice....



then I created 2 more lattices, I drew 2 arms and pasted them on each of terrains or lattices, I assembled all of them
together and added a foliage after. Sure, the tree can go with or without the foliage all depends
on what we want or need for our scene.




* remember that I made a tree similar to that one a few moths ago but I lost it
with my data when I had issues with my pc.

I found a bit of time to get into this tree thing, interesting stuff.

I was playing around with just the trees and editor in Bryce for this one.

Not really a forest, just a few trees. (Don't like the leaves much.)



There's a small tutorial for improving the look of the roots, Creating Custom Tree Roots for Bryce Trees.
I used a lattice instead of a terrain.

Hi Uguel,
It is a 3d object, there are 200 "2d picture objects" for the leaves, the tree trunk is solid 3d, but I didnt (for this) add any branches (it was just really a test to see how it would look). this is the image before render:-

Hi odidio,
I like it, it looks very good :thumbup:

How did you do the 2 foreground leaves?, they look real.

Good work odidio

Hi odidio,
I have had some time to take a longer look at the tree lab in Bryce. I have found the correct way to add our own leaves.

In the tree lab, select for the foliage~ shape= "user leaf", for the Texture select "Material" then "edit"



In the materials lab, select "image texture"~ then go into the "texture source editor" and load a leaf image with mask(see note):-



Apply this when loaded, which will take you back the the materials lab. In the materials options, select ""Blend transparency":-



Apply this.

This is the render using the above "leaf image"





NOTE: A good number of Leaf images (with masks) can be found http://www.3dmd.net/gallery/index.php?cat=22

Nice work Odidio and nice landscape by the way!!! :thumbup:

I used a lattice instead of a terrain.

I agree they are much more malleable to work with than the terrains.
The terrains often leave a square demarcation and it's annoying.

.........................................................................


Thanks for the tip Sem. It is always good to know that we're not confined to the limitations
of Bryce's library and that we have the possibility to add more or better materials ourselves.

Thanks.

The leaves in the foreground were from a tutorial. Very similar to what you described Stem.

It took me a while to find it again, good to look over again too.

http://www.planit3d.com/source/tutorials/h...tut/helmut1.htm

These look really good Stem.




:)

Hi odidio,
Thanks for the link. Its a pity that the meshes used for this cannot easily be created in Bryce. I have done this, but then it was (I found) not possible to map with an image.
Creating the meshes in external programs can be easy, depending on the program used (May I ask, what program did you use to create the meshes)

I think I will need to create a number of meshes and upload for the use of the forum members.

By the way, the link I gave for the leaf texture maps/masks, I did have all these downloaded (large images), I can upload these (they are not copy protected/ right (free to use for all)), but I will not post a link to these on open forum, so if you would like a copy of these, I will PM you (or other members) a link.

Regards,
Stem

There is a zip that comes with that tutorial that has everything in it, mesh, textures, mask...........

I found a picture of a green maple leaf on the net, made a mask and tried it out. I had the leaf pointed to the right at first, but I noticed when I got really close for a render the leaf didn't look right. So I tried rotated the image and mask so they were facing upwards and it looked better then. ??

Another try, I think I still had the leaf jpg and mask facing right. I could sit for hours and mess with the editor, and it still doesn't look quite right to me, LOL.


(thumbnail)

Hi odidio,
I am certainly not a tree expert, but that tree looks excellent to me. I think we can all be self critical to a point where nothing can look right. I would be well pleased with producing a tree to that quality.

Hi

Regards doing trees. The best way is to look at pictures of real trees such as Mables,Elms.Pines,Oaks and then try to reproduce them.Also remember that certain trees only grow in certain places.

Also have different members of the same tree family. Pine trees are a good example...Oak is another along with Maple. Then U have your fruit trees which is whole nother ball game.

But the main thing is to have fun doing them and as Stem said don't be over critical.

I had a friend that did all kinds of art in oils what he would do is takes 35 mm slides, project them on a screen to remember what the area looked like and go from there. My son does the same thing and has many pictures that he has taken thou out his travels all over the world...So when he starts a painting he can look at the slides to get ideas...Most of his are now on CDs or DVDs so he can call them up on his computers...

Best

Grand Dad

I downloaded it and made the tutorial and...yes, I learned a couple of new tricks.... once more.
Thank you Odidio for posting this, I added it to my "tutorials that works" folder!!!! :thumbup:

You wrote:

"But the main thing is to have fun doing them and as Stem said don't be over critical. "

Hear, hear! ....I mean I just bought a couple of trees at a 3D store and well... although they did look VERY good on the webpage,
they, once imported in the scene, look "quite different '' I mean, not like what I have expected...much cheaper....I would say,
so as amateurs, we should not be over-critical about our work, but keep on going and add changes only to the things we
do not feel comfortable with.

The only thing I didn't like was that the branches were kind of sagging down too much, normally a maple tree doesn't do that.

( Of course I only remembered to turn down the 'gravity' button after the pic was rendered.) LOL

I like doing the leaves this way (imgage & mask) though, much more realistic.