I was experimenting last night with Kai Tool's Texture Generator (using Photoshop) and wanted to use an image as a Procedural Map, however I wasn't able to import the image once I was into the Procedural window. Do I need to import the images into the Bryce first, export them and then import them in to the Procedural window? I know I should know this, but I've never been into deep procedural texturer. Many thanks, Mark

No, image textures can't be used in the Deep Texture Editor. The DTE is only for Bryce's internal procedural texture engine. You can load an image though through the Picture Editor though, by hitting the little blue "P" under any of the components. HTH; Dan

It would have been nice to be able to create new DTE's. I was looking forward in making them available in the Free Stuff. Users could use them as they are, or modify them into the Bryce DTE engine.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Form.ViewPages=384

Rayraz, Thanks for the link to your DTE tutorial! I'll admit: DTE wasn't the easiest thing I've meddled with when I purchased Bryce back in the day. I will try your tutorial during the week and get back to you. As far as Kai Tools Textures, I will create enough of them and post them in the Freestuff when the time is right. Thanks, mark

Yooohooo! I wanted a tut on the DTE, thanks Rayraz

You can use image textures in combination with procedural textures.

Very nice tutorial thanks. I noticed the link to the noise types has gone now? Or rather, that the link is dead I mean.

Yeah, DTE is excellent. Very useful indeed. But it would have been nice to be able to create your own, especially since Bryce comes with some procedural textures that you don't have immediate access to (but have to save them through the DTE), almost seems like it's a big secret or something. Personally I think that no one remembers how to make them =) Oo, something else for Bryce6.

geez, sounds like bryce 5.5 comes with a lot of "accidentally removed functionality"....

Apparently, the DTE wasn't supposed to exist at all for end-users. The people programming Bryce 3D were using the DTE to generate presets, and at the last minute decided to include the DTE in Bryce 3D... Is someone saying they removed it from Bryce 5.5?

well not removing it completely, but apparently they removed some of it's functionality.

I'm only a DTE dabbler but I can't see anything that's gone that I'm used to using... still got all the filters, noise and phase, still able to access the presets using shift+click on the final texture combination bar, can still save presets in the user section. Do you know what has changed specifically?

Ahhh, light dawns... I was meaning the link in your tutorial is dead, the one that read http://hinchu.tripod.com/tuts/dte/noise/ which I assumed was an image of all the different noise types going by the text that led to it?

ooooh okay ah that sucks :( it was a cool link I found back when I made that tutorial that showed images of all the different noise types yea.

New DTE algorithms can only be created by building them mathmatically and convereting them into Eric Wenger's procedural format. This is what Doc Mojo did for the new procedurals that came with Bryce 4. According to him it was no picnic :-) Nothing changed in the DTE that I can find in 5.5. Best; Dan

It's not terribly necessary to create new ones from scratch. If you've ever sat and clicked "Randomize" for a minute, you'll see that there are millions of new ones right there, and they are outside the realm of the DTE list. In fact, I would suggest doing JUST THAT, anytime you run out of texturing ideas! But for realism' sake, always use at least one channel of image-based texturing. There are nuances and shadings which cannot be replicated by anything other than a photograph. Even if you just splice it in as a "Random" texture...

Hmm I nearly always have the bump height applied to either a standard bump map (I love GoldenBump, works well for this), or to both my main texture and the bump map. This way the texture gets more detailed the closer I get to it. Another trick I picked up from video gaming (not sure how common it is amongst graphical artists) is to create my object, let's say a rock. I then pick out my texture and leave everything alone, except for transparency which I set to 50%. I also make sure "blend transparency" is set. I then duplicate my rock and make it slightly smaller than my original rock (attributes dialog works best for this), and then give it a normal bump map (again, like goldenbump) applied to a boring texture such as "flat gray". This has a similar effect to the first method, looks better IMHO but takes longer to render. But I'm still a newbie really when it comes to texturing. I've been using Bryce for quite a while but have only just recently started to really explore both it and other programs. Cheers

extra DTE algorithms would come in handy as they become a bit samey after a while like a brick and mortar algorithm for example as i argued before.

shinyary2 & Rayraz; Nothing is different in Bryce 5.5's DTE compared to Bryce 5.0, there is no "removed functionality". It should function precisely like 5.0 "especially since Bryce comes with some procedural textures that you don't have immediate access to (but have to save them through the DTE)" -Maybe you can explain that a bit further. What do you mean? Are you talking about IMAGE textures in the bonus content? And, Ray...buddy...just out of POLITE curiosity, have you purchased 5.5? Or, are you just chiming in with made up words? Just wondering. AgentSmith

I don't have bryce 5.5, but I thought to understand from Kathye that the nouse editing menu had gone. So I was guessing it was another bug, like the bug I heard about that made the tree-lab crash (and thus rendering it pretty much useless). Slight misunderstanding there :) turns out she actually just meant my reference link in my tutorial was dead lol. anyways :) I won't be buying bryce 5.5 :P don't see enough improvement to put down a hundered bucks for it.

Okay, AS. I meant the list of procedural textures that you have immediate access to. This is the list that you can get to by shift-clicking the title bar of the texture channel to get the icons, or regular clicking of the title bar to choose from a text-based list (boring). But the default Bryce textures that Bryce5 comes with (many of which are very tolerable textures) use many procedural textures that are not included in the above list. This is what I meant by additional textures that you don't have immediate access to. If you want to use them in another texture, you have to go into the DTE and save them. Screwy in my opinion. Dan, as for the algorithms, I think that the CAPABILITY should be included, whether you are intended to use it or not (apparently this is what happened with the entire DTE--note that this was a good thing to leave in). Some of us may be able to understand them enough to use them if someone explains it clearly enough to us, and some of us may not. That's not the point; the point is that it should be there. Fractals (I hear) can be very complex too--yet there is an entire community here at Renderosity dedicated to understanding and celebrating the math involved. Just my $.02

The risk with adding the capability to include your own mathematical algorythms is that it's very easy to insert unstable algorythms that will end up in mathematical chaos. Some might even crash your renders. Making an actual fractal from scratch isn't very easy, believe me, I tried :-P Making variations on base functions is much easier. Which is essentially what the DTE does at the moment. Brycean procedurals are quite complex! There's the base function of the procedural, this is the noise function in the DTE, this noise function can be repeated several times, with different parameters and combined. These are the "octaves" the way these octaves are combined are mathematical processes again, then there's the phase which works at exactly the same way as these noise functions, also with a base function, a number of octaves of this function and the way these octaves are combined. The phase will interact with the noise to deform the noise function. and then the output is ran through a filter (the graph in the DTE) which can deform the way a graphical gradient is applied to visualize the outcome of the combined noise and phase functions. This filter will define the "curve" (to keep it in the visual terms of the filter as seen in the DTE) of the gradient as well as the input range or multiplication values or which ever parameters the functions for the filter might have. After that there are 3 color chanels to blend in using the filters gradient function according to yet again their own functions (set with the menu under one of the little triangles of each procedurual component) Then there are alpha and bump chanels which will also have to be generated from the functions in a similar fasion. Once all this is done there are again three of these systems (the three windows in the DTE) which can each again be mixed with the help of some logical mathematical algorythms (the blend modes between the DTE windows) and the end result of all this will again have these color, alpha and bump variations that can be applied to it according to again another set of functions which, like the other three windows can be found under one of the little triangles. Now in order for your procedrual algorythms to be functional your procedural function needs to behave stable throughout all these many transformations, variables, parameters and everything and needs to not ever spin out of controll anywhere during this process. It's quite a bit more complex then the Fractals seen in the fractal galery's...

Aye, I totally agree with Rayraz on that one. But those are fractals of a different nature... Apophysis can make some really ridiculous textures if you tweak it a bit. And even KnotPlot can make some awesome imagery... Too bad they didn't just make the whole DTE a Photoshop filter as well, now THAT would be fun!

Hmm well you could have a test function that would check every single variation to determine if you would crash or not... actually scratch that, such a check would have to perform literally thousands or millions of complicated calculations, and would likely lock down your computer. At the very least it would dramatically increase the system requirements, which would be a no-no in my opinion. What they could do is provide this as a plugin for Bryce6. Of course, they would also have to add plugin support for Bryce as well (wouldn't that be grand!). Personally I would like to see a plugin (or even a feature of the main program) that contains some of the "2D" FX that Photoshop can make, such as lens flare effects and et cetera ad nauseum. I mean, isn't the whole idea of Bryce to provide a cheap but powerful method of rendering complex graphics (which is why Corel totally demolished the franchise--they didn't understand that if someone wants to shell out $500 for a renderer, they might as well go for something a bit more powerful, or at least more popular, than Bryce)? Said idea kinda goes caput if you have to purchase expensive software to achieve the results you want (PSP9's lens flare effect sucks).

oh yes, those brycean fractals are certainly of a different nature then the ones used in apophysis, ultimate fractal or other fractal porograms. I don't know about apophysis, but Ultimate Fractal lets you generate your own fractals mathematically and they are really rather hard to make, even if they are, in a way, more simple (and very different) then the ones used in bryce. To allow more freedom to make new procedurals DAZ could ofcourse have a look at Mojoworld, which allows you to combine and transform different base noises in as many ways as you could possibly want before even throwing them into any sort of fractal. Bryce lacks the flexibility in tweaking or combining base functions that Mojoworld has, however this could have to do with the fact that not all of bryce's procedurals make perfect mathematical sense (there's a lotta mathematical 'nonsense' in there apparently).

Procedurals are great if you're looking for something randomized. But, what if you want something specific. Bryce is so dependant upon textures that it would be really cool if they included a full featured Texture Maker like, well, "Texture Maker". Stones, bricks, wood, fabrics etc... Now that would be awesome. Then again, if they did, I hardly think they'd sell Bryce for $100. My 2.

Okay they don't necessarily have to provide a fully featured texture maker if just provided a wide variety of photo textures. Then they would have an editor built in that would allow you to change the colors, similar to the procedures used to customize the avatars in the Hardwood card games, if you've played those. So if you have a photographic brick texture, for instance, you could make the bricks blood red and the morter black. Or you could make the morter a nice bright red. And of course you can always increase Ambience. And I still think they need to add a system of Dynamics! Bryce's animating capabilities are nill to zero! A physics engine would also be useful just for realistic object placement in still scenes.

amen on the physics engine :) The texture editing stuff you mention is kinda what photoshop's for :-P

And thus we go back to a point I made earlier: the whole idea behind Bryce (and what makes it work when there are far more popular, though not necessarily better, programs available, and also why Corel almost killed the franchise--praise be to DAZ!) is that it offers a very large amount of power for a very small price. It's always been this way, except when Corel had it, but we won't talk about that. =) I think that DAZ should try to reduce the number of other programs necessary to create great renders in Bryce. Photoshop is quite expensive as I understand (haven't looked at prices yet). This is why I mentioned the 2D FX from Photoshop such as lens flare earlier, again trying to reduce the number of other programs. 'Course, you can also change the colors in the much cheaper Paint Shop Pro. I think the point still stands though. Just my $.02

yea but a bryce/photoshop combo app for $100 would be silly :P no comercial company is gunna do that

LOL I didn't mean EVERYTHING (wouldn't that be a dream), just some of the more common FX such as lens flare mentioned. If a company did manage to make a program with every single feature of both programs, without losing anything, they'd make trillions of sales. Maybe it would be a better way for them to go... never mind, you can't argue with equations. Cheers

yea lens-flares would be a nice idea :) though you can import those on 2D planes ;)

Only if you have Photoshop (I don't). I have no way that I know of to reproduce the effect that Photoshop gives; PSP9 has a lens flare, but it looks very poor. I use PSP6, which has no lens flare at all. Okay now we're on #34, and not talking about the original topic of the thread! =) Kinda funny really... Cheers

photoshops default flares are clichanyways :P you can use the gimp or such, it's free. or Ultimate FX, which is free too. And there was this thing called project dogwaffle or such I think... also free :) great stuff out there for free ;) take a look, I'm sure you'll find something to your liking

Took a look for Ultimate FX. Closest thing I found was called Ultimate Paint, on a redirect from Google's findings to a software page. It's freeware, so probably an updated version of what you're talking about. Thanks a lot, this could be extremely helpful to me. As for cliche, well, I'd like to start with that and branch out! =)

hmm ultimate paint and ultimate fx used to be 2 seperate programs. Maybe they merged them. I can't find UltimateFX anymore either :| I seem to remember a filter called axion flare or such.. which made cool flares :) seems to be at this link: http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/queenvic/902/ss.productions.dl.htm (why are all my fav freeware tools so hard to find?? :-/)

Hmm interesting that they are offering KPT3's there... aren't KPT3's provided with Bryce? Never could work out how to use those things... Thanks a lot I'll download that and install Ultimate Paint soon as my render finishes (which, the way it's going now, will be sometime well into tomorrow). Cheers

I've got no idea. lol, I just grabbed that link right there straight outta google a few secs ago :P

Yup, that's where I found Ultimate Paint. Why would anybody NOT use google? =) Someday I'll just do a search on "free 3d renderer", wonder what that would get =) maybe "free 3d modeler" lol

Rayraz, Hmmm, I took a look at that address you gave, there seemed to be Kpt3 tools available for download... but! When I tried that an error page appeared in the address bar, but didn't load... And although it says to email them if you want anything - there's no email address!!! RATS!!! Got the Axion thingie though - I can't wait to try it out.

What happened to Rayraz's link ? I was thinking this would be a good tutorial for Dyret.

It´s here I think

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=384

Thanks!