I have bought Bryce on trial, primarily to import stuff built in Rhino, and then animate it to see what it does. I can see lots of other fun to be had, but for now..... Rhino has its own animation plugin, but that gave me much grief in the trial, and eventually the trial expired before it should hev. Nobody could regain it for me. It's also not cheap, by a long way compared to Bryce, even at Educational prices. So I thought I would look at Bryce. However, I am not sure it suits me. Maybe someone can lead me. Either to tutes or by explanation I have come up against some things that seem to be faults/bugs; some repeatable, some not.. BUT... The two biggest apparent design-function problems I have had so far are: (1) not easy to line up objects to ensure they rotate about an exact point on another object. For instance a loader bucket on a loader arm; as the arm drops, rotating about its own axis, the bucket also rotates about the pin that holds it to the bucket. - I have made it a child of the arm, so it follows the arm - I have placed it so that its pin-hole (bushing)is at the axis of the arm's pin-hole for the bucket - I have set its origin handle to be in the centre of the bushing. However, all of this was done pretty much by guesswork. There is no way that I can see to link them accurately. (2) Flowing paths. Bryce wants to make things flow. Is there any way to make them move in an accurate angular way, without splining? I may be bnacking the wrong horse. That is a suggestion. I am not agin Bryce at all. I would appareeciate any help here. Thanks.

Attached Link: Pylon racing animation tut

Attached Link: Squareing up your Bryce Default scene...

Now there is No BMP file with it... OOOpps... And I didnt click Show Render times... I usually only show the times when I NEED to Know otherwise the Menu gets in the way of the work flow...

To get the bucket to rotate, I would move the time scrubber to the point in the timeline where the bucket should have maximum rotation, then rotate it how you want it. If you are using auto keyframe it should sort itself out. If you are keyframing manually, then add a keyframe >for rotation at that point with the bucket selected. But to get thew bucket to rotate about what point? It wants to rotate about its own centre. I need to alter that accurately.

Post us up a screenshot and annotate it to show us what you are trying to do. You should just have to grab the green square(origin) in the wireframe and move it to the point you want it to rotate from.

Thanks for the reply. As I said in my OP, I placed the Origin Handle at the desired point of rotation. I was looking for a way to do it accurately, not by guess. As far as I can see there is no way to place a thing except by moving it about until it loooks OK. I was wondering if I had missed something in the programme. Thanks for all the input.

As far as I know REALOldNick that is the only way to do it. I usually set a large document size to help myself out. It is a shame Bryce does not have multiple viewports like Rhino and other 3d modelers. There are others here far more knowledgeable than I (thank God) and they might have the magic answer, but I just try to eyeball it as close as I can. Once again, I am begging for a screenshot, or maybe I could IM you my email and you could send me your bryce 5 file.

You can always switch views, I do most of my placing in the top view first, then right and front (or whatever is easier) to get the right height.

How do you zoom in when you are in the top, or side viewports?

You can always switch views, I do most of my placing in >>the top view first, then right and front (or whatever is >>easier) to get the right height. >How do you zoom in when you are in the top, or side >viewports? UVDan. You can still use the + - and hand controls. This zooms the View, not the Camera. My issue here (and I have been to Support about this but not yet had an answer) is that I find selecting stuff, especially teh Camera, unreliable in any but the Director's View.

I pretty much stay in Director's view. Unless I am filming an animation, then I switch over to camera view. If you get in the habit of doing things to your objects while in camera view, you end up animating things you do not want animated. Thanks for the tip about the hand controls btw. I appreciate knowing that. I sure wish we could get some more folks involved in this thread. Have you posted over at the Bryce forum at DAZ?

"(2) Flowing paths. Bryce wants to make things flow. Is there any way to make them move in an accurate angular way, without splining?"

I believe the secret here is to place a keyframe before you want the object to rotate. Say for instance your arm goes down from frame 1 to 15, then you want the bucket to start turning. You would place a keyframe at 15 then advance to where your bucket would be fully turned with the frame scrubber, then turn the bucket. That way it would only turn after the arm had gotten to frame 15 instead of slowly turning from frame 1.

Message edited on: 08/27/2005 01:49

OK. Thanks. I can get that OK. I was meaning more from them point of view of the path it travels along. I wasn't really referring to the bucket (sorry, too many questions), but, say, a bouncing cube, trying to make it bounce, not sort of wash its way around the corner. However, you have given me an idea with your mention of keyframes..... Yup, Worth more looking at. Place a keyframe on the frame right before and maybe right after the one that is the apex of the turn, no movement of the object. This makes the path take a sharp corner! Just learning ghe Advanced Motion Lab, and how that makes things accelerate too. Dang! I was doing all this stuff with keyframes and placing them all over at differnt distances etc! Just made a really nice bounce. Nice and crips, and accelerates down and decelerates up! Hah!. Sorry....

If you are talking about taking the path an object travels along and changing it from a curve to a right angle then open the object attributes, go to the animation tab and turn on show handles. With these you can change the angles, etc using key combos. If you are really interested in Bryce then get Real World Bryce 4 (works for 5 too). This book is the Bryce bible and goes into detail of how things works. It's 1000 pages of goodness. :)

If you are already into the Advanced Motion Lab, then you are accelerating at a rapid pace. The AML is unexplored territory for me. I hope you continue to have progress.

If you are already into the Advanced Motion Lab, then you >are accelerating at a rapid pace. The AML is unexplored >territory for me. I hope you continue to have progress. Perhaps in too many directions at once? Rather than accelerating, I think I am more sort of cannoning around, emulating the very bounce I tried to create. I really did just want this to animate Rhino stuff, and got carried away. Try the AML! I looked at it in complete loss at first. But in the end....at its simplest....you pick an object, which flicks up its attributes. Pick an attribute (position), which shows a line on the "screen". Pick a place in the curve, wait for the "pencil" to show onscreen. Create a dot. You can literally drag the dot to make what was linear motion/time into something that follows the curve you draw. You can add points at any place on the line, and create motion/time of any sort. If the line is vertical, you have instant motion. Horiz makes it stand still. And what have you in between. You still need keyframes as you do in the normal screen. So far I have only done position, to accelerate. I have to admit I have not even started on Origin etc etc. My chaotic progress has to have some linearity!

Thanks I will have to try it.

If you are talking about taking the path an object travels >along and changing it from a curve to a right angle then >open the object attributes, go to the animation tab and >turn on show handles. The handles of the paths show ny default, but if I move a handle, it causes a spline curve, not a sharp corner. >With these you can change the angles, etc using key combos. But what key combos? I wish I could right-click, or click as I can an object and edit. This is one of the gripes I have about Bryce. Buttons, triangles, dropdowns, menus and now key combos.... sorry. >If you are really interested in Bryce then get Real World >Bryce 4 (works for 5 too). This book is the Bryce bible >and goes into detail of how things works. It's 1000 pages >of goodness. :) 1000 pages! Yike! Oookay!

As per UVDan's request, I've copied my response from the Rhino post over to the Bryce forum for the benefit of all you Bryce-ers.
I have included other people's parts of the conversation in "quote boxes" to present this in some sort of coherent manner. My own words are left in regular type.

Ok, I've tried to write a reply 3 times. Various crashes and system hangs have prevented me.
In any case I went into the technical explanation (as I usually do), and no one cares anyway. Besides I can't justify spending another 45 minutes typing.

So here's the bottom line.

Personally I use 3DS to go from Rhino to Bryce. It more accurately stores material info than OBJ (at least it seems to for me). Only real advantage to OBJ (as far as I can see) is that it has no max polygon limit (3DS limits you to 65535 polys per mesh and will break up a more bigger mesh into smaller meshes with that max number).

VRML doesn't store smoothing info. Go to the object attributes ("Ctrl+E") and click the "Smooth" sphere. Adjusting the angle slider determines what angles are preserved as hard edges; anything below the value of the slider is smoothed when shading.

Rotating an object about another is pretty easy too. Just set the base object as the parent of the orbiting object. Accomplish this from the "Linking" tab in the "Object Attributes" dialog box ("Ctrl+Alt+E"). You can make parent-child chains many layers deep for very complex motions.

REALOldNick: on 8/27/05 18:37 - - - - - -

dukduk. Sorry about your woes and thanks for your efforts.

I have not gone far enough down the track to pick up on the finer points. I will take your word for it, tech explanation or no....

My problem with rotating is not the actual doing of it, but the accurate placement of the rotation point. As far as I can see , there is none. no snap except a rudimentary grid etc. It's in tyhe nature of the beast, I think. An object is an object, rather than a lot of placeable bits etc.

UVDAN. We moved across to the Bryce forum. Sorry I did not reply to your post above. Sometimes I get emails warning me, others not....
you can easily manipulate the origin. A quick way to do it is to set it up in Rhino. Make a small sphere (or box) with a center where you want your rotation center to be mesh this with very low settings (to save on filesize) as we will be deleting it later anyway. Export this "reference point" mesh along with your other meshes. When you import into Bryce, you can view the origin of the reference point and set the origin of the object you want to rotate about that point to the same location as the reference point. (Did that make sense?) Simply delete or hide the reference mesh and you've no got accurate origin placement.

Of course you're doing all of this by entering values manually in the Object Attributes dialog box rather than trying to drag stuff around.

Another nice feature is the "Align" (All; Y-Top, -Center, -Bottom; X-Left, -Center, -Right; Z-Front, -Center, -Back) button in the edit palette. This snaps your meshes to have the same point as the align option you selected.

Oh, I forgot my main reason for using 3DS in Bryce, it imports way faster than OBJ. I mean...we're talking orders of magnitude here...

Don't believe me...try importing a complex mesh (something with more than 20k polys) in both formats.

REALOldNick: on 8/27/05 22:18 - - - - - -

dukduk

Thanks for the pointers. Very useful. I tried importing a Point, and it did not show, and even if it exists, there is no snap. So a small circle sphere is the way to go.

I had got halfway there as I made sure I placed a small bushing hole in each item so I could line them up.

I was just starting to look at using coordinates in Attributes box (only had the programme 3 days! ) although I had already started to use the coordinates to move stuff around and rotate from the Edit ribbon / toolbar. ..thingy

Only trouble is, I just tried setting the Absolute Coordinates of the Origin of two cubes to the exact same values, and they match neither each other nor their relationship to their objects!

As far as 3ds vs obj, I will have to try this out. I have now had two opposing views! You do seem to have a done a bit of thinking about this.
I actually came to Rhino from Bryce (a frustration with the lack of available models that were excatly what I needed drove me to modelling). So I feel pretty comfortable with Bryce's rendering and animation engine and thus never really bothered with Flamingo or Bongo. I am however starting to get into POV; it's just amazingly feature-rich.

UVDan: on 8/27/05 22:32 - - - - - -

Go with dukduk's observations on the 3ds files. I am partial to obj because I map everything in UV Mapper.
Yeah...UVMapper is a great tool, I'm just usually too lazy to bother mapping most of my stuff unless I have to. You know, you could map and texture in OBJ and then convert to 3DS using something like DeepExploration (or another converting app).

By the way, Nick and Dan, you can right click to accurately select a given object...just hold down Ctrl while you're doing it. A menu will pop up showing all the available things to select that are under your pointer.

Message edited on: 08/28/2005 00:14

uh...I was just setting up a simple animation of a basic scooper in Bryce and realized that it's Ctrl+Left-click not Ctrl+Right-click to bring up the menu. It's been a while since I've been in Bryce...I'm a little rusty.

Thanks for going through the trouble of posting this here dukduk.

Yeah there was another post coming, but I just had to reboot...making a zip archive froze my box for some reason....re-composing now...

The way I was telling you earlier to set up the scene (copying "origin sphere" locations and whatnot) is wrong. Like I said above..."It's been a while since I've been in Bryce...I'm a little rusty."

The way you should do it is to parent the objects you want to rotate and translate to the "origin objects" (be they spheres, pins, bushings, etc.). Any rotation or translation is then accomplished by rotating or translating the "origin objects"; their children will follow accordingly. This method makes it easier to adjust your rotation points also. If your joint is in the wrong place, just un-parent it's children, drag it to wherever it goes, and re-parent.
What you are doing is essentially building a skeletal structure. The "origin objects" define the joints and moving them forces the bones (their children) to go where they are supposed to be.

Take a look at the file (Bryce4 and Rhino2 files are both included in the archive) and notice how the parenting is done.
You could go even more crazy with this and do some more advanced stuff. I've included a more advanced joint setup (one with a piston) in the "Advanced" folder of the archive. That one did require me to adjust the origin Z values for the arm_piston_lower and arm_piston_upper; I used the Z-values from the origin_arm_piston_lower and origin_arm_piston_upper, respectively. Make sure to click the lock icon to "unlocked" before changing origin values; otherwise you'll end up moving your object in addition to changing it's origin.

Rename the attached file (only 80KB) to "Digger_Arm.zip" to open it (the forum only takes images or text files).

Note: In the advanced file I've deleted the redundant origins and haven't bothered to hide the piston origins.

Need to think about this. Thanks dukduk, from me as well.

For those of you who care, this conversation is going on in two places...here and in a thread in the Rhino Forum. If you're not following something I said or it seems out of context, I've probably referenced soemthing in the other thread...sorry, but I'm just bad like that.

Tried the arm. The bucket's centre of rotation was not at the pin, so I put it there. Logical. I left a hole where I should have had a pin. When I was trying the imports, I had no idea of what would happen, and actually ended up with everything as one item, not knowing about ungrouping. This would only happen with 3ds, so I was not sure of what I should include in the imported object at all. So thanks, dukduk.

All I did to set up those joints was ungroup the import and parent stuff to each other. (In the advanced file I did alter the orgin values of the pistons, but that is due to the quirks of the "targeting".

Normally, I leave the origins in the "wrong places" for parented objects. This gives me a quick, visual warning that I've selected a child instead of parent when I see something rotating in an unexpected manner, and it means less work for me in bryce...bonus!

OOH, OOH, I just thought of something!!!! Perhaps it is possible to lock the child objects to completely prevent them from being accidentally selected and dragged about. I wonder if a locked child will still follow its parent? Be right back. Yup, it works...I've got a new joint setup method. Thanks for bringing up this topic, I probably never would have thought of locking the children without explaining the process step-by-step to someone else. I've attached an updated version of the advanced Bryce4 file using the new "locked child method".

Attached: "Digger_Arm_Advanced_Updated.zip" 16KB Message edited on: 08/28/2005 10:35

Just tried locking and yes it could be very useful. Glad I could "help" I have to say that in Rhino, I learn more by trying to help others on the RHino NGs than any other way. It's been the same for me whatver new stuff I take up, and even when it's not new to me. I also often hold the same sort of conversations you do with myself as I interact!

Hey dukduk! Thanks for all that stuff about rotating and linking and locking! I think I was too bo8nd up in Rhino, where you ask to rotate, and you have several object selected, and then you can select a rotation point. I actually grabbed a 'wooden" model called adam3.3dm from around here (rhino stuff) and imported it into Bryce. Using Parenting and locking, and leaving all the actual joints "free", you get a fully-mobile human model. Most fascinating. Worth setting up and using in other situations when needed. I did leave the poor guy's thumbjoint floating around for a while but he didn't complain...glad of the walk, I guess. I would not be surprised to see that there is one already made. But it was an enormous learning experience.

I believe Bryce was initially aimed at landscape and still life rendering (as evidenced by the still landscape-based splash screen). One more cool thing about the Ctrl+Left-click selection method is that it allows you to select items without accidentally dragging them (something which all-too-often occurs when using a traditional Left-click in Bryce).

From the Bryce 5.5 Site: "Add wildlife, people, props and more to your Bryce scenes, in addition to the terrains, waters, skies, rocks, clouds, fog, vegetation, and architecture for which Bryce has long been the standard." "Bryce 5.5: Powerful 3D Landscaping and Animation" Plus the box has a giant, sweeping landscape on it...I'd say the focus is still on landscapes (and other solid bodies). Maybe the Daz|Studio plugin will finally grant us the ability to have dynamically-updated deforming meshes (changes in Studio would be reflected in Bryce). I know such a Poser scene plugin exists for another renderer (LW perhaps?) which allows you to import even animated Poser files, but something similar for Bryce would definitely be a welcome addition.

Ironically, Bryce suits my prime animation aim quite well, once I settled down and listened to your ideas! It's just that I started to wonder...and of course the sales pitch is aimed to make you do just that.... "dynamically-updated deforming meshes" ...that's what I meant....That would make Bryce a very powerful animator. Where do the models for Studio come from? What are they created in and can I (one) do my own, OOI?

Bryce and DazStudio are the Perfect combination... Yes you can do Poser animations in Bryce thru DazStudio... Ahhhh but it is not automatic....YET You setup your animations in DS and then you port over to Bryce and render Frame by frame and Put all of the TGas or Jpegs together in a Video Editing Software... Soon there will be total Compatibility Betweeen DS and Bryce so Hence there will be FULL BLOWN Animation Possibilities via Bryce or a DS Plugin.... In a Years time maybe a little longer after DS has released its Version 1 you will see 3rd Party Plugins that will let us have everything that Poser and Vue has BUT More.... It will Happen and Folks that is why DAZ is so Cool because they have this Vision and I am an old school Bryce user ..A die Hard Bryce from WAY back...6 years woooohooo but I am very Passionate about Bryce as most folks Know...But after Talking with the folks at DAZ at Siggraph and getting to know them... They are For US and they will get us what we need... Nuff said...

If you have something to say then out with it man! I will wait, but not too keenly. It sounds as if Bryce may be the solution, or it could be something else or...it would feel safer to me if I knew which way the thing was going to go. However, Bryce seems to suit my needs, without to much hassle.

Do what ya need to do... In time one way or another Bryce/DS will be able to do a heck of alot of things even The higher ups in DAZ will not have thought of...Maybe.... It just takes time and Mooolah to get a Program that was thought to be dead Back up and running and in everybodies minds again...

I am thumping a tub here, mainly because if you go over to the actual Bryce forums, there is a huge clamour for faeries and forests (which as you may see are not my field ) and very little backing for animation, both from users and developers. The pdf for Studio talks of animation, but it's all in the future. There is a very loud group of people who will not budge on the look and feel of Bryce, and seem very happy that it exists at all. I feel they need to get new people in, not just cater for the existing user, or they will get nowhere. So if I have a skewed idea of the direction that DAZ may take, that's why.

Depends on what you want to use for animations in Bryce...? Animations can be done in Bryce Frame by Frame if using Poser Characters... If you have Poser you can Bring in your Poser animations in DS with ease... If you dont have Poser then you still can animate in DS to your Hearts content just have to do it Frame By frame... And then again you can bring those animations into Bryce Via DS button Frame by Frame and then like I said render and the composite together in an Video editing software... I have done a few Flyby Space animations and I plan on doing a few Space Landings using Bryce just need to finish the effects that I am doing for a Independent film that of course I am doing some of the effects in Bryce...I will upload some GIFS of the effects as soon as I can NDA wise...

If you dont have Poser then you still can animate in DS to >your Hearts content >just have to do it Frame By frame... Which is hardly what I would ever call "to my heart's content"!

True... But hopefully soon there will be Loads of Preset animations that can be attached to any model/Character that would Basically match Posers abilitilies to attach a bone system...Then instant animations capabilities...Then it would be awesome if there was a Plugin made to port that animation over to Bryce for full rendering capabilities...

Really. As long as I see "waffles" and "adolescentposer" titling posters in Bryce forums (God...at least they are educated spellers!) I have a problem dealing with it as a serious animation/posing programme. WNU Poser?

You can... I prefer to wait and use DS and Bryce...

OK. I will try again. Last post failed badly. I want to say that my comments concerning taking Bryce seriously were NOT aimed at (in PARTICULAR) dukduk et al. I am sorry if it belittled the practical input here. You guys have provided practical hints, support and advice, and helped me stay with Bryce, for all its shortcomings as I see it. It does do animation. It does need fixing IMO. But I am still using it, and this forum has helped ne stay there. I was taking a shot at the Bryce site, as much as anything. The site does not seem to have caught up with the changes, and animation in particular. Even Tech support gave me what looked like bad info....

grrrrr...accidentally hit Ctrl+Q while reaching for the copy-and-paste...can we say "POOF! No more eloquently worded post."? Oh, well...here goes...again. No offense taken. I'd have to agree that Bryce has rather limiting features. It does not do accurate caustics, has no support for HDRI (or any GI format), does not properly handle bounced light, etc., etc.; the list is pretty long (at least my list of gripes is). However, Bryce does some things remarkably well. Bryce has very nice procedural texture engine (gotta love that DTE), it handles landscapes wth great aplomb (gotta love that interactive terrain editor), almost any of the aforementioned effects (caustics, radiosty, etc.) can be faked with a bit of elbow grease and finesse, and it's got a pretty intuitive interface (and thus a prety shallow leraning curve). For serious work, you'll want to stick with the "big boys" (LW, XSI, Maya, Houdini, MAX, etc.); but they packages also carry "big boy prices" and have "big boy learning curves". Bryce is a pretty decent package for the price (comapre it to Flamingo and Bongo, for instance). I think that Bryce is very useful, particularly in one respect. It is an easy "quick renderer". Scene setup is fast and rendering is not-too-pokey (not blisteringly fast either...but not bad). It's got a pretty short training period; almost anyone can produce fairly good images after a bit of "fiddling around" (we've all made our "glass-balls-floating-on-endless-water images"...anyone who says otherwise is a liar), and it's got an okay animation engine once you learn the quirks and are willing to put some time and effort into manually keyframing/pathing your objects. All-in-all, I think Bryce does what it claims (user-friendly rendering), and a bit more (animation and "faked effects"). It may not have the best customer service (but I understnad they're being "acquired" again?...maybe it will clear up after the takeover). There are admittedly some shortcomings (some of which are workaround-able). Some features are poor (or completely lacking), but what app is perfect? Everyone wants something changed about their favorite program, why should Bryce be any different? It's not the best package out there, but it's certainly not the worst; and the price doesn't hurt either.

huh? Takeover? Again, you mean after DAZ? Who by? Corel? You are talking about stuff with Bryce that I have not even tried, and maybe never will. I agree it's a good price, and is workable. But there does not seem to be much pressure to tweak it, and in fact quite considerable resistance from the oldschool users. I would never be interested in the Big Boys at all. Could not justify it. I have, with help here, also overcome the two gripes I had. But I have met a couple of others. I will start another post on that.

Okie, pm the link to me (or attach it here), and we'll see if we can't overcome those issues as well. I've managed to "get around" most of mine (but sometimes with considerable effort...maybe I can save someone from reinventing the wheel).

Sorry this is so late in answering but due to the hurricane have been busy with family.

To answer which keys to use if you can already see the blue dots that are the trajectory handles here they are

Hold down T key and click and drag on the blue dot to change tension(sharpnees of curve)
Hold down C key and click and drag on blue dot to change continuity (sharpness of curve too)
Hold down B key and click and drag on blue dot to change bias

On a path with at least 3 points you can use the alt key and click and drag to twist the path.

Message edited on: 09/03/2005 13:53