I was thinking something...  Bryce has an option to make a panoramic render for QTVR, so why not expand on this to render to the right format HDRI?

Then if you want a complicated scene for a backdrop, in theory you could use the HDRI instead of throwing your "hero" model into an actual scene. This might be useful for making smaller files, or shorter renders.

Of course someone might also work out a way to make the QTVR panorama into an HDRI (or LDRI) which could be useful, but why not be able to render one in-program?

I guess if you rendered the scene 3 times, at low, normal and high light settings, it may be possible to create an HDRI from it.   Otherwise it would be LDRI.  But then, if it's a scene you've created in Bryce, why not just render within the scene? 

We have a tutorial on that ... actually ... checking on it

-darlisa

But then, if it's a scene you've created in Bryce, why not just render within the scene? 

For giggles I suppose? Or, I guess to use them in another program, or give'em away for free, or sell them. The Evermotion link in the "HDRI's for Bryce 6"; all those HDRI's had been made from a 3D program.

But, yeah you would really need to make 3 (or more) renders for a more true HDRI.

Hey, ya know....a QTVR is basically a Equirectangular image wrapped onto a virtual sphere with "you" in the middle.

If you had the right software to deal with QTVR, you could probably extract the image and convert it to the correct panoramical format Bryce 6 needs.

Now...just to find freeware QTVR utilities.....

It's not free, but it's cheap enough, and great: http://www.clickheredesign.com.au/software/ check out this guy's HDR photographs, some truly nuts stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/ he uses a tool called photomatix to tone-map images into HDR files. Cross platform as well., and has a free basic version. You can also simply open an equirectangular image in photoshop, go to distort>polar coordinates>rectangular to polar and it will magically transform it into the mirrored ball format.

The other option is the photo of the reflective sphere in Bryce.  For a reflective sphere size A,A,A at coordinates x,y,z - the camera should be at x, y, (1.8A + z) (for the standard 40 degree FOV).  If you want to take the second image (to avoid distortions), the second camera position should be (1.8A + x), y, z.

C1
|
|
|
|
S- - - - - --- C2

copy and pasting that info to my hdd......

Probably a good idea to lift the sphere off the ground a bit, haven't actually tested yet.

And make sure your camera is set to track the reflective sphere, too.  Also, you'll need a square image, to save later cropping.

Yep, that was my inspiration for this, I'm aiming for a true seamless LDRI, then to work on exposure values (or brycean equivelant) to get true HDRI (well, true fake HDRI).

Quote - why not just render within the scene?

It's something that might be handy for making complex backgrounds to use later on. I was thinking a rendered HDRI might be lighter than using a complex scene background as far as file size goes.  Also there might be some performance gains if you used such a background instead of an actual scene file.  At least that's how my train of thought is going...

40 pov is default...

I use 50-60 depending on my Lighting...

Ditto, on those FOV's.

Mahray, let the experiments commence! Nice work.

Here's a technique I devloped for converting cubic faces into equirectangular images all those years ago, using only bryce and photoshop: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=1155039 Here's a new ocation for the file upload, as renderring has been lost somewhere along the way... http://www.3dfightclub.com/~madmax/uploads/files/hdrconversion.zip It can also work in reverse, to turn bryce scenes into .hdr files. I'll make a tutorial up right now.

And for comparison, this is what we USED to have to do to get a decent faked HDRI scene in earlier version of bryce: "The best material to apply to the hdr hollow ball is both dots in the first ambient and diffuse channels. Then add a dot for ambience (the one in the middle of the window, not the one at the top.) Now leave the diffusion dot blank but move the slider to 100. Now go to the pulldown near the first component window and disable cast shadows and recieve shadows. This will make the image appear bright, but also be affected by lights you add to the scene. diffuse--dot ambient--dot 100--diffusion-no dot ambience--dot A faster way of faking illumination by the sphere using no lights and no true ambience is blurry reflections (which actually render quite fast without shadows) To do this, make all the materials besides the hdr spere 30 diffuse and 70 reflective, or some combination of the two that add to 100. (more diffuse and less reflection=brighter colors and less illumination effect. For mirrored objects, leave reflection high and diffusion very low or zero, e.g. a mirrored sphere. Leave glass objects the way they are, don't add diffuse or reflection values) Always leave ambience at zero. Now here's the trick. Edit the whitness of the specular halo valo in each objects material to give more blurring or less blurring. More white=more blurring and less white=less blurring. Objects with a black specular halo will not be blurred at all. For most mirrored objects, however, a setting as high as RGB 40 40 40 is acceptable. Don't worry if you lose the specular highlights for the reflection, as these will be replaced by the more natural lighting captured on the hdr image. For matte objects (non-reflective objects), make the specular halo rgb 254 254 254 and make reflection 30 or lower. Boost the metallicity all the way up and reduce specdularity until it is no longer blown out. Add one light to the scene and disable shadows. Place it behind the camera so that it is illuminating the scene from the front. Enable blurry reflections at 16rpp to test render and render at 64 rpp. Enjoy!"

Hey, I did it like that for like four and a half years.  :oD