I was wondering if anyone from the Bryce community would like to take part in a "large scale" Bryce community experiment?!?

Any takers? Have a science itch you would like to scratch?!? How about a deep learning experience that, in the end would make you a better artist, and give you a better understanding of Bryce lighting and the new IBL room feature?!?

I am curious.

Project: IBL

Have fun, and enjoy :)

(but more importantly, share what you learn :P)

So what's the experiment?

Reallllllllllllll simple actually..... Render the scene... Add mats and atmosphere and lighting, and show and tell what you did. Im hoping Brycers will compare results, maybe we can all work together to lock down on an awesome, surefire method of lighting... Sounds impossible, but I dont think so... A strategy for lights would seriously improve my work... How about you guys?!? Is everyone 100% comfortable w/ lighting? Well, as we share what we do and learn, well learn more, and improve our skills...

The "experiment" end of it is just giving something standard to work w/ to keep consistency for testing. Lighting is hard enough, and w/ each and every scene lighting changes, but not "how the lights work"... I think, working together, we can figure it out... We can ALL benefit, i dont think theres anything to lose...

Dont be a party pooper :P Join in :) What do you know about lights? Im sure theres something everyone can share. That 1 little piece of info, that "secret", that "trick they do"...............

I hope people dont overlook or underestimate their techniques and methods either... Its too easy to say "well, my art isnt that good, no reason for me to participate".... PHOOEY!!! Thats even MORE reason... Practice what you see, imitate, and incorporate. In no time, youll be "adding" your own spice in the mix, and all these spices together will make 1 helluva batch of fried chicken...

MMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm.................. fried chicken...............

Now Ive gone and done it :P Time to cook :)

peace and cheese grease folks!!!

Over the years there have been lots of this type of experiment in this forum, we even had a pass-around file for a bit. Just in the last year or so things have calmed down here....some people will certainly remember how busy it was here. One example is the amount of entries in the Bryce challenge......I think I remember one month having over 60 entries...not to shabby.

Great Idea MatCreator!!

'Fraid I know nothing about lighting, as my gallery will tell you in volumes.

I won't allow myself to participate till I stop balking at my christmas challenge entry.  What the heck is wrong with me?!?  But yeah, it could be very interesting to see what comes out.

mdb

ps... why do I think of the "Sand Kings" when I see this image?... brrrr THAT'S creepy.

can't seem to download the file....tells me it's undergoing maintianace.. have to wait for two hours...

Ditto...

Message: RogePost's downloads are undergoing maintenance and will not be accessible in the next 2 hours. Please come back later.

Yep, 70 hits so far...

soon as it's available I'm game  :)

Cool, I am downloading the file now :-)

For a little while now I have liked trying to make lighting in my renders to be subtly extreme in terms of value, meaning having a small area which is nearly white with light and having a small area which is nearly black with shadow. So;

In the Sky lab, I changed the "Sun & Moon>Ambient" color to pure black, and took the Shadow Intensity up to 100. This will easily give areas of very dark shadows.

Which is no good unless you have the light....the hdri gives me most of that, and then to fill in medium areas with some faked ambience, I used some weak radial lights that do not cast shadows.

I then threw on a image texture, which you can see the image repeating itself on the walls & floor, but in this case, I kinda liked it for some reason, so I didn't fix it.

Thanks MatCreator!

That looks pretty awesome smith... I cant wait to post mines, but my mobo fizzed out on me, will be a while before Im up and running again :(

Interesting that you set the lights close to the ground... Any particular reason?!? Im just curious, why not closer to the top to have shadows fall down, rather than up? Is this your normal style of lighting?

I think that that hdr map is very interesting, not what Im used to seeing. Do simple black/white images make good hdr maps? Id like to test some "designs" out as well... This, all assuming that the white ares give the most light, and dark areas giving the least...

I also thought that for Bryce, hdr maps had to look like spheres in order for Bryce to use them. I followed that tutorial you linked to in the back room and converted some I got off the net, but is the the distortion necessary? What does that do for the image? AND, how comes yours isnt warped like in a spherical motion?!? Its "flat"?!? Howd you do that?

I've only got B5 :( is the file compatable? If yes, can I play with it too? If not compatable can someone leve B6 on my doorstep, by the catflap, behind the potted plant :) (Yeah, I believe in Santa too!!) LOL

The file can only be used with Bryce 6.

Interesting that you set the lights close to the ground... Any particular reason?!?
-With no shadows being cast, it almost doesn't matter at what height they are at, but I normally just as habit, put the radials at the same height as the objects in front of the camera.
-In this case, grouping all the objects together, they are collectivelly at a Y value of 56, so that's the height I put the radials at.
-I suppose the habit of doing that is just time saving, in case I want to turn the shadows back on, and/or want to turn the radials into spots, and pan them for a specific look.
-All this taking into account the lights are a cheap fake to fill in some light to simulate bounced light from the walls and such. (If i turned the shadow casting back on, and the radials were higher, the light would not hit the walls as the ceiling would cast a shadow)

Do simple black/white images make good hdr maps?
-Yeah, they are used when you want a lighting scheme but not wash your scene out with the HDRI's color. (some of them are quite color saturated and can change the color of your textures to sometimes an undesirable amount)) Most commercial/retail HDRI's you buy these days come with a greyscale version of each .hdr

I also thought that for Bryce, hdr maps had to look like spheres in order for Bryce to use them
-Nope, apparently as long as its a sqaure image that has been saved (through HDRShop) as a "angular" or "mirrorball" .hdr, Bryce will be able open and use it. So basically, you can turn most images into a useable .hdr (they will not have the dynamic range of a real .hdr, but still, it can be done)
-The only reason this .hdr of mine doesn't look circular, is because the "sphere" part of the image is black.

is the the distortion necessary?
-No, but the resulting .hdr will not be seamless, but if that attribute doesn't happen to show up in your render, then technically, it doesn't truly matter. ;o)

AND, how comes yours isnt warped like in a spherical motion?!? Its "flat"?!? Howd you do that?
-Because yes, I just created it a a flat image in Photoshop, using that tutorial at the bottom of our "HDRI's for Bryce 6" page. See the tutorial HERE.

I made up a zip of the 3 HDRI's that I had made up so far for use in Bryce. The first one in the pack (01_final.hdr) is the one I used for the above render with a setting of 0,25,25.

See HERE for the download link and previews.

AS,  are your radials set linear of squared fall off to keep the dark shadowed area dark or is HDRI accomplishing that some how?    I find myself using squared a lot not to overwhelm the subject and I use negative for the same reason some but I haven't even begun to understand the nuts and bolts of HDRI

Just a normal radial, (that doesn't cast shadows). So, that would be just a Linear falloff.

The HDRI will give you the main part of the lighting, and then the sky lab settings (ambient color to black and shadow intensity deepens the dark areas.

The radials are just basically used for a different kind of "brightness" control for the objects and the darkest part in the scene. It's very subtle.

I used another 3D app to save .hdr files for Bryce IBL, using Bryce made images. It worked great. You just have to save the image as a square(i.e. 1000x1000), load it into other 3D app and save as .hdr. I did use spherical order in other app but it still was flat, fyi. Then use it as you want in Bryce. You may have to tweak it for a true HDR image in something like HDRShop,  but  if you already have another 3D app, check it to see if it has .hdr file saving and try.

 I am watching this lighting thread for info. Good stuff so far...

Next I wanted to try a Zenith light Rig.

Then something with more reflection.

I swapped the IBL image for another, but left the sky alone otherwise.  Each of the metal balls has a point source inside, set to not cast shadows, with low intensity and ranged falloff.  The glass ball has a spot, squished along Y, shining straight down.  That light uses the rainbow volume mat as a gel, and the lights in the metal balls use gels made from their respective mats.

Since we could change mats I cheated and applied the steel cage mat to the ceiling.  This actually made the most dramatic difference in ligting.  In the end, I only added a bump and some specularity to the walls, which were default gray.  The floor mat is an adaptation of one of my engine-turned mats in the free stuff.  The octopus-looking thing wears a neat volume mat I downloaded years ago.  The cosmic coatrack has one of Tony Lynch's wood mats, the grain going the wrong way as is the alien custom (They get very little service out of a baseball bat).

The lights inside the spheres is a way to fake radiosity.  It is not done to the best effect here, but test renders were taking a lot of time.  I think you get the idea.

Fun challage, MatCreator.  Thanks!

John

Attached Link: Zenith Light Rig

The blue and white show the ambient strength of each and their shadow effects. (Scene Shadow was set to full shadow intensity and full soft shadow)

p.s.
External light is a Zenith Light Rig by Madmax_br5

ok i put 3 radial lights in three spheres. set at default.
tried setting fog and mist no go.
skylab other then ibl  and fog mist at default
ok the doom fluff forum said my 448k picture was too big.
i,m well peeved now.
as thats under the limet.
so enjoy the invisible one rendo alowed.

Limit in the forum is 200

ok that explains why gallery excepted it and forum did not thx!!

In all practicality, it makes more sense to drop any of your UL's to approx 200KB. You typically don't lose too much in quality, and will get a lot more hits from people with dial-up connections.

If I had dial-up, anything over 300 would'n't be worth the time to open especially while cruising the galleries.

My.02

I dont think I ever tried this method to light an interior scene, its too noticeable the concentration of lighting sources...

All in all, I DONT like the result... the light seems too concentrated, and I just dont "agree" w/ the proceeds i selected to mat the scene :P I would go back, set the lights farther from the object and sphere in the corner, and maybe add some more atmosphere... I used 16 lights for the "random dome", and a few more for the "back" of the room. I think I can get better results w/ fewer next time around...

I really do appreciate all the participation, and would also like to apologize for my "absence" as of late. My motherboard blew, and took over a month to get a working replacement...

I dont understand what a zenith light rig is, but am VERY curious... Is that something you made up yourself ICM?!?

Smith, Im gonna try those hdr's you made... Sounds perfect for what I want. I cant stand going thru so many just to get one that DOESNT affect the color of my scene...

And I really do appreciate all the help, thanks :)

Just to check, by default, does the sky lab disable the sun when you guys load in an hdr file?!? Just that if thats the default, does it make it a better option, to NOT use the sun for light?

This is my favorite so far. It uses Smiths hdr file, no lights!!! It lacks good shadow, but I like the quality of the image, and that the hdr didnt colorize the render. I only had the shadow set at 30% in the sky lab, my error but nonetheless, getting good shadow seems to be difficult w/ ibl images anyway...

(I thought we could edit posts, no?!?)

that mat you used on the big creature in the corner is it avalible any where?

Attached Link: IBLtesting-Thelby-01C

IBL Settings:

Quality: 2

Intensity: 55

HDRI Effect: 100

1st thing I noticed was the shadow... I said "wonder how he got that there"... I thought you used a spot from high above casting the shadow :P Alot of shadow and alot of reflection in there too, any lightsources Thelby, or is it entirely IBL?!?

I have some renders pretty much tying my system down now, cant do much, but I think as a "rule of thumb" for me, Ill be combining IBL and the "random" light dome method... On my last image, NOT part of the experiment, I combined the method, but usually Ill have my light shadows turned OFF. This time, I set them ON w/ an intensity of 0%, yes ZERO (set to black, w/ the shadow set to 20/15) and I was very pleased w/ the end result. There was a HUGE difference (not only in how the image looked, but render time as well) from turning the light shadows from off to on w/ 0% intensity, visible in the preview window, but I did not do a full render to "actually" compare results........... Ill do a full render w/ lights off asap, and some more "tests" to show you guys.

Again, I greatly appreciate the participation :)

Only the IBL and the Radial on the floor. Alot of the shadow produced from making the ceiling 10% transparent. I tweaked exactly for the effect of the Hard Shadow in the Corner, to Trap the BEAST!!!!

where exactly are you turning the shadows off in and setting to 0?

In the actual light editor settings...

However, in the skylab, Ill have the shadow cranked all the way up. Ive been variating w/ different colors of the sun for diff effects but pretty much I have that set to 100% intensity w/ soft shadows on...

This project, although it "seems" simple, is very intense in the amount of settings that can be adjusted and variated, making INFINITE possibilities. That means we really have to focus on 1 aspect at a time, which, seems impossible if we are to make any headway, but, I think were doing ok :)

Between the lights and skylab alone, one can get lost in the number of choices to make, that, only complicated by the fact that there is never a right or wrong answer, and always more than 1 way to do it :P

infinite possibilities with infinite ideas will take time.

Lighting has NEVER been an easy topic for 3d graphics. Id rather experiment than read a book. Could you imagine a Bryce book for lighting? Prolly no pictures :)

Admittedly, Ive never read or even seen Real world Bryce. Ive been using the "manual" that came w/ version 4 from Metacreations for eons... And since then, we have trees, meatballs (typo?), and finally IBL...

(That cant be right, I must be missing alot of stuff somewhere inbetween there :P)

think you covered all!!! cannot remember any other grate brake thoughs other then those.

TA...

I would love to have a go at this, but I have tried to download the file at regular intervals since this post started, and I always get the following: Message: RogePost's downloads are undergoing maintenance and will not be accessible in the next 2 hours. Please come back later. Today, I have tried at regular intervals over 8 hours - no go! Can someone please (temporarily) mirror/host the file? Garry

try this link.
http://www.downloadtaxi.com/d/1166457159
allso look in free at top of page then in bryce

Excellent! Got it!!! Thanks wawadave! Garry

NP!!