Ok - ok - so - Now I have mastered the art of using trans mapping in BRYCE 5.0 (will be getting 6.0 soon - after I upgrade my prehistoric "rig"). I can now do shattered glass windows - stained glass windows, scorched windows, fat windows, tall windows, skinny windows, and - well - ad infinitum... HOWEVER - I HAVE A NEW PROBLEM... I want to make "BUMPY" texture mats, i.e. mats that have details that stand out in the marvelous wonders of 3D... I recently found a tutorial that PRETENDED to explain this perplexing dilemma - but in analyzing and applieing this folly - I again, ran into problems...read on...

The tutorial explained that bump maps are done similarly to the trans map deal - so - I picked out a nice recently completed texture that I had piece mealed together - a mat for a downtown building with a nice fresco...

I then loaded it into the "WEIRD NAKED GUY EDITOR after creating a greyscale version to use as my "bump map"...

I then tweaked the bump map height in the materials editor - and saved the whole thing in my library as "test" mat. I applied it to my cube and BAM- INVISIBLE FREAKING BUILDING! I wanted the details of my mat to stand out in 3D - but instead - I now have a "ghost building".

Granted the effect is awsome - but alas - it is not what I was shooting for - as I expected this to happen anyway, and I don't know how to tell bryce (BUMP MAP - NOT TRANS - MAP YOU iDIOT!!!!...

HELP PLEASE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I halfway expected this to happen. What did I NOT do in the materials editor that I should've done?

don't click the marble in the Transparency row.

do click the marble in the bump row.

in my ancient tutorial on using pictures as material components, I don't use the "alpha channel" at all - I load them in all as separate pictures.  so, you may have to take your alpha channel out completely and load it as a separate picture, as it may automagically just think, "ah, there's an alpha channel which means transparency, so I'll ignore the setting of the transparency row and use the alpha channel regardless." -- in which case, you can probably use a "nothing" material and override the transparency....

http://calyxa.best.vwh.net/~calyxa/pearl/materialtut/picts.html

Ok - I read it - but does that actually make the bricks STAND OUT in 3d space - or just look like they are when viewed face on like just slapping on an embossed image - in other words - does it create a true 3d surface - or does it just "fake one out" in 2d facade?

that's right, many (but not all) 3D applications, and even video apps, think and work in this manner: if there is an alpha channel in the image (for example if it is a 32-bit tiff instead of a 24-bit tiff), then it is assumed that the 8-bit alpha channel is holding a mask of some sorts, and that it should be used as a transparency mask. (or opacity mask, whichever you look at it). Carrara does the same now, but it wasn't always that way, i.e. in the past the shader in Carrara had just a transparency channel which you had to explicitly feed with the mask, whereas now in v5 you can send a picture into the color channel and it will check if there's alpha and if so then it will use it for transparency.

Managing the alpha is one of the things we focus on in PD Pro, and we recently also added a few free plugins to the $19 lite edition, PD Particles, through the cooltools #1 collection for PD Particles, containing tools like Store alpha, paint on alpha and grow and shrink alpha. There's also adjust, blur and other alpha (invert alpha) tools in the menu of PD Particles.

In Bryce you will load the transparency mask separately, so it's just a greyscale image. Note that if you have an image which holds alpha already, and you want to use that one, you can usually find tools in your imaging program such as PS or PSP (and of course PD) to extract the alpha and save it as its own greyscale image.

One think that becomes important too is that the transparency mask be controllable, with regards to adjusting the value, brightness, and especially gamma and contrast, so you can make sure that black is indeed totally black (opaque) and white is totally white (fully transparent). Some imaging tools will offer one-click solutions like 'adjust dymaic range' so as to make sure that the minimal and maximal values possible are indeed reached.

Interesting staigermanus - and nice COMMERCIAL PROMO DUDER!!! Anywho - I clicked off the "transparency" marble - and clicked on the "bump map" marble - AND LO AND BEHOLD - SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENED - WOOO HOOOOO!!!

Actually it wasn't that big'a deal - BUT - it's a step in the right direction...

Here's what I just got - it appears than rather making actual changes in 3d depth - it instead simply made the building "rougher looking". I suspect that some modification will have to be done to my "bump map" in order to better define what's going on - but I'm still going to need some input and direction on this to refine the process so that I can have a better "eureka moment" on this thing like I did with the window making dealy bob...

I dont know how to help you but I think I understand what you want.  You want Bryce to make changes to the Object Mesh according to whats on the Bitmap to make the bricks, windows etc.. protrude.

YES ANALOG! - Hey - I figure if you can do it with grey scales in the terrain editor than there must be a way to do it in the materials editor with mats?...

i dont think bryce can do this.
The only way you can mould a texture into a 3d object is with the a greyscale image in the terrain editor.

create a new terrain , rotate it upright for the front of the building and apply the bump / greyscale in terrain editor.

Then apply the original colour image with the material editor. I dont think it will work out how you would expect though.

Attached Link: http://www.bryceworks.com/current_bryce/dead_end_pc.html

Bump mapping is just a render effect, does nothing to the actual geometry. What you're really looking for is a 3D app that does displacement mapping from an image that can be converted to a fixed mesh for export to something like .OBJ. I have that feature with the Form*z modeler but I'm not sure what other 3D apps offer this. The link is to a Bryce image of mine that used this technique for the brick walls and "cracked" concrete alley floor.

I've heard that WINGS 3d has some kind of process for converting 2d images to 3d models - but that it's a tad bit involved though. I also know of a freeware app that USED to exist that enabled you to make 3d models from 2d images using node application - but export was only in VRML format - and I need .3ds or .obj...

I am going to try using building textures in order to create terrain maps - group and assemble the maps into single structures - and then slap the original textures / mats onto them?
It's worth a shot...Wish I had a way to actually make the mats themselves do that though...

@Mugsey:

This has probably been covered in the above posts, but I didn't have the patience to read them all...

Bump maps don't affect the geometry of the object they're applied to. They're a render effect.
Try the following to prove it: Start new scene, load a cube/box.
Apply a strongly-textured image to the bump channel of the cube. Rotate the cube 45 degrees in Y and render. Although the surfaces of the cube appear to have bumps and dents, the EDGES of the cube will still be straight.

Displacement mapping actually adds "micro-polygons" to the mesh at render time, thus making actual bumps on the mesh (although there's a down-side to that; displacement is carried out along the "normal", the 3rd axis on a 2d polygon, and so can make gaps along the edges).

Bryce doesn't support displacement. Nor does Vue (although I understand the Vue 6 is supposed to, but Vue 6 isn't stable enough yet AFAIK).

Poser 5 and onwards supports displacement (but only in renders, the resulting mesh can't be exported)

Not sure about Wings, I've got it but haven't used it in years.Ask in the Wings forum here..

Hexagon supports displacement mapping and can convert the displacement to an actual mesh which can be exported. However I'm not sure if it can apply displacement from a grey-scale image (never tried it - need to have a go).

Hope that helps..

Cheers,
Diolma

Thank you dioloma.
I haven't checked out the other apps - however, I have revisited my WINGS prog - and am learning , although I do NOT think it can traslate greyscales. I have heard about Hexagon and will investigate it further.

I know there's a way to project a 2d pic in Wings, and model against that (Bazze does it, I think...;) but exactly how it works, I dunno.

yes pakled-I would like to find out how that's done.