Does anyone have or know where to get a free light dome for Bryce? 

The freestuff link seems to be gone so you can get it from my site. This is zenith by madmax.
There are different light rigs attached to a big invisible arrow in the center of your scene. Rotate the arrow to aim the light rig. More directions included in the readme in the zip.
http://geocities.com/electroglyph2002/freestuff/zenith.zip

Oh good, glad you have it too. I was looking through my archives for Zenith and finally found it.
I highly recommend the Zenith light rigs.

Hello,

If I understand correctly, the effect of the light dome is to give the scene an even illumination, without harsh shadows.  Is it equivalent to use the IBL feature of Bryce 6.0? 

Best regards

Ramon

yea a light dome is pretty much meant to do a similar thing as IBL. The light dome usage found its brycean use in the days before IBL.

Quote - The freestuff link seems to be gone so you can get it from my site. This is zenith by madmax.
There are different light rigs attached to a big invisible arrow in the center of your scene. Rotate the arrow to aim the light rig. More directions included in the readme in the zip.
http://geocities.com/electroglyph2002/freestuff/zenith.zip

I've got zenith, but none of those are a light dome - they are all a cluster of lights with a single directional arrow.

I'm looking for an actual dome.

By the way, have you got MadMax's daylight and moonlight scenes etc?

Rayraz, thank you for your answer. Is IBL more efficient (faster) than the light dome? Because IBL is very slow...
FranOnTheEdge, I have found this tutorial by Nick Jushchyshyn about light domes, perhaps you can find it useful...
http://www.hiddenphantom.com/Tutorials/BryceDomelight/BryceDomelight.htm
Best regards

Ramon

Fran,
I have the light dome preset I think you are looking for , however I'm away from home for the next few days. If you IM me a reminder I'll send it to you when I get back unless someone else has been able to help you first.

Cheers 
GG

Quote - Rayraz, thank you for your answer. Is IBL more efficient (faster) than the light dome? Because IBL is very slow...
FranOnTheEdge, I have found this tutorial by Nick Jushchyshyn about light domes, perhaps you can find it useful...
http://www.hiddenphantom.com/Tutorials/BryceDomelight/BryceDomelight.htm
Best regards

Ramon

Both are slow. Generally IBL can get a more pronounced effect because its easy to have a variation of color and intensety in your lighting while a light dome is usually constructed with only one color. Ofcourse you could do all that manually for a lightdome too, but i think it'd take a lot of time.

Sometimes a dome will be faster, but it depends on the amount of lights in your dome and if they have soft shadows or not. When using smooth noiseless textures, you will need soft shadows and/or a lot of lights to get a smooth shadow, which means killer rendertimes.

In some more advanced applications animated lightdomes are used in combination with motionblur to get softer shadows with fewer lights, but this trick doesnt work in bryce.
Btw, I suspect DAZ from using a method similar to a procedurally generated light dome for IBL rendering in bryce, because the shadows from brycean IBL are still faceted, especially at low quality settings...

Are shadows from a light dome ever really soft?
I don't think so; even when they are set to soft shadow of 100. I don't see any difference in the shadows whatsoever. They are hard as can be.

Light Dome render times:
Reg. AA w/o soft shadows: 2 seconds - 3.26 million shadow rays
Reg. AA w/ soft shadows: 1 min. 48 sec. - 2.09 trillion shadow rays
9 RPP w/o soft shadows: 19 sec. - 2.80 billion shadow rays
9 RPP w/ soft shadows: 19 sec. - 2.80 billion shadow rays
But the softness setting does nothing to the final appearance. 0 softness looks identical to 100 softness. You can see that same number of shadow rays is used w/ premium soft shadows as premium w/o soft shadows. That is with both the lights and the render setting w/ or w/o soft shadows. Swithcing one or the other on or off makes no difference either.
Obviously there is something not working correctly w/ shadows and light domes (IBL too).
So the fastest by far is Reg. AA w/o soft shadows.
The slowest by far is Reg. AA w/ soft shadows.
But; there still isn't any difference in the appearance whether the dome lights are 'hard' or 'soft'.

IBL lights don't have soft shadows either. It is only when you turn the quality (equals # of IBL lights) up that the many overlapping edges make the shadows look soft. There is no setting for softness in the IBL system, so the times behaves as regular light domes using no soft shadows.
As far as I'm concerned, IBL in 6.1 and after is completely broken, or at least not usable in anything approaching reasonable time. To get a decent IBL effect, the quality must be cranked up, and then it takes FOREVER to render.

EDIT -6.0 IBL wasn't like that. They should have left it alone.

The point is - a light dome can be used in Bryce5, IBL can't.

Fran,

I think this is what you're looking for.

http://www.colacola.se/howto_brycelights.htm

Sorry Fran,

I never downloaded the scenes. 3D fightclub is gone. I even tried the wayback machine but madmax pages were never archived.

Drac also had a dome (free/for sale?) that I can't find now.

What are you after in your scene? Very soft shadows? absolutely no shadows at all? I've had good luck with a mirrored sphere and a single infinite light set at an intensity of 1 or 2. The light bounces off the surface and back to the object again and again. If you put the object in the center and the light off center the intensity is greater in  the direction of the light. It calculates out much faster than the 200+ lights you need to create a dome.

**rjay9663,
**Thanks for the link, unfortunately, the link to the file give a 'file not found' although I've emailed bazze - see what he says.

**electroglyph,
** Yes, I wanted to try to get softer shadows without using 'soft shadows' in the sky lab - just to see what was possible, and if you can get close to B6's IBL.

Yeah, Drac had a light set up, don't think he still has it though, since he recently drastically revamped his website.

Fran,

I downloaded the file back in the B5 days. I know I have it filed away somewhere. I believe it's on my old computer. I'll have a look for it. If I find it I'll let you know.  I think it's the one you're looking for.

**rjay9663,
That'd be great, thanks.
**

Quote - Are shadows from a light dome ever really soft?

I don't think so; even when they are set to soft shadow of 100. I don't see any difference in the shadows whatsoever. They are hard as can be. Light Dome render times:
Reg. AA w/o soft shadows: 2 seconds - 3.26 million shadow rays
 .................... etc.  ....................
To get a decent IBL effect, the quality must be cranked up, and then it takes FOREVER to render.

EDIT -6.0 IBL wasn't like that. They should have left it alone.

Thats strange.. I dont remember having that kinda problems in bryce 5... they must've screwed up the soft shadow rendering!

Apparently it is the size of the light dome. When the dome is small, the shadows can indeed be soft. When the dome is large, then there is no softness in the shadows. IBL dome is infinte size, so there can never be soft shadows from the IBL lights.
I'm actually getting the same effect from normal omni light too. If the light is close then the shadows can be soft; distant omni = no soft shadows.
When the omni is at 50,50,50 then the shadows look nice and soft (softness 100). Put the same light w/ same settings at 5000,5000,5000 and the shadows turn hard.

similar to how the suns lightrays seem parallel at its distance from earth :-)

But the Bryce sun is infinite distant light, and it can have soft shadows...
Does that mean that Br sun is actually an area light, while omnis are point lights?

I dont know how the brycean sun light works actually... maybe it is an area light! but then again.. bryce's soft shadows are technically also area shadows...
This is an interesting conundrum indeed...

Quote - Something like this is easily done using the multi replicate tool, if thats what you're after?

Alex - I meant to say before - in fact was saying but something crashed.

I'd really appreciate trying out your light dome.  I've sent you an IM/site mail thingie.

I'm particularly interested in yours because of the number of lights it appears to have.

Is there any chance you could send it to me? 

Fran

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=1985510

A tut I posted here long ago on how to use wings to create a light rig for Bryce.
I'd suggest replacing the sphere with a softened Cube...you get more even light spacing.
I have several rigs done if you still need one

Sure - I've sent it to your email. Alex

@Claymor - thats a great technique you've got there. Nicely avoids the 'maths' of the multi replicate tool.

Fran,

I'm sorry to say, I wasn't able to find the light dome amongst my stuff. Sorry. Problem is I don't remember what it was titled. It's not titled "Light Dome", or I would just do a word search. However if I should come cross I will be sure to to post it.

Quote - http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=1985510

A tut I posted here long ago on how to use wings to create a light rig for Bryce.
I'd suggest replacing the sphere with a softened Cube...you get more even light spacing.
I have several rigs done if you still need one

I'm still looking, yes, I want to try out the different types of light dome to see the differences - if any.

So if you have some I'd very much like to try them out - I'll send you my email - via IM.

Fran,

I found it!!  

Don't know if you still need the light dome. But I fould the light dome I was looking for earlier. It's part of a .br5 file named "lighttest_115".  I'll send it to you in a zip file.

Quote - Fran,

I found it!!  

Don't know if you still need the light dome. But I fould the light dome I was looking for earlier. It's part of a .br5 file named "lighttest_115".  I'll send it to you in a zip file.

Could you send it to me also? I am looking also for the light dome... Thanks!

About the Zenith zip... Thankee thankee thankee!!!!  I have been looking for that! :b_drool:

ThunderStone,

Sure. Send your email address through the site mail and I'll get it off to you.

rjay9663: Thanks for the file. I got it. and am using it... As for Zenith lighting rig, it is very high in rendering time. I tried out all 4 versions of it and each one of them rendering time was double what it would have been with my own version. (Of course, it depends on the objects and the size of the images)... I will conduct an experiment over the weekend to prove to myself that it was a fluke.

Right now I am rendering a complex sphere scene with my own lighting rig which consist of  a smaller dome of light like a sliver from a whole dome.and rotated sideways over the objects. Need 2 of these to adequately light the scene. 

:b_sad:

**
**

**ThunderStone,

**Hmmm, that sounds very interesting, using a sliver from a dome eh?  I'd like to try that.

Quote - **ThunderStone,

**Hmmm, that sounds very interesting, using a sliver from a dome eh?  I'd like to try that.

Fran, yes it does...  But then that what experimenation gets ya...LOL

What I did was:
Create the dome as per Hidden Phanatom MSP Glow tutorial... Then I selected about 10 that are in a curve. Group them, delete the rest, then duplicate the "sliver" as needed...  It works somewhat and rendering time is shorten (IMHO). I also save the sliver to the preset so that I don't have to re-create it each time I need it.

You can call it the Sliver Dome Technique? :b_funny:

ThunderStone,

I would love to see how the test came out. Would you post your test scene here?

Quote - ThunderStone,

I would love to see how the test came out. Would you post your test scene here?

Will do so ... going to work on a basic sphere, cylinder, pyramid, and cube ...metal theme.

great. I'll keep on eye out for it.

Yeah, I want to see that scene too.  Also what tutorial is that?  Do you have a link to it?

Quote - Yeah, I want to see that scene too.  Also what tutorial is that?  Do you have a link to it?

In the progress... Here's the link to the tutorial. It was mentioned on page 1 of this thread...  Hidden Phantom - MSP Glow Tutorial

TS

This is my set up for the experiment.
Bryce version: 5.5
The sliver: 9 radiallights in  a semi circle with 1 in the center (Sort of a pivot light) Only 1 group will have the 10th light with the Fall off set to None
The objects: A cube, sphere, cylinder, pyramid
Plain Plane
Image size:  standard 640 x 480
Sky Lab:
Sky and Sun: Atmosphere off.
Ambient color: 127, 127, 127  Sky Dome: 0 0 0
Sun: off
Sun/Moon : Intensity: 100  Soft Shadow: on
View: Camera: Parameters: -153.60, 20.48, 153.60  Y rotate: 135,  FOV: 61%, Scale:100% Locked
Render mode: Normal

This is the basic set up for the experiment.
I will upload the pictures as soon as I have rendered them.

It's pretty simple really.  Got myself a dome done.

(still want to try your sliver technique though)

Here's my test scene, simple light dome, intensity4:

Looks as good as HDRI to me. Nice job. :)

Well, the model looks okay, but the shadows on the floor don't look right to me.

I think the dome need to be smaller.

Has any one tried Claymor's wings3d method?

I can't get the cubes to change into lots of lights, only one light.  Stumped with that...

Quote - http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=1985510

A tut I posted here long ago on how to use wings to create a light rig for Bryce.
I'd suggest replacing the sphere with a softened Cube...you get more even light spacing.
I have several rigs done if you still need one

Yes!!!  Don't understand how I missed your post before.  I've now tried your Wings3D method and struck a problem with it, sent you an IM about that, but yes, if you have light rigs I'm very much into testing out different set ups, and would appreciate being able to test out your different set-ups.