Okay, shameless attention-getter. But, I am happy to say I have come a step closer in mastering Bryce's Symmetrical Lattice. This is a shield I am working on (still). Referenced a pic of a shield I saw online. Tweaked the heck out of the texture, bump and specularity map's in Photoshop. Look closer...the detail is all there, I tell you Bryce will always win me over for the software of choice because of the ability of lattices. No post work. Agent Smith

Wonderful job! I am waiting for Bryce 5 since I am still using Bryce 3d, I always get a melting look when using G2H maps. Somebody told me that I needed to use Bsmoth by I have a pc.

very nice detail

Very nice detail indeed!

Hey, that is really great detail... Why don't you write a tutorial or tell us of how to you set it up in Photoshop or whatever to achieve that much detail in the shield.. I would definitely appreciate it, and so would others here I bet... I mean, you mention bump and texture, specularity, but how exactly did you do it??

Yes a tutorial would be awesome.. Love it

WOW!!!!! YES, Tutorial P-L-E-A-S-E!!!!! Verdie of Dreamspinner

I agree...Tutorial...Tutorial!. Outstanding shield

I'd have to say that Bryce is only superior in the right hands, yours make it so. Very Nice Work!

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it. A Tutorial? Never did that, but I'm inches away from putting up my website, I can probably put something together later. But, this is still an ongoing experiment. But, to put simply; I started this project to learn how to make a very detailed (non-spiked) Symmetrical Lattice. I have yet to do that, but I did find that the Lattice (in this case) only has to suggest the final form, not define it. In this case the texture is taking the main brunt of the final render. I worked off a real low-res pic of a shield I found online and re-drew over it in Photoshop. I'm still learning Photoshop's brushes and settings, so that took 2 days. Overall, not hard just basically tracing and filling in, time consuming. The bump map was just an extension of the texture. Normally my bump maps were just the texture, grayscaled, with the brightness and contrast tweaked. This time I painted over the (grayscaled) texture pretty much making it just black and white. I then blurred the bump map here and there a little to keep the edges normal looking. I used a transperency map to eat away the square sides of the Lattice, making it round. Just clip the Lattice in the editor you say? The lattice was so dark, if I tried to clip it, the red backround bled into my shield...wouldn't work. With the Trans Map, I didn't have to try and get the shield round with the Lattice editor, less to worry about. Specularity and Diffusion Maps I won't really get into, since this is going to be a big post anyway. Below are some links that can explain them better than I can. Specularity - Makes whatever regions you specify look wet or shiny. Used in Poser models to make wet lips, eyes, tounge, etc. (I removed the specularity map for now, because I don't need specific parts to be shiny, the whole shield is reflective). Diffusion - Determines the amount of light that is reflected by the object's surface. ( A very subtle map to try and use, but can make objects seem more realistic when done right) I know how to make the final Symmetrical Lattice detailed, it's just gonna take time and practice within Photoshop, but knowing how and actually being able to do it, are two different things. Thanks again. Agent Smith *Example of Photorealistic fish model with examples of Texture, Diffusion, Transparency, Specularity, and Bump Maps. Example can be used in almost any 3D program, free maps. http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/photorealistic_fish.htm *Great Bryce site with tutorial on Bump and Specularity, also freeware for Bryce and link to FREE tutorials on Maps by (3D Master) Bill Fleming! http://www.chesco.com/~cjcigas/tutorial/index.html

Hey, this is great... It gives a great insight into how you did it... Also, thanks for the fish tutorial... I started to do something like this Rhino, but I'm not that hip with Rhino... However, seeing this, I can follow it and probably model some fish... Also, forgot to mention, love the little iridesdecense on the edge of the shield which I imagine is the light...

Also, you mention the spiked lattice upon bring in of picture into terrain editor... So you basically smoothed out the lattice into the picture we see first, adn all the detain is coming from the picture you imported, is this correct??

I took the texture and applied two filters to it; "Median" and then "Emboss". And, then inside the Terrain Editor, I clicked the smooth button twice. It was just a guess/experiment that ended up working for me, for this particular project. In fact I applied those two filters with a freeware picture viewer that I use for my Windows 98. It's called "Irfan View". I use nothing else to (quickly) view pics on my PC. It can view an AMAZING amount of file formats, even movies and mp3's, it also obviously has a few filters. I also like it because it has an option to dither (view only, not save) pics to 16bit, so the banding that can exsists in some Bryce pics, are all gone. Great for people who don't have 32bit video cards. If anyone wants it, it's at http://www.irfanview.com Agent Smith

Well, it's something to keep in mind...

If there were Medals of Honor for Brycers, I'd put you up for one. Thanx loads, both for showing what's possible, and, just as importantly, HOW it's possible. Cheers and kudos!