I've finished my entry for the feb/march challenge so this is kinda retorical, but please answer if you know...

Without using cloud planes (which I hate) or volumetic clouds (which my computer hates)  is there a way to make objects (such as a planet) appear behind the clouds in a sky texture?  I've ended up faking it by rendering in two passes and then blending the layers in PS.

On a side note, this is my first real playing around in Bryce 7.  Has it got a LOT quicker, or is it just me.

As far as I know,a multi-pass render is the only way to make a planet appear as though it is behind the clouds.You could use a few spheres rendered in a volumetric cloud material(with sky integration added in the material drop-down)...this would at least give a similar impression,and the spheres can be stretched and skewed to help fill up the sky more.

I don't think it can be done without multiple sky renders and post work.

About all you can do is render out the moon with a texture applied to it, or use a sphere that has a basic gradient trans map applied to it.

All pretty much what i thought.  nice to get other ideas though.

Gawd, when I saw the title of this thread I thought you had the answer .... pity. :rolleyes:

Click on the moon image then click edit.

The Texture pallet will come up with the moon in the first box. Click on an empty. load the image in the first window and the mask in the second.

Click the Sun Moon Visible. Crank the sliders all the way up.

Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle till the moon image is centered on the horizon.

Click on sun moon size. Crank the Disk size up. Crank the horizon illusion up till the disk fills the entire background. Do a test render and keep fiddling till you get the position right.

That's actually not a bad way of doing it.

I notice there's also a "volumetrics world" option under atmosphere.   I wonder if that has an effect.  Probably on the render time more than anything :-)

Volumetric world will bring your machine to a crawl, and it has no effect on planets/moons behind clouds.

Phil, er... yeah I pressed that - once.  I think I died of boredom that month.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried it to good effect, and was it worth tying the computer up while it rendered?

Makes you wonder why Metacreations put that in at all... unless it was Corel - when there just isn't the power to make using it worth while.

I just tested Bryce5 and volumetric world against Bryce7 and there is a difference, there's slightly less light in the Bryce7 version of the same scene, less of a flared out sky in the B7 version.  Interesting...

It affects Fog and Haze - or Fog and Haze affect Volumetric World...

The thing is, a lot of my renders use up a lot of my PC's power as it is, I can't imagine wanting to make it take even longer just by clicking on Volumetric world... especially if it doesn't let you put moons behind the cloungs/atmosphere.

You know that's a good thing to request of Daz, - the ability to place things - not JUST moons - behind the atmosphere.

It was suppose to make "sun beams" etc when applied yadda yadda, its never worked since Metacreations, basically it has never worked correctly, it was never finished if you will.

Clay,

Definitely something that we need to get Daz to see to then.

I'll give them a nice big poke.

In the meantime...

Electroglyph!!!  Yooohooo!

I've been trying your suggestion, but I don't know what you mean by:

"Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle till the moon image is centered on the horizon."

I don't know what to fiddle with - what is it that changes this?

If you control+option click on the sunball you will see an astrix in your main view screen, while holding those buttons down you can click anywhere in your view screen to place the sun/moon anywhere you want, then set the scale/texture in the skylab.

Ooops, while you hold down control+option(alt) you have to click in the main view screen then you will see a yellow astrix for sun, or a blue one for the moon.

Quote - If you control+option click on the sunball you will see an astrix in your main view screen, while holding those buttons down you can click anywhere in your view screen to place the sun/moon anywhere you want, then set the scale/texture in the skylab.

Clay,

Thanks, but I don't see any asterixes at all, not yellow nor blue.

I don't see one whether I ctrl/alt click on just the sunball, or the sunball and then the viewscreen - no asterix... help?

By the way, I already have a massive moon on the left of my view, I just need to know how to move it to the right...

Will this asterix let me move it?

Yes it will, ya have to hold the  control+option(alt) keys down while you click in your scene. You have to hold those keys down every time and just click and place.

Also you can use the trackball to change from sun or moon after you activate the astrix, but to place it specifically use the control+option(alt) keys and just click in your scene window.

You have to hold both those keys down at the same time when clicking in your scene.

Quote - You have to hold both those keys down at the same time when clicking in your scene.

I was.

All I get is a box appearing saying:

perspective

CityDome

Select All

Deselect All

Invert All

(CityDome being one of my models in this scene.)

ok, control+alt while holding those down double click on the sunball in the main screen, after you do that and still see no astrix, hold those keys down again and click in the middle of your scene and you will see the astrix.

Ah.... unfortunately, doing that and finally getting this asterix looses me my nice big moon.

What's going on?

I just want to be able to move the moon, not delete it.

You see the image attached shows the moon I had before the asterix deleted it...

(I did an undo to get my moon back...) what next?

Well if your moon is an actual "sphere" there's nothing you can do.

I don't know what it is - it isn't a sphere I put there, it's what appeared as I was following Electroglyph's instructions and that's why I was asking Electroglyph what was meant by "Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle till the moon image is centered on the horizon." since I need to move this moon, and I don't know what controls Electroglyph used to move the moon...

Help?

ok..Fran..take a breath and read..hold down the option+ control keys, while holding them down double click the sun ball, you have that part down now right? now when you move your sunball the astrix will turn blue or yellow, every time you want to move the astrix you have to hold down the control+alt(option) keys as you click.

Sorry, I missed your site mail Clay. I had to go out.

What gets me about all this is that I feel tantalisingly close - as I already have a moon - a massive moon too - in the view.

Because once I click and get an asterix, I loose the moon and have no idea how to get it back. If the asterix means you get another moon, that's be okay, but if it means starting again from scratch then with the same moon now in a different place.,... (insert swear word here) okay but I'm not enjoying it. Lol.

Why isn't there a way to move the moon I already have?

Maybe this is something else that Daz needs to insert better controls for?

I'd better try it with a test version of this scene file.

You can email me the scene file if you want and I can take a whack at it. claymh@cableone.net

Okay, well as before I can get an asterix into the scene, I can change the yellow one to a blue one, but I cannot move it at all, with or without Ctrl Alt, it just won't move. and as before the moon I did have is lost. And with the asterix present I have no visible moon at all.

Clay,

I can send it, but it's 106MB - can your email handle that?

Also, I will want to know how to do this, I don't just want it done for me as I'll probably have different ideas on position and size to what anyone else would have.

Besides, I'll want to know how to do this for another time as well.

Let me know about the size issue.

yeah can't do a file that size sorry. But if the moon in your image is the actual moon from the skylab, you can move it around and adjust the size and lighting using the skylab adjusters. to see the moon and sun astrix, those have to be in front of the camera and set sun/moon visible in the skylab etc, I guess I can do a quick video tut maybe if you can't get it to work.

Oh, so you can move it from the SkyLab?  Heavens I was trying it from the main view as I thought that's what you had said.

So what control moves it in the skylab?

Clay,

Hooray!!! Okay, I've managed to move the moon - finally. It seems to be moved by the sun control.

So thanks for that.

Only I still can't get a moon texture onto the moon, never mind any other texture.

I suppose you wouldn't know how to do that would you?

I go to Edit Texture, and click on the moon image, but nothing changes in the main view render.

You load in an image texture when you go to edit in the skylab, so say you have images from nasa or an image you made in Photoshop or whaterver.

I can only get rectangular planet images, and they won't work, so all there is, is the default moon image.

Do you think that if I open a new Bryce file and render a nice large image of one of those moons you sent me a while ago, that I could use such a rendered image as a texture for this moon?

Gotta sign off now, getting tired, and it's late.

Clay, I think you will remember this

Bryce 4, ctrl click on the moon image button in the skylab and choose from a list of names to get the faces of the developers.

They should work just fine, they spherically map.

does that still work? LOL!!! yes I remember that one hehehe

Here's the image from the Sun & Moon portion of the skylab.

#1 click to turn on the moon texture.

#2 Press edit to bring up a texture window and change the moon image.

#3 Fiddle, Fiddle, Fiddle. This tracball controls the position of the sun and moon (badly). When the sun is on the camera half of the sky a yellow ball appears on the upper left. When the moon is on that half of the sky the blue crescent appears as shown.

#4 Azimuth Altitude. Click on the text and a box appears you can type into. It's much easier to make precise moves this way. Zero altitude puts the sun and moon on the horizon. The sun and moon are always 180 degrees apart in Bryce. Azimuth rotates the ball North, West, South, East.

It would be nice if every sun East was O and West was 180 degrees but pick any sky and It will be different.

Thx for doin the screenshot electro,, been busy myself, also remember that the moon phase trackball will adjust how your shadows will effect the moon.

Thanks Electroglyph,

I really like screen shots, they always make things much easier to understand.

Like they say, 'a picture paints a thousand words!' Lol.

I had pretty much figured it out, with a lot of help from Clay, thanks Clay.

Once you realise that the SUN controls, can actually control the moon too, the accuracy of using the azimuth and altitude controls should be obvious.... yeah, should be!

I think I've got the position to look right, position and size of the moon to the horizon. I did know where texture and edit were, not that I've used them much.

But I think I must have previously got the moon's texture so far out of position on the moon disc that it's permanently lost now - that was back when I was trying your method for getting objects (not just the moon) to sit behind clouds, and so the image (texture) I was editing on the moon was of a rendered planet and a mid flight spaceship - so things are well broken for an image on the moon disc now.

I wish there was a reset button for this texture - not to reset the moon's position, just the position of the texture ON the moon.

There isn't one, is there?

Clay,

MoonPhase TrackBall?  oh yes, I know, yes I've fiddled with that. It didn't seem to affect anything for me.

try turning off the texture and turn off moon phase, turn moon phase back on and then click texture again, the moon texture should reappear again, then change your phase back to where you had it.

Fran, I think I know what is happening.  You mapped the image to the moon surface okay, right.  But when you do the ctl+alt click thing it goes blank, Right?

I tried duplicating a quicky to see what would happen. 

I discovered when the moon is being viewed in camera view and I ctl+alt double click the track ball it brings the sun into view and you are looking at the sun not the moon anymore.  The moon is still there, with your mats, but 180 degrees off.   Use the track ball to get the moon back into view and you will now see the asterisk representing the moon on your main scene.  Now you can move that asterisk to the center where you want it.  The asterisk color is different for the sun and the moon.

Did that help?

Um... not really, as I'm in Director's View.

I almost always am, as I don't like the awkwardness of trying to adjust the camera view. Director's view is so much easier to control in comparisson, especially if you have it set to "Centre to Selection" which I almost always do.

I think I've pretty much given up with this now, and reverted to using a single planet texture.

I don't really want to use the trackball to rotate the view 180 degrees as I have the scene almost completely set up the way I want it, - perhaps another time when I'm not trying to render animations at the same time as doing this...

Still at least I've learnt that you need to set up this sort of thing right at the beginning, before the world is full of.... stuff!

I just found a great resource for planetary maps!!!!  They've got Enceladus!

Hi,

I don't really want to use the trackball to rotate the view 180 degrees
You do not have to fiddle around with that trackball for this:
Just swap Moon/Sun by clicking on that little icon here. (Either on the main UI or in the SkyLab. See my screenshot.) 

:)
Hubert

Thanks Hubert, I've already got it set to moon.

I'm not really impressed with the result when using the moon disc, it looks awfully faded...

What I'm trying now is a real sphere with a real planetary texture mapped to it (Using Enceladus!  Love it!)

However, I've also turned off the clouds and gone to using a cloud plane instead, by some strange fluke this seems to be working really well, I'm not getting much cloud in front of Enceladus on the left, but I'm getting some really rich clouds on the right, rich and wow kinda colourful!

And, Hubert!  I've got a sphere inside a sphere too! ROFL!

I think the fadedness was partly a consequence of the combination of a cloud plane and the moon disc just being so dim looking - I don't know if it's possible to get it looking any brighter.

Hi Fran,

glad to read about your progress.

Using cloud-planes seems be the best approach here. (I once used multiple 2D-planes with cloud-mats for Space Nebula scenes, with some promising results then. Though already many years ago... am really not brycing many landscapes and "outside sphere" scenes, nowadays. ;)  

Quote -
And, Hubert!  I've got a sphere inside a sphere too! ROFL!

Not "ShinySpheres"(tm,C,R,IHA) I assume/hope??! Otherwise, beware of possible addiction! :)
Always be Nice to Bryce and Cheers to Spheres,
Hubert