Hi all, I'm new to the group. I have Bryce 5. I did a couple nice things in it already. I also use 3d max. My questions for anyone. 1. Can you do any character animation in Bryce ? 1a. Like making a bird fly realistically? 1b. If so, do you have a link to a tut? 2. How about flowing water? ( I tried making a lake but failed miserably) 2a. Anyone have a water tut link? 3. How about burning fire? ( animated, not still ) Thanks so much for any other tips you can give. Hopefully I can stay with this fun group! Kathy

I can tackle 1 and 3. Yes, character animation is possible. Its not easy, but it can be done. Whether you import a character or build one from scratch (and yes, the latter is possible), you have to set up a hierarchy of joints for it, which I do using spheres set with no texture and maximum transparency. Each joint is given a different hierarchy color for ease is picking them out of the models overall structure, and you use the parent-child linking relationship between the various pieces (working from the center of the character out to the extremities) to make your character move. I once built a five-minute animation completely in Bryce that had, at one point onscreen, approximately 30 characters all in motion. Later today, Ill upload an image from the ani so you can see it: the characters are all built from primitives, with only a few obj imports. Were I to do it now, I would probably make the textures a little more detailed, but as a piece of "Legoblock" work, it holds pretty well. Burning fire is accompished by taking a fire texture and morphing it along a time path, augmented by also changing the position of the object(s) holding the texture. For example, if you apply a fire texture to a sphere as an "object texture" (not a "world texture"), the texture will change position as you spin the sphere. Add into that applying the texture as "object texture" and then changing to, say, "random", then back to "object texture" again, you can create fairly realistic fire. The same technique can be used to create the illusion of a cloud of smoke appearing, then disappearing, like that at the end of a magicians disappearing act. Hope that helps. Let me know how your progress goes.

Wow Virtualsite - thanks for responding.

That sounds incredible to me. Yes, I would love to
see those animations posted.

You make me want to start Bryce right up and - like
the ancients - invent fire! tee hee

though its sounds pretty complicated there.......
I think you lost me at the morph part...... hopefully in
the manual.

And those characters - modeled in Bryce. Wow.
And the bones? I would guess cyclinders maybe, but spheres?
thanks.

Kathy

Answer to question 2: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/2470/ocean.htm and http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/2470/ripples.htm Here's a handy site for you: http://www.3dlinks.com/tutorials_bryce.cfm

Kathy, I use spheres because you can reorient them in a flash. Theyre invisible, dont forget, and thier shape works much better for manipulating joints. Youre not creating bones in the traditional animation sense here; youre creating joints. Ill upload an image to show you later tonight, along with frames from the animation.

And in re: morphing -- thats simply changing a texture parameter along a time line. You go into the textures lab and establish texture use at certain key frames. Bryce will do the rest.

kathy do you have clay's fire material? Its the best. And by simply changing the texture over a timeline, you can make it look like 'licking' flames. materials over a timeline will give a good appearance... combining both the shape change to the sphere and the material change to the material will give the best animated fire. luck BT

Here's a frame from the animation I mentioned: although each of the characters is fairly simple in construction, they all have joints of one form or another and move quite nicely.

Heres a screen shot of the girl in the centre of the picture. The colored spheres are the invisible joints that allow me to move her arms in any direction while keeping them parented to the body. The hierarchy is actualy set up from the base and moves up and out so that I can, for example, turn her head while keeping it in its proper line to the body.

This was a test shot of the brass section. The saxs and hair pieces are imports; the rest are Bryce primitives. In this case, the bodies were grouped so I could bend them forwards and backwards as a unit while keeping the arm movements more distinct to each character. Like I said above, if I were to do it now, Id make the textures work a little harder, but considering this was a five minute piece that had to be completed in two weeks, I went with what I could at the moment.

HI EricofSD , thanks so much. I'll be sure to check them all out. Cheers, Kathy HI Brycetech - Clays fire material? No, not unless it's in Bryce 5....... ? Anywhere I can download, or buy? thanks! WOW ..Virtualsite you are REALLY creative! That is so cool. Honestly, you should write an ADVANCED bryce book! I'm impressed. I'll have to digest all that for a while. very inspiring! Kathy.