OK, here's a thought (continued from the thread below): We were talking about Bryce 5 books, and it got me thinking about what any of us might want from them, what questions we'd like answered, or tutorials we'd like to see, and how, with all of the talented Brycers we have around here, that someone here could probably answer those questions and create those tutorials. So I decided to start this thread for the purpose of asking two questions: 1. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW? - Not things you can look up in the manual, like "How do I import presets?" or "How do I apply a photo texture?". My own personal wishlist includes an in-depth tutorial on the Tree Lab, specifically how to make, say, a White Oak that looks like a White Oak. I've seen a few things here and there on the web, but they weren't always exactly accurate. The Tree Lab is very poorly documented, as are the metaballs. And specific tutorials, too. There are already ones on things like making a waterfall, a tornado, an exploding building, etc. Can anyone think of one that hasn't been done that they'd really like to see? 2. WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO VOLUNTEER TO PROVIDE THIS INFO? - If we can get some intelligent, interesting questions here, perhaps some of you Bryce pros will help us answer them? Not that you don't already, it's just that I'm looking past the usual "I'm working on a project and I'm stuck" thing to something broader. And while there are many great tutorials around, I'm sure we can think of some we'd all like to see that haven't been done yet. Whether it be more tips in the tutorial section, or something grander and more organized if Sham Mortem is the best they have to offer in a Bryce 5 book, I think we can do better amongst ourselves. Shall we write our own "book", in whatever form it takes?

I definitely would like to see tutorials written by extremely experienced artists and/or Bryce people, where you get to practice a particular set of techniques with the goal of achieving a particular useful end in mind, like you say, a white oak that looks like a white oak... Or using meatballs to create breakers... I mean, you can always look in the manual to find out how certain things in the program work, but you need to see how other people with more experience are doing certain things, so you can grow by doing things that you would never figure out on your own... At this point in time, there are a lot of tutorials out in the web, the Peter Sharpe site comes to mind, Brycetech, etc... Even some of the tutorials you mention can be done better... so ,the question is, who would write said tutorials, if it falls outside the scope of our experience? anyway, my vote for a tutorial goes for making really convincing breakers in bryce, and don't direct me to tutorials out there cause they don't cut it... :)

"so ,the question is, who would write said tutorials, if it falls outside the scope of our experience?" That's the thing, really. We all have different areas of expirience. Some people may be wizards with terrains and lattices, while others have focused more on lighting, or specialize in skies and atmospherics, or maybe there's someone out there who's mastered the Tree Lab that confounds me so. I'm just suggesting that perhaps we can pool our knowledge more than we have done so far. I know there must be certain questions most of us have pondered, and that someone here could answer, but just hasn't gotten asked yet, or some great technique that someone has perfected, but hasn't shared because it never occured to them that anyone would be interested. We're all interested in a GOOD Bryce 5 book, but what is it we're really hoping to learn from it? What questions do we want it to answer? What information are we looking for? If we can figure that out, I'm betting we can answer those questions here and get that information from our own.

Here's another thought along this same line: How many great tips/techniques/bits of advice are posted here in the forum, only to get buried away in the archives and never seen again (except by people with all the free hours it would take to read back through all the messages)? It's a shame we can't find a way to compile the best of this stuff somewhere. Right now, there's probably someone here struggling to figure out something that was explained three or four months back. There's so much knowledge on the web, and even on this site alone, but it's all so fragmented, strung out here, there, and everywhere. I guess I'm just wishing there were at least some kind of directory or something to pull it all together, but preferably a web book of some sort that you could refer to. You know, a section on lighting, a section on materials, etc. Tutorials on specific tricks and effects, as well as more general advice on things that work nicely, things that don't, things that'll crash your program... whatever. Maybe I'm just dreaming, I don't know. Hey, what can I tell you, I'm an "ideas person" ;)

A big Bryce Web Compendium would be great--whether it was a web page with an index of web site tutorials or something else. I'd be willing to help design/compile a web site that's one big index/refrence guide...what do you all think?

I'd love to help. I'm a technical writer by trade, so the writing and editing is the easy part. The hard part is Bryce. I am a beginner, but have a good basic understanding of Bryce, Poser, and have started playing around with Rhino and Xfrog. If anyone wants me to edit their tutorial, I'd be more than happy. Beleive me, once I can understand it, then anyone can! I can also make the tutorials into pdf files for those of us who like to print things out. Peggy

Im more than happy to contribute what I know about lighting in Bryce. Its my one of my stronger suits (as, hopefully, my gallery attests), and its one of the areas I see in need of more discussion so its full potential can be realized.

Here's another thought along this same line: How many great tips/techniques/bits of advice are posted here in the forum, only to get buried away in the archives and never seen again (except by people with all the free hours it would take to read back through all the messages)>> Well, in the Vue d'Esprit forum, the moderators have compiled a page full of tutorial links based on previous posts... Perhaps we can insititute something here like that where some new person would be the tutorial person.. Meaning to say if KenS or Clay are too busy, since that is a project in itself... dfmarine, is that something like what you're suggesting???

Well, I'm glad to see that other people see where I'm coming from on this. Of course, we still need people to start chiming in with some suggestions as to what they'd like to see the most. Peggy, I personally love .pdf's, especially if you can download it to read later. VirtualSite, I think we can all use more lighting tuts. I'll have to check out your gallery. I've been playing with lighting a lot lately myself. Since I posted this, I've started an all-out hunt for Bryce tuts, so I can see just what's been done already (plus I can use all the good tuts I can find;). Not to insult anyone's contributions, but I've seen a lot of repetition. While a different approach is always useful, I've come across quite a few tuts on the same subject saying the same thing about it. But this probably comes from one person not knowing the other's tut existed. I found a few sites with lots of links to tuts (Bryce Chronicles has a load of them), but there never seem to be any organization to them. It would be so great to be able find them sorted into logical categories like lighting, texturing, animation, etc. If I knew anything about building websites, I'd set up the ultimate site of links myself, but I'm afraid that's beyond my abilities right now (and it would have to be free host right now, I'm afraid...). What I'd love to see is a collaboration between our more talented Brycers, say, for instance, some of the best light people combining their best tips and tricks into one more complete piece, rather than all these scattered tuts on this and that, but I suppose that would probably prove unworkable. Anyway, if this thread in any way gets more info out there, that's a start.

Now that I think about it, I do have some simple website-building software here. And a site of links shouldn't be anything that couldn't be done on a free host. Hmmmm...

Sounds like a real neat idea! One comment is that it is real hard setting out to write a tutorial given a specific subject. [Maybe the challenges can be used for this?] It's possible, but difficult. Another way of looking at it is when we find an image we really like, can we encourage the artist to explain the technique? "Gee, that looks just like a White Oak, how did you do that?" Some will participate, some will choose not to. My feeling is that looking over the shoulder of someone like gevidal, clay, or agor for twenty minutes would be better than sleeping with some book for a year. Even the lesser posted artists sometimes hit upon something that I'd really like explained.

There will be bad tutorials and good ones, even from great artists. Rate them. Number of hits? Ranking? Web hosting is an issue. Linke to random sites are always dissapearing. Looks to me like Corel has most to gain by this...

Exelent idea, howcome nobody did do this before.. i had some books about Bryce and none of the, where good. Almost exact copy of the manual. **still wishing to see someday a real ( good ) Bryce book. Apache2k

As part of my New Years resolution, I am going to make a Bryce 5 tutorial CD. That way you don't have to worry about broken links, slow downloads, etc. I know how to do the writing and how to make CD interfaces. I will make all of the tutorials into pdfs so they can be printed. I can do all of the writing, but it will take me a lot of time. If people are interested in helping out, please send me your ideas. I will give you full credit and links to your site if you write a tutorial and want to have it included on the CD. Many of these subjects already have lots of tutorials on them. I will try to link to as many of them as I can get permission. Sometimes, you can read things and you dont understand what they are doing, but another person will explain it another way, and then you suddenly see the light. Here is a brief list of what I would like to cover. Bryce 5 overview Keyboard Shortcuts Light Lab Inside scenes, outside scenes, streaming light rays, fire Tree Lab Making an oak tree, creating your own leaves and bark textures Metaballs Making a negative metaball, abstracts, using metaballs to make waves, water, and splashes Tips Underwater scenes, Landscapes, Interior scenes, Space scenes Rendering Render settings, Bryce Lighting, printing Importing Import 3D objects, Import Poser people, Organizing Byrce Presets Post processing Adding a signature, special effects Other 3D programs and Utilities Poser, Vue dEsprit, UVmapper, Xfrog, Natural Pose, Plant Studio Links As you can see, this is just a short list. Im sure there are many other subjects that people would like to see included and I will be adding things as I go. Please contact me at mwalter1@san.rr.com if you would to help. Thanks! Peggy

Well Peggy, that's very kind of you and I hope that enough of us are able to write tutorials to be able to fill space on that CD.... Certainly all of the subjects you mentioned up there are valid subjects that everyone would like to know more about and get great results with...

Attached Link: http://www.fignations.com

I have collected a lot of information from lurking around for the last nine months. I guess it is time to get busy and write it down. Hope I haven't bitten off more then I can chew. Should be fun though, and it is a way that I can "pay back" for all of the great freebies I have downloaded from Renderosity. Peggy

Build it and they will come !

That sounds terrific, Peggy. I'm slowly scouring the net, trying to find all the tuts I can. I'm hoping to make a complete list and organize it in a coherent manner, see how many tuts there are on the same subjects, how many present a different approach and how many are just repetitious, etc. Maybe I can even write some of my own. I'm no pro or anything, but I have come up with an interesting technique here and there, as well as improving on some of the things I've learned from other people. Unfortunately, my free time is limited, but I am interested in helping out with this as much as I am able. The hardest part is just getting the ball rolling in the first place. Luckily, there seem to be a lot of generous, talented people using Bryce. Just try finding tutorials and free stuff for Carrara... :(

I spent a few hours looking at tutorials on Friday. A majority of the links listed are broken. Any help, even if it is pointing out a link to a great tutorial will help get me started. Thanks! Peggy

I use Caligari's Truespace with Bryce. I can add some tips for the Bryce and other 3d apps section unless someone knows more.

Ok, I just read this threat, and I think it's a verry good idea. Just wandering if this threat is still alive or if anyone alreaddy started realising this great idea. If not I would really like to to do it. I got the technical skills and the time to do it, and also creating an nice looking interface. One problem, my englisch sucks and my bryce skill is beginner. But I do search the web a lot, and know a lot of sites. If you guys are still interested you could send me all thel inks you know and I will think of sections and technical stuff. Maybe I'm going to use asp to create a database model so that the links can be updated and checked more easy. I really love to do it, but maybe someone is allreaddy working on that? It would be a puitty if this threat dies without being realised. So please send me mail, links ideas and tuts. I also can get a free server that provides what we need, exept for an url, I unfortunately don't have the monney to pay for a registered domain name. Now guys, soon I'll post some idea's for main sections and what I've thougt of. Please take all some initiative and in a month we'll have the ultimate bryce page. Ragards, Johannes

It is still in the infant stage, but when I have time I am working on it. Please see the list of topics included earlier in this thread. If there are any topics you want to add, or if you have a tutorial you want me to include, then please let me know. Thanks! pEGGY

Attached Link: http://www.fignations.com/resources/brt.html

I've been seriously thinking about doing something like this with my tutorial link pages and would be more than willing to modify my Bryce tutorials page (and any others) into categories, with help from all of you. After all, the site is there for everyone and it should be what you want. And, besides, I can't do it alone.

The search engine on the site is down as we are waiting on a software update to reach the server owner, but that can be got around if needed.

Please let me know if this would be alright with everyone and I can get the ball pushed a little farther along. I'd like to hear any ideas you may have, especially from you, Peggy, since you seem to be the one with the most advanced ideas at the moment (grin).

I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but since I already have a paid up domain name, plenty of webspace, and a good start on the links already, it can only get better for all of us.

-darlisa

darlisa, I really like your site! That would be great if the tutorial links could also be put into categories. The abundance of information sometimes overwhelms you. I start to look for a tutorial on tress, find a great tutorial on lights, find something else on underwater pictures, and by then have spent several hours getting side-tracked. End up happy, but still have a question about trees... Peggy

heh, how do you think my site got started? I even have folks submitting their entire bookmark listings! My site is hosted on a Mac server (although I'm on a pc) at http://www.bryce-alive.net, using server software from StarNine.com. I don't know anything about dynamic link submission or if the software can handle it. I'll see what I can find out. Until something better comes along, I'll create a new submission form for tutorials based on program and category. The submission form is mailed to me and I can then add the new listing(s) manually. I'll see what I can come up with this evening as soon as I finish my class assignment and start recategorizing (is that a word) the tutorial links, starting with Bryce. -darlisa

Attached Link: mailto:webmaster@fignations.com

Would you please e-mail me and lets see if we can get your interface skills and my site link stuff integrated. We'd be a little limited based on my server software, but I'm sure we could come up with something.

Thanks,
darlisa

My idea's are planted in a new threat: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=107&Form.ShowMessage=546085