I have been seeing better and better uses of lighting techniques in Bryce. So I thought I would start a educational thread to give us all some different ways to create more realistic lighting in Bryce!

This is a sphere of lights around the object and will really max out your render times!

There are 914 Lights in this image surrounding the object in a sphere. The lights set at 1 intensity and 3 for each color.

That's definitely interesting.. How long did it take you to render the above image and at what setting (640X480?) and for my own knowledge, why only an intensity of 1 with 914 lights??

Intensity of only 1, because if you took it to 2, the whole scene would probably turn white...it gets that sensitive.

I use a set-up like above (half-sphere). It has 120 lights, and also a giant sphere that encompasses those 120 lights, sort of like a shell. This is a small version of one from my gallery that uses that set-up. AgentSmith

I sometimes use "no falloff"...and take the lights to intensity 1 with a color of rgb=64 or less. All depends on the scene.

No if you did an intensity of 2 it would burn your eyeballs out! LOL agentsmith is right. It took and 1 hour to render the image. Here is the same image with touch of Radiosity supplied by 6 square spotlights set to the same color as the background. The spot lights are flattened and then pointed up toward the object. It is a subtle but noticeable change as the floor would also bounce light off the statue. I got this idea from tuttles new image as he explained that he had square lights when he actually meant squared falloff. Happy little mistake I think.

Here is another global illumination, that I'm thinking of animating. Uses the same set-up (with barely any light at all) with the giant sphere having an enviromental texture applied to it, to have the sphere reflect the real world image. Tricks, tricks, tricks. It's all smoke and mirrors. *Those are Awesome examples of Bryce G.I., Vile!!!

Here are both images side by side to compare. The one on the left doesnt have radiosity the one on the right does.

Cool AgentS! I want more of an explanation!

It's all in the details, that added yellowish light on the mesh really sells it, Vile! (never thought of that, btw.)

Thanks AgentS I still want to know how you made the silver spheres.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=AgentSmith

Uh...apply the mirror material? Just kidding, I know what you mean. That little pic is the trick, it is a pic that when wrapped onto a sphere, looks normal, let me explain... This is a Bryce-ish trick to simulate the effects in higher end programs for photo-real reflections. All it is, is a giant sphere, the one I use is xyz=300.00, attributes set to positive. I then duplicate it, and make the second one xyz=299.00, attributes set to negative. Group the two spheres. Now you have a giant hollow ball to play in. Apply a picture to it. You will want to make the sphere slightly transparent so light will illuminate the picture, your scene and your reflections. Anything with a reflective surface inside the giant sphere will now reflect a real picture making it that much more realictic. Most of the time you may only need the sun for light, but anything is useable/possible. That link is to my gallery if you want to see some more examples of this. The better ones are two pics called "Meta-Museum", that use this trick, there are 3-4 others also. All of those in my gallery only use one light for illumination of the scene. One problem though, if your reflective objects reflect really well, like those above you will need a pic for the giant sphere that is suited so that when you wrap it Spherically, it looks normal, and not pinched at the top and bottom. A couple pics in my gallery called "Black Glass Figment" use this whole set-up, but the reflections are just splashes of color, so it didn't matter that the giant sphere pic wasn't suited for spherical wrapping. I have just checked my old links to go and get some of these spherical pics and none of them come up, I will check around, see if I can find them again. Was that clear? Or, was I confusing? AgentSmith

Ok so here come the questions how transparent and what kind of lighting? is the atmosphere turned off? I just tried it with your little sample image and added a light in the sphere but got some weird results.

Yeah, I didn't put up the original image, isn't mine, rather find where I found, then you guys can go get it. Plus, it's big. Setttings, let me go check...........

Here was my try and yes I know I would get better results from a larger image but I was just going for the technique first. BTW how did you get the image like that in the first place say if I wanted to create my own? This is a great process Thanks for sharing!

Easier to show in a screenshot. The sky had everything clicked off. Shadows are at 50, the "link sun to view" is not checked. Having the sun directly overhead will also work well with this, Azimuth=0, Altitude=90. Sun's rgb all=158. Ambient is white, sky dome is black. That's it. Tell me if I'm forgetting anything.

There ya go! To make your own photos and have them do this is very involved. I have a link on that somewhere also, lol. I'll find them all, post them here when I do.

That has got to be one of the coolest things I have learned. My hat is off to you AgentS. Here is a little more completed image not as good as yours, but I understand the principles and will use this in a future image!

Attached Link: http://www.debevec.org/

JEEZ! Finally, I found it! They changed sites. Okay, this subject is more vast than I can describe here. The link goes to Paul Debevec's website. He is the Executive Producer of Graphics Research at USC ICT Graphics Lab. He is the king on this subject. He made a movie called "Fiat Lux" (the above pic), which uses this principal, which by the way is usually called reflection mapping or light probes, or a dozen other things. High-end programs do it differently than it has to be done in Bryce, but the end results are basically the same, and they are amazing. To find the big version of that pic up there look under the heading of "Online Resources" - "Light Probe Image Gallery" Also look under "Films" - "Fiat Lux". If you can...VIEW THIS MOVIE! It is 3D, uses light probes, and will make your draw drop. That's an excerpt of the movie above. Copyright Paul E. Debevec. I'll look for links on how to make your own "light probes". They call them light probes, because they actually light the scene with the picture alone, it's a high-end thing. Lotsa reading there, good luck. AgentSmith

Like I said, it's involved. The light probes are in a format called .hdr (high dynamic range) There is a small free viewer that can be downloaded on the same page as the light probes, and they then can be saved as .bmp's. But, they also have to be processed to look as they do above, and that is the link I have yet to find, give me time. It's here on the net somewhere.

Whoa your not kidding! Here is the finished version with textures and radiosity!

Agent Smith, I sometimes forgets how versitile and accomplished an artist you are. My jaw was dropping through this entire thread. Wow

oops: forgets = forget

Oh sure BM don't mention me at all LOL!

lol... Yes Vile, I'll mention you, lol. That really is a very accomplished looking G.I. you have, no kidding. Mine doesn't look that even on and in the background. Here is just a straight G.I. render with one of my set-ups, I think 140 lights. My half-sphere set-up is smaller here, so you see where the radial lights end on the infinite plane.

both of you have been dropping my draw. I've learned more about lighting in bryce from this thread than I ever did reading the manual or experimenting with settings. I just wish that I wasn't reading this on the computer at work so I could play along at home. (the bosses would be happy to know that I'm putting their time and resources to good use) thank you both for all the info. more please.

Sorry, Vile. I was so overwhelmed. You are very versitle a quick learner and accomplished as well. Forgive my ommision. - bikermouse

We need to find out how tuttle did this!

Ox the Hunter

it is increadible

I save the threads that I want to look at later. Here's what I do. I use Internet Explorer, I don't know if you can do this with anything else. I can save this single webpage, and everything in it as a single file. "File>Save>Save as type>Web Archive, single file (*mht)". That's it, you can double-click on it later and it will come up as it would if you were online. Keep's forever, unlike Twinkies. This page you would have to save and then zip to make it small enough to fit on a floppy...to take home. ;o)

Tuttle basically explains it, but almost any artist leaves something out...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=106&Form.ShowMessage=764715

thanks for the tip AS, can't do it on this cheap machine, though. But I definitely intend to come back to this thread and save it when I get home this morning. I mean, jeez, to my eye these pictures (with the balls) look every bit as impressive as the test of Carrara 2's GI at the link above. So this is without a doubt a technique I would like to get the hang of.

This is an older image I did with cone lights. I put 4 cone shaped lights linked to the crystal object on a circular path with different colors and put the path at the top, then duplicated it and moved the copy lower and rotated slightly.

This uses the same crystal but without the ring of lights. I used some sphere lights and sunlight. The black wedges are ground planes that were rotated like a kalidascope with mirror texture.

In that top pic, is it the lights that give the crystals their color, or is it a combo of lights AND the color of the crystals? Cool pic, kinda reminds me of the first Superman movie, and all of its crystals. AgentSmith

Well, thanks for the explanation and the additional info.. I will definitely experiment with this... :)

Attached Link: http://www.bryceanworlds.com/pages/simulated_radiosity1.html

I might as well add Nacati Pamuk's tutorial for simulating radiosity using a light dome. Steve S.

Agent Smith and FWTempest: I generally use msn.(don't rag on me guys the 'scrip. came with the computer). I go to the menu(Bryce Forum thread list) for the thread I want to save, select the thread by rightclicking it. then choose save as. it will be saved as message.html. then rename it to the name of the thread. Vile: You caught me about bedtime. So if I sounded insincere I didn't mean to be. To everbody: Awe inspiring !!!! Really !!!! Eric: Very "Kryptonan", and beautuful. definately gonna right click/save this one - again..

oops: Kryptonian, sorry.

Agent Smith, both crystals are standard bryce diamond textures from the glass section. The colors on the top one are completely from the coned lights and the bottom one from reflected lights off the mirror planes. Thanks for the superman idea. I never finished the bottom pic cuz I just didn't know what to do with it. Maybe I'll put a crystal stand under her feet and give her a cape.

How's this?

Vile - Could you explain how you set up the lights in your second post? = )

I will be trying this, sounds kool! Thanks for the info!

How this?

Tutorial! Tutorial! Oh, pretty please! = )

I realy like the light cage. My most realistic render yet.

Attached Link: http://www.bryceanworlds.com/pages/simulated_radiosity1.html

Now we can all have acces to the example domes! =

Thanks for posting that cainbrogan, I did have the time.

this looks like a promising technique

I've seen and heard about the dome o' lights. I've also read tutorials with spirals or helixes of lights instead of domes. I typically use a more random method for radiosity. I throw in a half dozen radial lights and set them up to soften shadows. It's way faster, though it takes a little more thinking, and the result isn't quite as thorough. A little more than a year ago I read a tute with just a ring of lights to soften shadows, and it worked. That artist then described using the helix method to further enhance the effect. It just takes so bleeding long to render! Given the thread, I figured I'd mess with the dome. I've got 2 images on their way, and I'm resisting the urge to postwork them. If I succumb to the call of Photoshop, I'll post before and afters.