I was wondering if there's any relatively straightforward way of making fireworks in Bryce 3 or 4. I would guess it would have something to do with a lot of balls "exploding" in all directions, but they wouldn't exactly look like streaks that way, which I want, a ball of light exploding into several "streamers". Also, the animation is going to be against a light backdrop, so the fireworks have to be pretty bright as well. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, Akril

You take a sphere, stretch it along on of the axis, make a few clones of it and 3d-disperse them. Make a nice texture and you've got your straightforward fireworks. With some post processing you can make it look really good if you take the time.

Stretch the spheres like this: | V The | is the stretched sphere, the V is the camera (it's a top-view). Play with the zoom and view-angle too, to create a nice effect.

I'm having trouble visualizing how to do this. Maybe if you posted a wireframe so I knew what to aim for? Also, they aren't just going to have straight "streams" going out in all directions. They are also going to trail downwards as well, and elongated spheres might look awkward. Also, what sort of material should I use that would look convincing? Akril

use a custom-made lattice or if you use a sphere make sure so set the texture mode on a negative altitude alpha channel, and thet way it will trail off at the bottom. Whatever you use, you will need two layers. One should be a bright transparent color, and the other should be very bright additive to give a glowing appearance. I will work on this and post a short tut in a few hours.

I guess what this discussion is about is some sort of fake particle emitter in Bryce. Since Bryce doesn't do this, there has to be a way to fake the same results by trying things like above. Sounds like good fodder for a tutorial or two.

OK, I figured something out here fellas. There are two ways to go about this. One is to make lattice terrains and stuff them full of little dots and keep make them solid. Then apply the desired color and make it a bright additive transparent blend. Then duplicate the terrain, open it up and smooth it a few times. Then go into the mat editor and make it dimmer, more transparent, and a slighly different shade. This way, It looks like you have a whole load of dots that are bright in the center but are surrounded by a glow. Another thing i thought up of draws its inspiration frm Vic Haynes, so I'd like to give him some credit before I continue. Ok, well...what are particles? Particles are many small objects in their own 3d space. What is the closest thing bryce has to a lot of small objects through space?.....It has a tree lab, by George!!!! Basically, make a tree, go into the tree editor and set randomness to zero and gravity to around 80. Mess with the othr settings until you get a somehwate high density tree in a spherical shape. Then go into the trunk material and make it invisible. Under foliage, make the leaves something round...maybe use the user leaf option...size 2...amount 4-5....and then in the mat editor make them a very dim yet still easily visible additive transparent color. Make sure the leaves are set to the "bunched" setting(this is what I used). Then duplicate the tree make the leaf size 1, and keep everything else the same. For the leaf material, make it a brighy and fuzzy additive color. Then render and check it out. (You may want to group the trees and flatten them a bit) I am sorry that tutorial is kind of sketchy, but I am still working on the concept. Expect a full and complete tutotial soon.

Sorry I was so vaque. I had to read a lot e-mails in 30 minutes :) (I didn't make it, but it was worth trying to read all my mail on time just for once.) I'll make a sample file and Mail it to you. I can make a wire view to, but then I can't really show you how to lat the particles fall down after the explosion. I haven't done it with falling particles yet but I think I know how to make it.

I'm sorry, but I don't have Bryce 5, and hence, I don't have the Tree Lab. And I'm still unclear about all these alpha channels and how to set them and so forth. Sorry if I'm being difficult, but I'm still bew to Bryce. Akril