I'm honestly curious why anyone would want to take apart Bryce coding? Are we still tring to get a Bryce scene to export to another program like Max or Maya? If so, why not just use the other program? All the "Big Dogs" and most of the medium guys (Carrara, C4D, Lightwave) can do everything Bryce can and a million times better and faster, if one knows how to do them. Especially modeling. And Bryce can already export it's best features, the terrains and textures! So, aside from the obvious legal considerations (read the User License Agreement sometime), why would you want to export stuff from Bryce? Bryce's best feature is of course it's UI. I can understand delving for hidden knowledge and all that, but to what end here? And not to be a total jerk, but I'm curious why you would be so interested in tearing Bryce's engine apart Anthony, yet somehow not know the manufacturer, current version, or anything else like that?

you have good points... although the dual-layering method would work just fine with your above model, it's still a big hassel.

ere's an updated version. It's one material, two channels. the first channel controls the bump with TWO DTE textures, the first being the brick lines and the second being the extra bump noise. then there's the second procedural (DTE) texture, which just controls the color and can be replaced, changed, or whatever without changing your bump map.

again, if this is any closer let me know and i'll email it to you. as for a tutorial, i can sum it up by saying that the DTE seems like musgrave programmed it just for fun to force us to experiment! this texture uses a lot of filter-work to create the brick effect and to control the second channel there, so the "noise" doesn't overpower the brick-lines.
also, this one (being single-layered and with no transparency) renders much faster. under the previously-stated conditions (with a dozen other RAM-hog programs open) this scene rendered in just an hour, but I also turned off the light-dome in favor of three-point lighting to speed it up a bit, so from 64 lights = 3 hours to 3 lights = 1 hour it's still kinda slow... but after switching back from Maya, well... it's Bryce! gotta love it!

Message edited on: 02/07/2006 16:51

that's an awesome texture madmax! great for sandstone blocks, for certain. still, nothing beats UV mapping for lining things up, for example notice the discontinuity where the top (circular) face meets the sides? It would work fin on a cube or pyramid, but a cylinder might require a different mapping mode? spherical?

heres my attempt for you, I apologize for it taking me so long Diolma. there is one drawback here, I used a layered texture and not just one channel but many. meaning there are two cubes, one slightly smaller being the bump-mapped cube and the larger being a transparent texture (with more bump) to increase crustiness and control more coloring. SO it renders slowly, but i'm only on an Athlon 2100 here, with a pathetic 3/4GB of RAM. and I had Photoshop and a dozen work-related apps running, so that surely contributed to a 3-hour render time for this picture. it maps okay and can be scaled to fit multiple surface-types, if necessary. it was fun for me though since Bryce isn't node-based like Maya, the ease of use with the Materials Lab for example works on a per-object basis, and not a per-material-node basis, and in some cases lets you work much faster! i forget how fun the DTE can be sometimes... anyway, I hope you like it and if you want I can email you the material so you can pick it apart. don't feel obligated, but it's here if you want it!

I'm all over it, but may not be done before AS is! (grins) (Edit) Aaaargh! Now I've got to race against TWO big dogs! "It's a texture-off. Welcome to the deep, dark underworld of 3D modeling they don't show you on the movies or in the magazines..."

Message edited on: 02/03/2006 17:13

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

The Boxx Apexx4 computers, which consist of 4 dual-core Opterons, are the fastest CGI machines available and can house up to 64GB of RAM. You simply cannot buy a better machine for graphics, without building one yourself. In comparison, all of our machines (including your new iMac) are mere toys. Love 'em!

Yes, you can do tht inside the DTE /Materials Lab. I'll make one up for you and post a screenshot this weekend, if you like it I'll email it to you so you can pick it apart or learn from it, or just use it outright if you want. I don't believe Brycean procedurals should be copyrightable by their "makers", since it's all source-code that's been borrowed from others anyway...

Looking pretty good! The model itself is nice, although the red texture looks very Brycean (library) style. Did you model it all in Bryce?

Good stuff! You're certainly improving rapidly, and this is one of your best pictures in my opinion...

I think the straw looks fine, given the angle and the rigidity of the plastic. My other issues are render time (it would take any other program MINUTES instead of days!) and the few minor nit-picks I left you at the link. I've always loved your Zenith system though, that's the best lighting rig possible with Bryce. Did you do the DOF in Bryce as well?

(laughs!) No, this is Maya, Marko. I don't need Terragen, Vue or anything (including Bryce) anymore, but I like to use Bryce because it's a quick setup for mountains. I could have exported the mountains straight to Maya, but Bryce has easier rendering options, even though it takes ten times longer to render anything...

thank you Nevanna, you make a good point... perhaps some more spray in the stream, or birghtening of the rest of the scene would help as well. I dont want them to be a focal point, really.

hmm, I agree from a technical standpoint, especially given the spring atmosphere I'm going for

but then again, I live right next to mt. Rainier, and it's completely white until the dead of summer. I guess I'm asking if it's detailed enough?

heres a progress shot of the entire scene. I'm not normally into fairies or flowers, but I'm making this for a dear female friend of mine. do the mountains add to the scene, or detract from it?

(...click for full-size)

the main (working) render is 300dpi, so 3300x2550

Most displacement mapping is done in Photoshop or Zbrush. Bryce already does UV mapping, so all it would need is to be able to apply displacement to any surface. Bryce need not have an internal paint system to make displacement a reality...

Terrains are all displacement mapped planes (square faces).

Interesting object, Harrison seems like a cool guy! Still, he's really going about things the long way. And the sheer inaccuracy of such a modeling technique just bothers the hell out of me, especially after years of AutoCAD and Rhinoceros. There are literally billions of redundant polys using terrains to model with, and of course it would be nearly impossible to animate a character built this way... BUT... But! Perhaps they'll include real displacement mapping in Bryce 6? It's a pretty standard feature on most packages now, and Bryce's raytracer shouldn't have much problem with it...