Just thought this WIP shot would be fun to share. This is a frame from an animated background plate for a shot being worked on for my amateur movie project. The really fun thing about this image is that, other than an image used for a lattice (the big storm), this image is modeled, textured and rendered entirely with Bryce4. The final shot will show a SciFi space capsule making an emergency re-entry into the atmosphere. Over the course of the animation, the horizon flattens, the sky "grows" and the storm rotates a bit. Again, all in Bryce. Still to do... - Star field - The capsule (naturally) - flames & smoke (these will be done with ParticleIllusion) Hope you like. Have fun.

Looks great so far padawanNick. Are you placing your camera in a glass sphere to "bend" the horizon and using the banking control to invert sky and ground? ParticleIllusion is a very cool app.

Pretty close there, danamo. There is a "lens" placed in front of the camera. The lens is a glass sphere with the side closest to the camera is cut flat by a negative cube. (image attached looks like the camera is in the sphere, but it's actually outside the completed boolean object) This was a little easier to control for me, and the camera doesn't need to be banked. This is important, since the camera is in motion to simulate turbulence, and I need to run a second pass now with the ship in view and no "lens" to distort it. The nice thing about the rig is, all that needed to be done to give the feeling of descent was to drop the refaction index over time. As the index approched 100, the horizon flattens and seems closer, even though the camera hasn't really moved. :) (increasing the haze thickness & density over the same time span finishes the "sell") Guess that's all for now. Thanks for the interest. Have fun.

That is a cool idea, thanks for the tip!

Very cool method and technique PadawanNick! This is quite a bit more sophisticated than the method I described. Dropping the refraction index over the course of the animation is a brilliant extra touch, as is using a Boolean "lens". Thank you for sharing it. :-)

Aye, Nick, you are posting some cool stuff lately! The boolean lens is a nice touch, try making a pure, real lens instead though. It will give you more control over the refraction, although you seem to be doing fine with this one! Here's a pic of what I mean... This method gives you four levels of control. One is the material of the first Sphere. One is the material of the second sphere. The third is the distance between the two that creates the actual lense. The forth is the stretch of the lense, off from Spherical on towards Ovoid. Just an idea, might come in handy for you! Can't wait to see what you post next!

WOW SHADOW! You're wire frame shading is as impressive as the finished render. (Very Leonardo da Vinci-esque) That's a great idea. Mmmm. I wonder if one were to construct a complete camera lense assemblely, if you could produce actual cinimatic lense flares. Mmmmmm. Anyone have a diagram of a Panavision Lens ??????? Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! Have fun.

Indeed you can, although they are strange and silly. What controls the type of flare is the specularity channels. Coloring them with a material, int the spec but not in any diffuse or bump or ambience, nor transparency, will create all kinds of weird effects. Lights in the scene will make weird colors and shapes, although I've not experimented with this technique enough to make a set of mats corresponding to REAL lens flares. Such as 35mm, 73mm, ANamorphic, blah blah... Here's a sample....

And another, less ridiculous...

Wow, SDL! those flares look very impressive. I'm enjoying this topic thread and you guys have given me some great ideas. Now I've got to do some research on Panavision lens arrays!