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.

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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

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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.

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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!!!

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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.)

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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

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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...........

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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)

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

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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

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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.

Wow. Neat stuff this is. Here's a light cage pic. I spaced the lights a bit much, but it's interesting how it affected the materiials.

Attached Link: http://home.no.net/dmaurer/~dersch/Index.htm

And here's a reflection pic with panoramas. I didn't use guite the distorted image that Agent Smith used, I used images form the link above, but the same sort of mapping. This is especially cool for me, because I shoot panoramas fairly often. I wonder this though: anyone know how to convert a Quicktime Panorama (.qtvr) to a single image?

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

Check this link here - will show you how to do it.

TM Graphics - Hi, again! I'm still thinking of the image you posted in this thread. I've since learned more about Global Illumination, but render stats you posted have been with me in my mind as comfortable milestone. Was the 19 hrs. at 450 * 600 pixels, or was there another image rendered, this thread post was reduced from? Only at the desktop standard 30 frames second, not nearing Hollywood feature films' 60/sec., and only for a 1 hr. show and not a 3 hr adventure, this animation would take 175 years to render! I'm wondering where this would go for a 15' * 30', or so , silver screen! = )

I have Bryce set for 800x600 default, and that is the size I mainly do a picture in, including the one above. Im also sure the 'Holywood' movie makers have a much faster computer(s) than I :>

You render is wonderfully photorealistic, thansk again for posting it with us! Half the reason I have many of my 3D application is for television production, the other is a hope/dream to do feature hollywood films. I'm trying to summate the cost of a real movie. I know Bryce, Poser, Carrara have it in them to do both, but as you say the hardware cost for such a project is incredible. Though I do think the 3D community will see this kind of power, on the desktop, within the next decade or so, at least for television anyway, then for movies soon after. I've also asked how large movie screens are, and what resolution they will reflect in another post. If I get the chance I'll post the math behind animating your still into a Disney! From here, just a 600x800, 3 hr. feature, of your post, would take 1,800 years to render! Har, har, har! It's a good thing technology almost doubles very year... = )

At 60 frames per. second... = )

You should look into 3DStudio Max for what you want to start with. Far better and faster renderer than Bryce. Also, with al the plug-ins, you can do almost anything.

Yeah, but the plugins when added easily over-run the already high price of the program.

Oh. I'm a really big Old School MC fan, personally. I still need to injest why they sold thier line? How much faster could Max be, literally? My guess is really exciting use of either application could incure serious render farm costs up front, quickly. ANyone know of a good farm to recommend? I plan on purchasing second and third computers for render power, I'm interested to know what additional expense a good farm could incure. There must be supercomputers in farms somewhere, if we look! = )

I tried out that global illumination thing, and it seems pretty cool(and useful). I downloaded some of the probe images from the link that AgentSmith provided, and processed them with the program they link to at the site. unfortunatly, I think I am missing something here, because my .bmp images look like the probe images: like the outside of a sphere with the image projected on it. I attached my rendered image, illustrating what I've done. you will notice the black, distorted areas on the metaballs: I believe that is due to the image I used. I'm not sure how to get the image to be rectangular, like the one AgentS provided.

if you are wondering why I posted an almost identical picture to one I jsut posted, the reason was this: I wanted to try a little experiment. I removed the sphere of 120 or so lights, and replaced it with one light, encompassing the hollowed out sphere, about 20 units larger. aside from being a bit darker(easily changed via the edit option) there are shadows and you can see a spot of light on some of the metaballs. of course, being only one light, it only took 3 minutes and 13 seconds, so if you don't need a perfect shot, and need it immediatly, this might be a way to go.

Go back through this post. Global Illumination and HDRI are two different things although both can be used together. Also the image the Smith used was a rectangular image that is why you are the Mobius ( 8 ) effect on your spheres. AB

DOH!! I hate when I ask a stupid RTFM question... although I did realize what was causing the mobius effect, I didn't know how to get the rectangle image....I got it now though. thanks for knocking some sense into me =c). BTW, this image was another experiment in global illumination. I used something like 6 or 8 lights total, but seem to have gotten a pretty decent result, without a major performance hit. I rendered using premium render settings: 4 rays per pixel, true ambience, and only took about 5 minutes.

Big_Hoovie, Shoot I'm still trying to figure out how to set up the light dome.(he-he) - TJ

bikermouse: the way I set up the light dome is I multi-rep'd the lights. first thing you want to do, though, is move the origin point to the center of you circle...um... perhaps someone can help me out with illustrating this, since I am at work, and don't have Bryce here... just make sure that when you do the multi-rep, that you do rotations, not translations. hth big_hoovie

Big_Hoovie, I was sort of half kidding. I've got it figured out in my head, but I haven't done it yet - there's just so much to learn on these forums. Thanks for the tip I'll try it with rotations. When I do something like this I generally start with 0,0,0 as the point where the first object goes. I have the mulit-rep thing down, I just seldom use it. Don't worry about that part of it - It's the HDRI I'm having trouble absorbing. Also until I upgrade to B5 I'm gonna have problems with some of it. The one light at the center is a neat trick. I wonder how different it would look using a boolean sphere rather that a metaball? Thank you, - TJ

perhaps I don't understand your question(long day), but the scene was shot inside a boolean sphere. the single light was encompassing the entire thing... unless you are referring to the subject of the image? I dunno...mebe I should try reading your post when I've got my brain cells straight. BTW, I have two thoughts on the spot of light you can see in my second attempt. one is the sunlight, the other thought is the radial light. I believe that no matter how large the light is, the light is emitted from the center of the light, producing the spot inside the booleaned sphere.

Big_Hoovie, No it was my misunderstanding, sorry. I got it now. I think I was thinking about the objects that are the subject of the image and thinking that they could just as well be booleans as metaballs? But somehow I got it tangled in my head. Also have you tried 'not hollowing' the sphere(just transparent)? bet you get some odd effects with that especially if you set refraction to 'not 100' (i.e. set refraction to 50 or 150). Anyway I'm not really thinking about this right. I have to watch startrek or something to reset my mind. as 'Enterprise' is on in 15 minutes I think I'll do that for now and come back to this tommorrow after I play with it some in my primative version of Bryce. live long and prosper, - TJ

I did this one with the same settings as the last, but the scene is not in a hollowed out sphere, but a solid sphere instead. also, I set the refraction to 153(glass), and I reduced the diffussion to about 83. render settings are the same, but it only took about 3 minutes to render

Big_Hoovie. Interesting effect. I like it. Refraction inside a sphere seems like a way to go. Well I started building a lightdome still playing around with various types of lights. These are my Spotlight ones as viewed from the outside.(no sphere present) the arch render shows artifacts where the spotlights intersect. the dome render is missing about three rows of lights at the bottom. I'll use surface lights and radials next to see if 3.1 will support the idea of a dome any better using them. still catching up, - TJ

you know, that's a neat idea. I never thought of using spotlights, rather than radial lights. I kinda like the top image, where you can actually see some of the light objects. something for me to experiment with. good luck with your experiments, big_hoovie

Refering back to post 48, would anyone be willing to share a file with this entire sphere? The link I provided is only to a 1/4 sphere. I'm sure it could be loaded into a Bryce scene 4 times over, but then alignment is an issue. Any replies will be appreciated. If anyone could be willing to just e-mail that to me, this would be super! My e-mail is cainbrogan@attbi.com. = )

I actually do not recommend a complete sphere. The render times would be GiaNormous! In all of my images I only use or a full depending on the setup. Besides your ground plane or floor would cut off the other . I dont think that the added lights would make that much of difference either.

Render times are not my concern when it comes to rendering. I'd use the sphere in open space(Off the ground, or without the ground plane,) actually. I'm going to need to test the would'nt make a differance part for myself. I've heard that one before. With twice as much light of course there is going to be a huge differance, as reflected in the render times... I really just do'nt want to align this, and am hoping someone has already done this... = )

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YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!