Bryce 5: free forming, flowers and much more

[Ulrich Albrecht]

Hi there,

I have to make a Feng Shui garden book with a lot of pictures
e.g.
- many combinations of long, tall, round or flat stones
- different ways around the house
- flowers, trees, stones arrangements around the house
and so on.

I have wait a long time for german Bryce 5, today I've got it.
I thought I could make the pictures in Bryce but it seems that
- there are no flowers
- it is not possible to create true meadows (with flowers and grass)
- I cant do free forming of stones

(just the result of one day)

And:
- Is it possible to import CorelDraw Objects (Forms)? (I know 2D vs. 3D...)
- How can I create for example the texture of a roof? With Draw?
- How can I build a simple house? Or a street (with curves!)

I seems that Bryce only can work with its own objects. Or do I also have to
use AutoCAD? (I don't have it)

Just for the answers: I know that Bryce is not a simple progam (I work with
computers since 18 years ;-)

Thank you very much for the answers.
--

Uli
_______
V-PUB: Schnelle Informationen für professionelles Desktop Publishing
http://vpub.publish-net.de/

[Kurt Wendt]

Hello Uli,

Ulrich Albrecht wrote:

> Hi there,
> I have to make a Feng Shui garden book with a lot of pictures
> e.g.
> - many combinations of long, tall, round or flat stones
> - different ways around the house
> - flowers, trees, stones arrangements around the house
> and so on.

I'm sure that with a lot of practice and effort that you can eventually
make 3D images with Bryce that may approximate the images that you see in the
garden book!

> I have wait a long time for german Bryce 5, today I've got it.
> I thought I could make the pictures in Bryce but it seems that
> - there are no flowers

Bryce only has trees. But, I suspect that if you play around long enough
you might be able to make plants that look a little like flowers. Just my
guess...

> - it is not possible to create true meadows (with flowers and grass)

There is the ability to replicate many copies of an object. If you make
something like a piece of grass(but try to keep it simple) - then you could
make repeated copies of it to simulate grass. Or, just you a grass texture on a
terrain. And, if you assemble some kind of flower like object in Bryce(maybe
using a tree without leaves and create flower petals with metaballs), then you
could place copies of that flower on the terrain.

> - I cant do free forming of stones

Not sure what you mean by 'free-forming' stones? If you mean creating and
modifying your own stone - then you CAN actually do that with metaballs. Use
multiple metaballs and place together for form your own stones. But, there is
also a naturual stone object now in Bryce 5 if I am not mistaken - and you
could use that.

> And:
> - Is it possible to import CorelDraw Objects (Forms)? (I know 2D vs. 3D...)
> - How can I create for example the texture of a roof? With Draw?

You can draw or create 2D images in ANY other programs and bring them into
the Texture Lab in Bryce. Look in the manual for the exact instructions on how
to use the Texture Lab, as I don't have a lot of experience with it yet...

> - How can I build a simple house? Or a street (with curves!)

Some simple houses you can build in Bryce using primitive objects & boolean
operations. Otherwise, you could get some other 3D modeling program that has
the proper type of export and import those models into Bryce.

> I seems that Bryce only can work with its own objects. Or do I also have to
> use AutoCAD? (I don't have it)

AutoCAD is too expensive if don't already own it. There are other much
cheaper programs - but if you buy one of them, just make sure it exports some
kind of 3D file format that Bryce can actually import. And, yes, you can import
other 3D type files.

> Just for the answers: I know that Bryce is not a simple progam (I work with
> computers since 18 years ;-)

Bryce can be a really great program to use. If you want, you can take a
look at some of the images on my gallery that I did with Bryce:
http://www.VR-FX.com/3d_work/Terraforming/Terraform.htm

> Thank you very much for the answers.

Goodluck!

--
* Kurt Wendt VR-FX *
* VR & 3D Animations Levittown, NY *
** Website: http://www.vr-fx.com **
** Remove the "_no_Spam_" if it happens **
***** to appear in the return address. *****

[Kurt Wendt]

Oops, sorry, I mis-read your first paragraph. I didn't realize you were making
images FOR the book, NOT based Upon a book. Of course, you could always make images
for the book that are more like artistic representations as opposed to completely
accurate types of images that are photorealistic and represent perfect trees. Just
a thought...
-K-

Kurt Wendt wrote:

> Hello Uli,
>
> Ulrich Albrecht wrote:
>
> > Hi there,
> > I have to make a Feng Shui garden book with a lot of pictures
> > e.g.
> > - many combinations of long, tall, round or flat stones
> > - different ways around the house
> > - flowers, trees, stones arrangements around the house
> > and so on.
>
> I'm sure that with a lot of practice and effort that you can eventually
> make 3D images with Bryce that may approximate the images that you see in the
> garden book!

--

[Cricket]

Greetings Uli

Kurt has given you some good information.

There is a very nice shareware program (very reasonably priced..a gem)
called Plant Studio with which you can make flowers and plants. It will
export in formats that Bryce understands. http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/

Also, Bryce trees have a 'user leaf' that allows you to use a picture of a
flower, or candy, or whatever you want to use instead of leaves. There are
many ways you can make shrubberies with the treelab and by squashing the
trees to make them short and/or stuffing the trunks underground so you just
see the bushy stuff.

Bryce does not directly support vector images. They must be bitmapped. IE
you can't import a Corel Draw file but if it is converted to bitmap it can
be used on a picture object in Bryce or as a basis for a terrain height
field in the Terrain Editor.

Houses, for example, can be done in many ways. You can use Bryce primitives
to construct them or you can make them with terrains by using grayscale
heightmaps created in a painting program. Or you can import ready-made
houses objects which were created in other programs in several 3d formats
and texture them in Bryce. People find many creative ways to do what they
want in Bryce.

It is a lot to learn and seems a bit overwhelming at first, but that is the
nature of 3D graphics.

Cricket
C_Tech Volunteer

[Don Wallace Jr.]

Ulrich,

Absolutely get Plant Studio for about 40$ (US) I think it will do almost any
plant you can imagine. I have the beta 2 version, downloaded awhile back,
and I was amazed with it.

example: http://www.32bitcolor.com/misc/garden.jpg the flowers and weeds are
from Plant Studio.

If you really want to spend some money http://www.xfrog.com/ plant generator
looks to be awesome/

As for houses they are nothing but cubes, pyramids and cylinders. Just alot
of boolean work.

Some quick examples of on going work:

http://www.32bitcolor.com/misc/entryway.jpg

http://www.32bitcolor.com/misc/room.jpg

and

http://www.32bitcolor.com/misc/house090301.jpg

daRAT

"Ulrich Albrecht" <po...@agentur-albrecht.com> wrote in message
news:9n0glt$1u2$06$1...@news.t-online.com...

[Cricket]

I love that garden picture, Don. Wonderful texturing.

Cricket
C_Tech Volunteer

[Ulrich Albrecht]

Thank you all for the great help.

Uli

[Don Wallace Jr.]

THanks, but 1/2 of it is textures from Marlin Studio's to be honest :>

I bought one of their cd Seamless textures one :q

"Cricket" <ct...@corel.ca> wrote in message news:3b942ab5$1_2@cnews...

[Cricket]

I've had my eye on those. Did Eni Oken work on them? Or am I thinking of
something else. Doesn't matter since I can't get them anyway, but they're
surely terrific textures...some of the best I've seen.

Cricket
C_Tech Volunteer

"Don Wallace Jr." <d...@nocannedmeat.gwi.net> wrote in message
news:3b956041_3@cnews...

[LarryAW]

Hi,

It is still a great picture. Gee, it looks our cat, but your cat gets to
'groom' in a much nicer setting than ours does. I think it's accurate to
say that most of us get our textures elsewhere a lot of the time. BTW,
Plant Studio is definitely one of the best bargains you can find anywhere.

regards,
Larry

"Don Wallace Jr." <d...@nocannedmeat.gwi.net> wrote in message
news:3b956041_3@cnews...

[Don Wallace Jr.]

Thanks Larry :]

Plant Studio is an awesome buy, I still have the 2.0 beta version (it still
works almost 6 months later). I am thinking of getting it tho, gotta buy
myself a bday present :P

daRAT :D

"LarryAW" <lwe...@home.com> wrote in message news:3b979f14$1_2@cnews...

[Don Wallace Jr.]

I am not sure of the artist who worked on this cd of textures. I know that
some of the different categories have different artist.

The cd was not bad in price, I can't tell you how much fun it is tho to have
them available, while I like creating textures myself, I just don't have the
time :|

Some free textures tho at:

http://toob.bryce-alive.net/textures/index.htm

(you probably know that one already :] )

And this one from Plant Studio site:

http://www3.mistral.co.uk/nigelpickering/

Full of plants, textures etc

daRAT <--- vermin :D

cyas!

"Cricket" <ct...@corel.ca> wrote in message news:3b95e9ac$1_3@cnews...