Welcome back! This is part three of the 3D modelling tutorial series. In this tutorial, we'll be covering some more advanced 3D modeling concepts, and learning how to use Bryce 3D. If you haven't read the previous two tutorials, I suggest you do so, as this tutorial follows from the knowledge gained in the previous two tutorials. Without further ado, I shall begin by opening Bryce. Bryce is a rather unknown program. It is used quite a bit for home use, and you can usually see it on store shelves. More "Professional" software is usually not found at a local computer store - you have to order it online, or go to some sort of huge megastore to find it. Generally, the people going to a computer store don't have $8000 in cash with which to pay for their purchase of SoftImage 3D. But getting back to Bryce, although it is small, cheap, and user friendly, it is very powerful as well! It is definitly the number one program for creating landscapes and natural surroundings. Nothing matches it in that aspect. It also has an excellent raytracer. What makes it great, however, is that it is incredibly easy and quick to use. First, you'll need to know how to use the Bryce interface. You already know what a lot of the Bryce tools do - since they are similar to the tools covered in Part 2 of the 3D series, when we were working with Extreme 3D. So it is important to first know how to use the interface. You have, basically, two main bars. The top bar and the sidebar on the left. The top bar is where you access all your tools. The sidebar is where you adjust all of your camera angles and settings, and where you adjust render quality settings and other general program settings. This large screenshot shows you some of the basic features of Bryce's interface. (The scene that is currently loaded in this screenshot is a brand new Zeta Level)
As you can see, it is pretty easy to identify how to use the interface. Next, we'll look at the different controls, and what they do. There are three types of controls: Create, Edit, and Sky & Fog conrols. Create controls create a variety of objects to put in your scene. Edit edits, deforms, and manipulates these objects. Sky/Fog controls the settings for the sky. This includes how high up the clouds are, what kind of stars/moon/sun will be showing, how much fog there is, what density, how high, etc. Bryce is geared heavily towards creating very realistic natural scenes. Let's take a look at what the controls look like.
The top bar is the Create controls bar. From left to right, the controls are: create water plane, create sky plane, create land plane, create terrain, create rock, create lattice, create sphere, create tall sphere, create flat sphere, create torus, create long cylinder, create tall cylinder, create horizontally flattened cylinder, create vertically flattened cylinder, create cube, create long cube, create tall cube, create pyramid, create short pyramid, create tall pyramid, create cone, create horizontally flattened cone, create tall cone, create horizontal flat circle, create vertical flat circle, create 2D object, create horizontal flat square, create vertical flat square, create ambient light, create round spotlight, create square spotlight, create box light. Phew!!! That is a lot of tools. Basically, through various combinations of all of these tools, you can create a lot of stuff.
The second bar is the Edit controls bar. The first tool, which looks like a block with a piece cut out, is the texture controls. In Part four of this series, we'll be exploring the use of textures. For now, you won't need this tool. The second tool is the resize tool, which is very useful. Simply drag on the handle you want, or click and drag the center box. The item(s) currently selected will be resized. The next tool is the rotate tool. As with the resize tool, you click on the circle which represents the direction you want to rotate in, click, and drag. The next tool is the move tool, another essential. This lets you position objects in your scene with precision. Again, just click and drag on whichever direction you want to move the object(s) in. The next tool is not used much - it is the align tool, and it used to align objects. The next tool is very useful, especially in animation. It is the random motion tool. Select a group of objects, and click the little arrow next to this tool. A list of possible transformations will appear. If you choose, for example, 3D disperse/rotate, and then click and drag the blue dot above this tool, all objects you have selected will be randomly rotated and moved outwards. This is great for scattering debris after an explosion. The final tool is the Edit tool. It is used to edit the shape of mountains, or to change settings on some objects - lights for example.
The bottom bar is the Sky & Fog bar. You don't really need to worry about this at the moment. more about skies and fog will come in later tutorials.
That's covered the basic use of Bryce. Now it is time to get into more 3D modeling! We'll start off by using one of the most useful tools in Bryce - the Terrain Tool. Create a terrain. Now, go to the edit bar and click on the Edit control. Another way to do this is to click on the little "E" next to your terrain. A window will pop up. In the upper left corner, you can see various editing tools. In the upper right is a grayscale top-view of your terrain. In the lower left is a preview. You can edit your terrain by just painting onto the grayscale image. Use the "Hard" brush setting right next to the grayscale editing window to control how hard your brush is - whether it leaves behind a gradient of color, or paints a single color. The flow control sets how much paint flows out - how much color you put down. Once you've finished editing, press the check mark, and your terrain will be changed. Terrains are incredible useful, as you can paint all sorts of things with them. You aren't limited to mountains.
The next major thing to be covered in this tutorial is Boolean Objects. Boolean logic is AND,OR, NOT, etc. A boolean object is basically where you take, say, a cube, and then cut a cylinder out of it. You can carve things out of other objects this way. We'll start off with a cube. Next, we'll switch to top view, so we can see all of this better. The next thing to do is create a cylinder. Then we'll switch to front view. As you can see, the cylinder isn't tall enough. Use the Resize control in the edit bar to make it taller. The next thing to do is set which object gets cut out. To do this, click on the little A next to the cylinder. There is a control that is set to "neutral". Change it to "negative". Press the check mark, and then select the cube and do the same. However, make the cube "positive". Now, select both objects, and press the G next to them to Group them together. The cylinder will now be cut out of the cube. You can create all sorts of incredible effects with this.
Although this may have seemed like a short tutorial, you learned two very important things - how to use terrains, and how to use Boolean objects. The last thing in this tutorial will be a few images of a scene from Zeta. This scene uses only objects from the Create menu, and it uses some major boolean objects. You haven't learned how to use textures yet, but right now, you could create this scene.
The next tutorial will cover aspects of texturing objects, and making your scenes look realistic. By the time you've read the next tutorial, you'll have all the skills to create the scene above.