Show Us Your Bryce Renders! Part 3
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Ah, now it makes sense... See I kept lowering and lowering the slab for what seemed like forever, but it was the bottom edge I eventually saw, not as I thought, the top edge. That's one really thick cloud slab there and my scene is much smaller scale than yours :lol:
Savage, your sky is beautiful, Even recycling Davids materials i can not make clouds like that, So much more for me to learn
Thanks for making this tutorial David.
At some point in the future, would you mind making a tutorial explaining what the options in IBL mean and as well the Render options?
Three things I'm not good at. 3D Modeling, Lighting and Render Settings.
Some of the things I need more understanding of is True Ambiance, Turning the Sun off or on with HDR Renders, Background Targets, all which to me seem like advanced subject.
The original Multi Replicate tutorial gave me a good taste of what I should be able to do with Wings3D something that I've tried many times before but failed.
Thanks for making this tutorial David.
At some point in the future, would you mind making a tutorial explaining what the options in IBL mean and as well the Render options?
Three things I'm not good at. 3D Modeling, Lighting and Render Settings.
Some of the things I need more understanding of is True Ambiance, Turning the Sun off or on with HDR Renders, Background Targets, all which to me seem like advanced subject.
The original Multi Replicate tutorial gave me a good taste of what I should be able to do with Wings3D something that I've tried many times before but failed.
Well I do plan to do some more tutorials on those very topics, but you will find that many of my previous tutorials do explore those topics in the context of little projects. The main problem for me is containing a topic, which is why I have tended to focus on projects. If I were to make a video about TA - for example, it could go on for hours - that's no exaggeration, there a lot of ways of using TA. And then there is the question of if I should try and explain how it works and if that even is helpful?
@TheSavage64 - the morning scene looks fine. What makes the terrain appear smaller is that the clouds somehow act loke another mountain and that one dwarfs the terrain. At least that's how I see it.
@David - building looks good.
There are several HDRI tutorials up. Links can be found on my website (see sig). Go to Bryce Documents > Videos (Links) > Horo
Any tips on optimizing volume cloud planes ?, I have a fast PC but my volume clouds are still painfully slow.
Well... dealing with lighting first. Only have a single light source, for ambient use little bits of global ambient in your materials, and a bit of skydome. If you are feeling ambitious, pre-bake the ambient shadows into your materials - that's tricky though. But otherwise, the important thing is to avoid using things like HDRI lighting or soft shadows or any premium effects.
As for the clouds. Reduce the slab thickness if you want to speed them up and hide the horizon (Cloud slabs render slowest at the horizon because you are looking at a much shallower angle, so looking through more cloud (same problem as thick slab)).
If you are making your own clouds... make sure you choose optimal procedural texture components. Horo made a series of speed tests, here is a little table of results, choose procedurals towards the top of the table first and only then if you can't get the effect you want work your way down.
1.0 nothing
1.0 distance origin
1.1 distance squared
1.2 spots
1.4 square
1.4 descreet tryangle
1.4 random discreet
1.6 tryangle
1.6 linear sine
1.9 sine
1.9 fractal
2.3 Sparse RND paths
2.3 Sonte cliff
2.6 waves
2.7 vortex noise
2.7 turbulence
2.7 voroni ID1
2.8 Stucco Noise
3.3 square lines
3.6 leopard
3.6 RND linear
3.9 RND continuous
3.9 time random
4.0 multifractal
4.0 techno
4.1 fract stone
4.1 RND lines
4.1 gradient
4.3 voroni ID2
4.4 value
4.8 RND saw
5.0 liquid
5.0 weird gradient
5.2 voroni dist sq 1
5.2 voroni ID3
5.4 voroni distance 1
5.6 weird value
5.7 voroni D2sq - D1sq
5.8 voroni ID4
5.8 voroni distance 2
5.8 voroni dist sq 2
5.9 voroni D2-D1
6.0 voroni distance 3
6.2 voroni distance 4
6.2 voroni dist sq 3
6.2 voroni D3sq - D2sq
6.3 voroni D3-D2
6.4 voroni dist sq 4
6.4 voroni D4-D3
6.6 voroni D4sq - D3sq
If you find you get a better effect by adding octaves, check to make sure it's not just a question of scale. If you want to take out an octave and keep the same scale, half the texture frequency for each octave removed.
But volume clouds are both tricky and slow, there is no two ways about it.
Thanks David, one other question ? How do you prebake shadows ? I have no idea how thats done
There's no inbuilt option to prebake shadows in Bryce, so you have to come up with your own strategy to simulate the effect of more complex shadows. In this http://www.daz3d.com/premium-rendering-hdri-ta-2-rockfall I explore one way of approaching this problem, but it is very much an advanced topic. Because it is so involved working out how to pre-bake shadows, it really only something I would suggest for animators where the advantage would be felt frame after frame. Where as for still scenes, it is undoubtedly easier to put up with longer render times and use more lights or better yet, True Ambience global illumination.
Do what I do.
Render the clouds separate from everything else. Clouds don't suffer from noise or any noticeable deterioration when rendered at the lowest render settings. Then hide your cloud slab (unless the clouds cast shadows on your scene) and render using higher quality render settings.
Then select everything in your scene except the clouds and render an object mask so you can easily assemble the two renders in a photo editing application.
If your clouds do cast shadows, then you can't hide them or your shadows go too... so you need to do an area render including all of your scene but leaving out as much of the sky area as possible.
Also:
In the Mat Lab in your volume settings, make sure you have the Quality/Speed setting set only as high as it needs to be, this will depend a lot on what angle you are looking at your clouds from as sometimes visible banding will occur... in which case you have to sacrifice speed for quality.
As an example though, the clouds in my last render with the landscape are set to 0 which is all speed and no quality.
Thanks for the tip, i will give that a try
From David’s multi-replicate tut, the below was created simply by stacking 100 flat mirrors (vertically-aligned) on top of each other into a spiral tunnel. Light the tunnel’s inside with a single radial light at the bottom, put anything in the centre of the tunnel, and then have the camera look right up through it. In effect, multiple reflections. Closing off the end top of the tunnel with another single mirror gives multiple reflections of the multiple reflections again. It’s kind of like a kaleidoscope with a 100 mirrors instead of just several.
In the first image there are just three object spheres with different mats in the tunnel, while the second, an eagle. I suspect that changing the mirrors’ rotation axis, you could end up getting a very nice spiralled image. So many options with this multi-replicate thingy.
Jay
Very nice, quite elaborate. The first looks like the tail of a peacock.
Good advice from Dave there, I tend to avoid mentioning using postwork, since that seems to set the tolls off on one. But that's a good approach I reckon.
Interesting Jay. Multi-replicate can be quite absorbing to play with as can this...
Using the Ivy Generator - a tutorial by David Brinnen
Usually I'd agree as I also like my renders to be 100% Bryce.
The thing is, I think the approach of rendering in two layers and comping them in a photo editor isn't really post work as such.
I consider at least the spirit of post work if not the literal definition to be the addition of stuff you haven't rendered.
Getting a finished picture in 4 hours by rendering in two layers or getting the exact same render all at once in 16 hours, I'm willing to sacrifice purism to save that extra 12 hours. :-)
Edit to add: I was playing with the Ivy Generator a few months ago and it's frustrating because the import doesn't bring the trans map for the leaves in the Mac version (unless I was doing something wrong) and as you know, it's a bother using picture import in the Mat Lab.
But it's a great little application.
@David - ivy image looks nice.
Been playing a bit with the Wings/Multi-Replication video by David. I opened floor and ceiling and added a total of 250 radials. The radials were ignored when multi replicating as instances and had to be added by another round of multi-replicating without instancing. Backdrop and exterior light by the Simplon HDRI which comes with the Pro content.
First one uses the GWL at FOV 180° looking up.
Second one uses just a camera FOV of 125°.
Third one uses the EWL lens with a camera FOV at 90°.
Horo...what can one say...but 'awesome stuff, and new realities' (game changers, really).
That ‘Ivy Generator’, David, is superb...will definitely have to download it.
Still playing around with the multi-replicated, 100 mirrors’ experiment...etc. It really can result in surprizes beyond one’s comprehension – below, placing cylinders (or plants) into the tunnel (mentioned previously) shows the enormity in complexity that such experiments can end in.
Jay
Thank you for the Ivy Genrator tuorial!
but: "A Bryce 7.1 Pro tutorial aimed at people who are moderately well"?
Thank you. Abstracts with 100 mirrors - there are uncountable possibilities. I like the second, looks 3D-ish. I wonder how an anaglyph would look like.
Well... yes, I figured if users are moderately well versed in Bryce, then it was reasonable to think they could cope with using the Ivy Generator - just like that. Because as we know a moderately well versed Bryce user can use almost any piece of software presented to them virtually without instruction.
Dave, I agree - and I am happy to use any shortcut I can if I am lucky enough to be working on a commissioned artwork. And yes, sorry, I can't help you with Mac issues, but you could always turn off the leaves and use the vines?
Horo - wow! Fantastic results, Tower05 in particular for me.
Jay, I don't know what to say, reminds me of some ultimate beer crate... which must mean... I want a beer?
Just had to drive to Scunthorpe and back - while I was doing that, I let the computer render a lens/filter test. TA obscure lighting + Bryce sun. 3.5 hour render time. You'll recognise the dragon and maybe the grass?
@TheSavage64 -
What does this mean. I hit render and it renders the picture, or I select
part of the scene and render that. I don't understand rendering in layers,
and how does it save all that time?.
"applelicious" I finally made my own HDRI lighting from one of my Bryce images, what a result I am chuffed
What does this mean. I hit render and it renders the picture, or I select
part of the scene and render that. I don't understand rendering in layers,
and how does it save all that time?.
Hi Stuart.
The answer is in this post
The way it saves time is that when using higher quality render settings, the vast majority of the extra render time will be due to the volumetric materials (especially ones with varying levels of transparency that cast shadows etc.), therefore volumetric clouds will be a real bog down for render times.
Add to this the fact that clouds don't generally suffer from being rendered at the lowest quality settings (they don't have issues with noise and don't benefit at all from soft shadows), so in effect if you rendered just some clouds at 'Regular (Normal Anti Aliasing)' and then the exact same clouds at 'Premium (Effect Anti Aliasing)' with soft shadows and True Ambience switched on (and set to 64RPP), you wouldn't be able to see any discernible difference, but the first render would finish in 45 minutes and the second one would take 12 hours.
Now if you rendered a landscape (without clouds) twice using the same settings as above, you would see a vast difference in the quality of the renders, but because Bryce didn't have the same complex processing of TA and soft shadows, the render times would be a lot closer in time to each other, so higher render settings give better quality for less render time relatively.
So in effect, you make 2 renders (and a third Object Mask render);
The first one is the whole scene rendered at lowest quality.
The second one is the whole scene with the clouds 'Hidden' using that option in the object's Attributes) rendered at high quality.
Then selecting everything in the scene except the cloud slab, make a third render using the Object Mask option in the render settings.
Then open all three renders into a photo editor and using the render of the landscape without the clouds as your base, create an alpha channel and paste the Object Mask render into it. Then paste the clouds render into a regular layer and load the alpha channel as a selection. You can then use several methods to delete the blank sky from one render, or delete the low quality landscape from the other render to get a single picture which has the clouds from one render and the land from the other.
Object Mask render setting found here;
@Jay: Love the mirror results. Can you explain how you created the mirrors? This inquiring mind would like to know.
@sliver: That is a gorgeous image.
@Horo: Really like your results.
Gave David's interior tutorial a try and the image below is what the inside of my twisted building looks like.
@David - dragon is nicely lit. I've never noticed the white dot on the body towards the right.
@silverdali - apples look good. Bryce can export a render directly as rasiance file and this can make a very nice reflection map.
@GussNemo - nicely lit.
@ Horo Bryce can export a render directly as rasiance file, how is this done? please direct me to a tutorial yeah
That came out really well! What process did you use to make the HDRI?
Exporting in radiance, shown in these tutorials for example
Bryce 10 minute scene project - abstract space HDRI backdrop - a tutorial by David Brinnen
Bryce 5 minute scene - recursive abstract HDRI backdrops - a tutorial by David Brinnen
Bryce 5 minute scene - recursive abstract HDRI backdrops 2 - a tutorial by David Brinnen
Stuart, here is a video I made a couple of months ago about masks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIuyQgKKY6w If I think on, I will try to make one more focused on clouds at some point - since this question keeps cropping up.
Horo, the white dot is just part of the material, the bump mapping works so well here it looks like a chip in the model.
Jamie, with that material it looks like the building has been submerged for a while or perhaps the work of Gaudi? http://barbaracsk.travellerspoint.com/ Which HDRI did you use as your internal light source?
Oh here's another dragon render test.