Last month in Bryce Up Your Art, we explored the possibilities of KTP Bryce by creating a simple landscape, accentuated with a number of spheres and PICT images. This month, we’re going to look at working with geometric shapes within Bryce.
You must first decide what you’re going to create out of the various geometric 3D shapes available in Bryce. It helps to make a rough sketch of what it is you want to end up with. It need not be terribly detailed—just enough to give you a rough idea of where things should go and what their general shape needs to be.
With rough sketch complete, enter Bryce. Start by selecting the sky, terrain, and ground your image will have. From there, select the size of the image using the Render Palette. With these tasks done, select the Create Palette. This palette contains all the geometric shapes available within Bryce. It’s also helpful to have the Edit Palette open at the same time. The Edit Palette has the controls you’ll be using to bend, twist, and otherwise reshape each basic geometric object.
Using the Create Palette, select the shape you would like to begin with. When you click on the shape, it shows up in your image and, from there, must be positioned by dragging it to the appropriate location and shaped using the commands found in the Edit Palette. For positioning, it’s imperative you use the Views Control found in the Master Palette. Top and side views are most helpful, not only for positioning the individual shapes, but for joining them together as well.
For your first shape, I suggest using one which will serve as the base for the structure. That way, when it’s properly sized and positioned, you’ll have a gauge for the position and size of the rest of the shapes that will comprise the structure.
With the first shape sized and in place, choose a second shape and add it to the base shape. Adding is quite easy. Simply position the second shape so that it protrudes into the base shape. This is most easily done by again using the Views Control to ensure the shape is properly positioned.
If you look at the wireframe rendering below, you’ll see I have constructed an object using four individual geometric shapes available within Bryce.
 
I started with the sphere on the left and used it as my base for constructing the remainder of the object. Once my base shape was properly sized and positioned, I copied it to the clipboard and pasted it onto the image. The reason for this was simple; I wanted the spheres to both be the same size, their only apparent size difference being as a result of their position on the horizon. The reason the sphere on the right of the wireframe looks smaller is because of it’s position on the horizon relative to Bryce’s viewfinder view.
Using the Views Control, I positioned the right hand sphere in the proper location and moved on to create the bars that would join the spheres together. Again, I used the Create Palette to select the shape that would become the joining bars. Using the Edit Palette, I molded the bar to fit between the two spheres and look as if it joined the spheres together. To do this, I simply used the Views Control, looked down upon the image, positioned the newly created bar between the two spheres so that each end protruded into each sphere slightly, and then used the Views Control again to get a side view of the image to ensure the positioning of the bar was correct.
Once this was complete, I copied the bar to the clipboard and pasted it into the image. Using the same guidelines as discussed above, I positioned the second bar into place and confirmed its positioning using the Views Control.
From there, I selected all four shapes that comprised my newly constructed object and entered the Materials Editor (found in the Edit Palette). I wanted the object to be highly reflective in order to provide a feeling of depth in the finished image. For this, I selected a chrome texture. Since I had all four shapes selected when I chose the chrome texture, each shape would take on the chrome during the rendering of the image.
With my object finished, I moved on to the ground. I wanted a smooth, somewhat marbled ground for the finished image. To accomplish this, I selected the ground plane (the little black square on the bottom of the wireframe image) and once again entered the Materials Editor of the Edit Palette to create the texture I wanted. With my ground texture finished and applied, I moved to the Sky Palette.
I wanted my sky to be cloudy, but not too much so. I also wanted some haze and fog in the finished image. Using the Sky Palette, I established the cloud covering, haze, and fog I wanted the finished image to have. From there, I positioned the sun where I wanted it to be and, lastly, set the color for the fog and haze.
With everything finished, I rendered the image, saved it to my hard drive, and opened it in Photoshop. Remember last month when I told you I like to sharpen Bryce images a bit in order to eliminate the overly soft edges Bryce renders? After sharpening was completed using Photoshop’s Unsharp filter, I used Intellihance from Extensis Software to adjust the white point, mid point, and black point of the image. From there, I added a small lens flare to the sun’s reflection in the left-side sphere to provide a more realistic appearance to the finished image. The fruits of my labor can be seen below.
 
As you can see, the image came out quite nicely. The object I created looks to be one piece even though it’s comprised of four individual geometric shapes. The chrome texture provides a nice sense of depth to the image and the fog and haze separate the sky from the ground superbly. The lens flare I added in Photoshop goes to provide the realism one would encounter if using a camera to take a picture of the scene. As a result of the sun’s position in the sky, the object casts a nice shadow on the ground, further going to provide realism to the finished image.
And how long did it take to create this image? Less than an hour. Indeed, it took me longer to write this article. Bryce is an extremely powerful piece of software, and moreover, it’s a whole lot of fun. If you’ve got a penchant for creating and tinkering with images, I highly recommend you invest in a copy KTP Bryce.
