Starting 3D graphics

[DonnyW]

Inspired by some of the fantastic pictures in the forum gallery, I though I would try my hand at some 3D pictures. I purchased a program called Bryce and Im in total awe at its capabilities (just a bit depressed I cant produce the renders I see in my mind ) I think its mainly a landscape generation program but it can produce reasonable "objects" as shown in the attached picture. I realise its not a "pretty" picture, more an excersise in learning. The oil lamp and hammer were not made by myself as I downloaded them from 3DA cafe, however I did make the workshop and the Spandau gun barrel, my thinking is that I will start with easy stuff and work up to the aircraft. It took about 2 minutes to render. I have composed a more artistic view of the workshop area which I think is reasonably atmospheric for a beginner but cant show it yet as its still rendering. Its taken two nights so far and hopefully will only take one more (about 24hrs total !!) Is this normal or have I done something wrong ? How long did it take to render the pictures in the gallery ? The scene rendered in a couple of minutes until I turned the sun off and "lit" the oil lamp on the table and also put a light outside the window. I realise that computer speed will have an effect but it is a 2.8Ghz so is no slow coach. There is quite a lot of objects outside the field of vision of the camera. Would things speed up if I deleted them before rendering ? Any advice ..tips are welcome .. thanks

[Tim West]

Its taken two nights so far and hopefully will only take one more (about 24hrs total !!) Is this normal or have I done something wrong ? How long did it take to render the pictures in the gallery ?

Whoa! Are you saying it has taken over 24rs to render your scene? Sounds like you need a render farm

I have not used Bryce in years so I cant really comment on its particulars but the render time is too long for the scene you are describing. Something may be goofy.

Some things that will slow render times are:

PC performance ....more ram is always better

Object detail ...the more faces or polygons you have the longer it will take to render. Sometimes textures can be used in place of geometry. This is more the case in low poly work, but still needs to be considered in more detailed pieces. Another area to watch for is in the generation of round or spherical objects. With some decent shading and mapping, more faces is not always required to fool the eye into thinking the object is round.

Lights and shadows ....the more detailed the longer it will take to render

Reflective materials ....with the addition of reflections and shadows it will almost always increase the render time. Try reducing the effects of both.

The size of the scene and amount of stuff in it ....One thing I do is render with a layers approach, meaning I will render a scene in parts and tie them together with post work....using more layers. Layers are great!
B)

There are lots of other things that might be slowing your render times, might even be a result of Bryce's render engine. I would suggest trying another program. Try Blender, its a decent little program.

I am impressed with your early efforts, in Bryce no less. How about a wire frame screen shot?

Why not start with an airplane? They are not that difficult. What makes them time consuming is making them accurate representations of the real thing. Most of my time is spent in this area.

Really I model so I can do the 2d part of it. I love texture work and finish work. Much more fun than the tedium that is 3d modeling.

Keep up the good work!

[Mark_Miller]

DonnyW
Welcome to 3D
and I'd say for somebody just starting - that looks great!

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with Bryce
so my comments will have to be kind of generic.

The lighting looks a little odd to me
Mainly because your shadows are almost dead black.
Is there a way to add some ambient light in Bryce?
In Microstation I try to minimise the ambient light as it simply dumps light everywhere - which is not the best way to apply light.
but some small amount is usualy beneficial.
also - i think it would look more "natural" if the light source came from a higher angle.
would be cool if you could make the lamp a light source

Speaking of the lamp - I think that red is a little too hot
kind of overwhelms the rest.

The other main issue is mapping
You have some nice maps there but I think you will improve the image if you vary your wood a little and add some dirt/wear/texture.
The base color of the walls. trim and workbench are all pretty much the same and it looks artificial.
First thing I'd do is to try and make some maps that were specific to the surface.
The top of that workbench is a great oppertunity to add some realism.

The rusty texture you have on the guns is pretty nice - but you might get better results if you pulled back on the rust a little
also looks a little stretched in places.

Maps are the key
fiddle with them constantly
HTH
mark

[Mark_Miller]

I agree with Tim about that render time.
Something isn't right.
I've rendered out some complicated stuff and it has never taken more than 10 hours or so.

how big an image are you rendering?
and how much RAM do you have?

[Tim West]

Hmm, now that Mark mentions it, there is something odd about the lighting. That might be a limitation of Bryce though. Try lowering the opacity of the shadows. And I agree, if you can light the lamp it would be very cool

I am curious about how you made the holes in the barrel. Making holes and cuts seems to be a sticking point for new modelers. Bryce might be a little more capable than I first thought.

Speaking of holes, adding holes to geometry generally increases the face count and in turn increases render times.

[DonnyW]

Thanks for the reply guys, and by reading your comments and referring back to the picture agree with everything you say... its all a learning curve and Im willing to listen, so keep up the remarks. There are so many options in Bryce that Im a bit lost with them all ..words like ambiance, refraction, specularity etc are all new to me and I have now got full control over them all I find the best way to learn is by trial and error. The planks in the workshop wall are all individual objects with slightly different textures applied. Perhaps thats the problem ? I will try a solid wall and map a texture onto it. Truth is, Im just using preset textures as I havn't got that far in the manual as how to adjust them correctly. I tried random changes but they came out looking like alien textures.
In the scene that is STILL rendering ?? the lamp is lit but it cast very harsh shadows on the wall so I turned down the shadow control and thats when it all started to take an age to render. Fortunately I can stop it mid render, save, then start it up again at night so its not delaying me. I only wish the scene was worth the wait but its nothing special. I will post it when done. Attached is my picture of the Spandau guns, all crated up ready to be shipped to the workshop. In Bryce, everything has to be made from mountains ? or several "primitive" shapes eg cube, sphere, cone, taurus or cylinder, all of which can be stretched or distorted. The primitives are "glued" together by boolean functions !! The gun barrel was quite easy. It is two cylinders with one inside the other. The inside one is a negative boolean and the outside a positive boolean .. join them together and you have a tube !! It sounds hard but its just a case of ticking a box in the object property .. I dont understand it but as long as it does it I dont really care about the maths The holes in the tube are taurus (rings) again with negative booleans and the tube a positive boolean thus they cut the holes.
My big problem with making the aircraft is how to make the wings from the primitives ?? but Ill worry about that when the time comes.
I know it looks like a farmer recently ploughed the gun out his field but I have all the same coloured objects grouped together so to "clean the rust off " I just need to apply a new texture to the colour group and the gun will be like new ! I will wait till I get the textures part in the manual before that though.
I can see the major advantage of 3D graphics over 2D graphics already. Now the gun is made .. I can use it in any scene at any angle at any size or colour and it will be there with a "click of the mouse" I know the gun is not "historically accurate" but it was fun making. Thanks again for the comments

[Mark_Miller]

Not sure if these will help
but I uploaded a couple of textures here:
notebook

click on the folder lablled textures2
contains a gunmetal texture map (gunmetal.jpg)and another generic metal texture that seems to work well (metal33.jpg).
the second one gets a lot of use.

Like I said - not sure if this will be an improvement but it might be worth a try B)

BTW - does Bryce import DXF or IGES?

Mark

[DonnyW]

WoW instant rust remover Thanks Mark .. I just clicked on the add picture box for textures and inserted yours .. attached is the result. I didnt realise the texture picture could be square. I thought it would need to be the shape of the gun "skin" Gotta go out now but I will play with the ambiance specularity relfection etc controls later and see how I get on.. perhaps even try a bump map .. just to see if I can raise some of the tarnish .. fascinating stuff .. it never ceases to surprise me what computers are capable of. I can import quite a few things from 3d cafe eg 3ds, obj, dxf to name but a few

[DonnyW]

My workshop scene had still not finished rendering after four nights so I decided to "pull the plug" on it. I wouldnt have minded the wait if it was going to be a masterpiece ..but it aint The hammer hovering above the table destroyed any sense of realism the picture may have had. I would also have liked the light from the window to be a little weaker to show up the lantern light better and if it didnt take so long rendering, would have done so. Still its been a valuable lesson for me .. dont play in the dark until I can play in the light !! Incidently, the pictures of the guns only take a couple of minutes to render so perhaps Ive a setting wrong somewhere in the workshop. Anyway attached is the picture that shortened my computer processor's life by about 40 hours

[Tim West]

Cool, I had no idea Bryce was capable of such things. Pretty good for a first try, you seem to be moving right along. Seriously you might enjoy another program more than bryce....atleast something with a better render engine.

Give a plane a try. Wings are easier than fuse sections imho. I work them up as splines then extrude edges and bam! I have a airfoil B)

Not sure why your render took so long, there isnt enough going on to have taken that long. That scene should have rendered in less than 15 minutes at best... guessing by the screen you posted.

Anyhow, keep up the good work!