Creating Realistic Worlds
Page 2 of 3
STEP 7: Making the terrain more detailed
We now have what is a large island terrain on a bare ground plane. While the mountain itself looks okay, it does not look very realistic or detailed. What we are going to do first is make the terrain more detailed by editing the actual shape, also known as elevation in Bryce. To do this, click the terrain, and click the small (E) button just near the small (M) button. The E button takes you to the terrain editor screen. Depending on what version of Bryce you are running your screen may differ slightly, but mostly is the same. (See fig.14)
The first thing we need to do is change the detail of the terrain from normal which is 128 x 128, which is by far too low a quality to create a realistic terrain. To change the detail, use the toolbar on the left, there is a square grid icon on the bottom, click it then select a higher detail. (See fig.15) Depending on how fast your machine is, I would choose one between 512 x 512 and 2048 x 2048. I have chosen 2048 x 2048, but you can choose something smaller if you have a computer slower than 800Mhz.
| | ||
 fig.14 |  fig.15 | |
| | ||
You will notice that the terrain image becomes a lot smoother and detailed. The next thing we are going to do is change the overall shape of the island by painting on the elevation map. The elevation map is the greyscale image next to the tools. White indicates the top of the island, and the darker it gets, the closer to ground level it is, where black is the bottom of the terrain. We are going to paint away a section of the island, so that in effect it creates a smaller island that is broken off the main one. To do this, you need to paint black across part of the scene using a soft medium sized brush. Your brush tools are above the size grid. Choose a medium brush from the top icon, then a soft edged brush from the 2nd icon, then select black by clicking in the white-to-black bars and dragging all the way to the bottom.
Now simply paint black across the right section of the elevation map as I have in my image. Make sure you go over it a few times to make sure that it is completely black across that section. (See fig.16). You may choose to make your image slightly different. I made it so mine so that the black channel does not go all the way through… almost but not quite.. so it makes a kind of bay or pool.
Finally, to polish off the terrain's detail, we will add a bit of erosion. To do this, you simply click on the word small button next to the work 'erosion' in the elevation editing tools. Then hold down the button and move the mouse to the right. (See fig.17) If you have a slower computer, there might be a delay before the erosion is drawn.
| | ||
 fig.16 |  fig.17 | |
| | ||
PRO TIP: To add larger erosion, change the grid size of your image down to 512 x 512 and add some more erosion, but make sure you change the grid size back to your original higher setting when done.
Your elevation map should look something similar to mine. (see fig.18) Click the tick button at the bottom right to go back to your working layout. This would be a good time to save what you have done so far! When you go back to the working view, you will find that your terrain is a slightly different shape now, with two main sections.
| | ||
 fig.18 |  fig.19 | |
| | ||
STEP 8: Making the texture more detailed
Another way to make your terrain look more realistic, is to increase the detail of the material you have used on it. The best way to do this is to increase the frequency of the texture. This basically determines how many times the texture will repeat on the object. The more it repeats, the smaller it is, and the more detailed the material will be. To do this, click your terrain, and enter the material editor by clicking on the small (M) button like we did at the start of this tutorial. Once inside the materials editor, you will notice that the texture has three channels, and at the top of the texture editor are three long purple poles. These are the frequency controls for each of the three channels of the texture. (See fig.19) To increase the frequency, click on a pole, then drag the mouse up until it reaches the end, then let go. (See fig.19) Do this for each of the three poles, then repeat. So you do it three times for each pole. This will in effect make the material 3 times more detailed. Once you have done this, return to your working layout by clicking the tick button in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Now do a test render just like you did earlier on. It should look similar to my image. (see fig.20) Once rendered, go back to normal view by clicking the small cube on the right hand toolbox like we did earlier. OK, now we are starting to get there. Your mountain/island should look a lot more like a real mountain. Of course Bryce has its limitations, but we can still get very photorealistic images from it.
| | ||
 fig.20 | ||
| |
STEP 9: Saving your camera position
For the nest part of this tutorial, we are going to be adding some water and some wet rocks to complete the scene. But Bryce creates these new objects in the original centre of your working environment, which is now out of the camera's view because we moved it earlier on. We are going to make our work flow much easier by saving our current camera angle so we can get back to it easily. To do this, you simply click on one of the small white buttons next to the preview page at the top left of the screen. (See fig.21)
Make sure you do not click the very top button yet. This will NOT save your view, but reset it to default. Press the first button which is part of a group of 7. A white dot will appear in that button and it will turn blue. Then your view is saved. NOW you can press the top button, which will reset the camera view to the default position that we started with at the beginning of this tutorial. You can now switch between your correct cameral angle, and the default position. Go ahead and try switching between camera angles, but make sure you go back to default for the next step of the tutorial.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
STEP 10: Adding Water
Your island is not an island without it being surrounded by water. So we are going to add another object to the scene, called a 'water plane'. Make sure you are in the 'create' section of the top tool bar, and click the water plane icon. (See fig.22) It is the blue square with ripples in it. This will create another plane, just like your original ground plane. It will automatically have a water texture.
When you click this icon, bryce will insert a water plane into your view and it will automatically be selected in red. It will automatically be placed above the ground plane. However, Bryce tends to put the water a little too high from the ground. So what we need to do now is select the water plane and movie it down closer to the ground. The trick to doing it right is to click the water plane, then drag it down the screen just until it completely disappears, at which point you have actually moved the water BELOW the ground, so you must now move it up just so it reappears. This will place the water slightly above the ground plane. You scene should look similar to mine. (See fig.23).
PRO TIP: Bryce will have automatically chosen a material for your water, with transparency and reflection as well as with waves. Bryce does this randomly, so not everyone will have the same water as what I end up with. You can always edit your water material in the materials editor, just like you did with your terrain and your ground plane.
| | ||
 fig.21 |  fig.22 | |
| | ||
 fig.23 | ||
| | ||
STEP 11: Creating some wet rocks
The final modelling activity in this tutorial is to add some wet rocks to the scene. We are going to place them where we painted the black channel on our island terrain. To create these rocks, we are going to use a terrain, and edit the elevation map, similar to editing your island terrain. Only this time we are going to use a special filter in the terrain editor.
First, create a new terrain by clicking on the terrain icon in the create toolbar just like you did to create your island. When you do this, a new mountain-looking terrain will appear in the scene. (See fig.24) Now, this looks nothing like a bunch of wet rocks, but it will soon. Click on the little (E) button to enter the terrain editor again. This is where we painted that black channel onto the island terrain.
Now we are going to completely erase what is in the elevation map by clicking the “new” button. (see fig.25)
| | ||
 fig.24 | ||
| | ||
 fig.25 |  fig.26 | |
| | ||
By clicking the 'new' button, you will completely erase the mountain terrain elevation map, and you will be left with a black elevation map, which represents nothing. Before we create the rocks, we should increase the detail of the terrain by upping the gird size to 512 x 512, just like we did to the island terrain in step 7. So click the grid icon on the left, and select 512 x 512. OK, now we are ready to create the rocks. Go back over to near where the 'new' button was, a read down, and you will see a series of light green buttons. (see fig.26) We will be using the 'mounds' filter. To create the rocks, click on the mounds button and drag to the right until you see plenty of lighter parts appear in your elevation map. (see fig.27).
Now before we exit the terrain editor, we should go and delete some of the rocks, because now there are too many. So, select a medium or small brush size, with a soft edge, and make sure you have selected black, then go ahead and delete some of the smaller rocks you can see in your elevation map, but mainly the ones across the top and the bottom right. Then, we are going to add some erosion, in the same way we did it to the island terrain. So click the erosion button and drag it to the right. See if you can get your elevation map to look similar to mine. (See fig.28)
| | ||
 fig.27 |  fig.28 | |
| | ||
 fig.29 | ||
| | ||
Once you have made your terrain look similar to mine, it is time to go back to your working layout view. So click the tick button at the bottom right to go back. You will now notice your rocks in the main view, but they are too pointy and too high, so we need to make them shorter more stumpier rocks. You need to scale the rocks down on the 'y' axis to make them shorter. Click the grey point and drag your mouse to the left to make the rocks shorter. Roughly halve the height of the rocks. (see fig.29). fig 29
Now your rocks are ready to be textured so that they actually look like wet rocks. To choose a material for the rocks, make sure you have them selected, then click the small (M) button to open the material editor. Then click the small arrow to the right of the preview pane, which will pop up the preset materials library dialog. On the left, click Rocks & Stones, and select the material “Wet Rock” that I have selected. (See fig.30)
| | ||
 fig.30 | ||
| |
Once you have chosen the material, accept and go back to the main working layout view. This would also be a good time to save what you have done so far.
Prev 1 2 3 Next
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
