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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / OMG, they really are working on Bryce!

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Clueless
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Posted: 28th Apr 2005 17:24
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I won't get too excited until I actually work with the new V5.5 release, but this is good news to those of us who were afraid Bryce was going to go the way of the dinosaurs:

http://bryce.daz3d.com/55features.php

They claim a 30% increase in rendering speed and enhanced OpenGL support. It looks like the biggest update is the tie-in with Daz's own Poser-enabled content (import characters into your Bryce scenes), but I guess that's to be expected.

The tidbit that's got me most hopeful is something they don't elaborate on much -- improvements to the terrain editor. IMHO, the heightmaps exported from Bryce 5 look really good as the source heightmap for DBP's advanced terrain plugin, but the Bryce editor could have definitely used some spit and polish.
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Van B
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Posted: 28th Apr 2005 17:59
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It does look pretty sweet, not sure what they're doing with the UI (I think the v4 UI looks better than that) - but the terrain looks so detailed.

I use bryce for advanced terrain heightmaps and colour maps, and I agree that the editor is not too hot for heightmaps - what I'd really like is to make a rough heightmap in an art package then use that as a mould for the terrain generator, like letting us specify our basic shape for the terrain then let the generator do the real work. I don't even try to edit them, I tend to get on better with an art package - especially for drawing paths and roads. Bryce comes highly recommended for folk who just could'nt draw their own colour maps or skys, you could use bryce to make the lions share of the media required for a terrain based game and it would look awesome - which is something most coders have to work really hard for.


Van-B

Quote: "How could I condescend you?, you don't even know what it means!"

Van-B's mom.
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Shadow Light
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Posted: 29th Apr 2005 11:35
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I just wish that I could load objects and textures from bryce into other programs. For instance, I've found that I can make a really good looking planet in bryce, but I haven't found a way to use them in my own programs with much satisfaction. Kinda wish DBP could import ".mat" materials and textures. Then I could really let loose my creativity with seamless textures and prerendered FMV . Ohh well, I'm just going to have to keep dreaming.

To Fragg or Not To Fragg....
Yea right. Let's FRAGG EM ALL!!!!
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Ken Tankerous
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Posted: 29th Apr 2005 11:54
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I've never used Bryce before, it seems pretty nice though. But I gather it's of minimal value when it comes to exporting more than basic terrain for use in DBP?? Does anyone use Bryce for their DB projects? How?

Thanks
Ken
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Van B
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Posted: 29th Apr 2005 17:14
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Well I use it to render colour maps and generate terrains, I'm only using v4 - but it supports 256x256 res heightmaps which are fine for DBPro, and any res colour maps you care to render. I tend to render the colourmaps as plan renders then crop the edges, then I capture the heightmap and put it into an art package for saving. You load these in as advanced terrain and you do end up with something like your original bryce terrain, it depends on how high your colour map resolution can go (I like 2048x2048 for a 256x256 terrain).


Van-B

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STALKER
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Posted: 29th Apr 2005 17:34
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Yes I have Bryce 5 and although not really good for modelling it is awesome for terrains, heightmaps, textures and skies

>>>>>>>>>>>MIRAGE STUDIOS<<<<<<<<<<<
>MEDIEVAL CARNIVAL<>GLADIATOR ARENA<
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Ken Tankerous
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 01:13
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How does Bryce compare to Terragen (which I've at least played around with) when it comes to height maps, skies and terrains? I have read many complaints about the *very* slow render times in Bryce (although they claim a 30% average increase with v5.5).

Excuse my ignorance here; I am pretty new to the whole scene/terrain import/export thing, as I am still very new to DBpro (and game programming in general).

Thanks
Ken
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Van B
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 02:13
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Terragen is really quite basic when you just have the freeware version, it's good for quickly rendering skyboxes, but I find Bryce much more approachable, it has an infinately better front-end than Terragen, like Terragen is a tool for generating the media, Bryce is a much more flexible tool.

There's also Strata works, but that does'nt account for skyboxes. DavidT used Strata for the levels in Merceneries2, so you should check out some screenies of that to get an idea. Strata is more like a terrain editor that can generate the nice media to go with them, easily more accurate and capable for detailed terrain editing than either of them (they're not designed to allow terrain editing at a vertice level, which is what you really need when you can't make-do with whatever get's generated with fractals).


Van-B

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Van-B's mom.
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Clueless
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 06:15
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Quote: "what I'd really like is to make a rough heightmap in an art package then use that as a mould for the terrain generator, like letting us specify our basic shape for the terrain then let the generator do the real work."


Van B., maybe you can do this in Bryce 5 by importing your height map from said art package, and then going into the terrain editor (the little "E" window) and applying the various fractal and other effects in Bryce (for example, import a heightmap drawn in Paint, import into Bryce, and apply the "Alpine Valleys" fractal effect). I know that the heightmap can be imported (I bring LunarCell planet heightmaps into Bryce this way and use them to generate terrains)... I just didn't think to try fractalizing them until I read your idea.

(Hopefully I'm on the same track as your post... )
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Clueless
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 06:23 Edited at: 30th Apr 2005 07:08
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@Ken Tankerous:

Quote: "How does Bryce compare to Terragen (which I've at least played around with) when it comes to height maps, skies and terrains? I have read many complaints about the *very* slow render times in Bryce "


I think they're both excellent programs. I've had much more success integrating Bryce into my suite of game dev tools (DBP, GameSpace, Photoshop) though I agree with the very legit complaint that Bryce currently exports only terrains and latices.

Terragen seems to give more "real" looking effects straight out of the box, than Byrce, but if you spend some time with the terrain and material editing, it looks more to be the fault of some cheesy defaults they use for Bryce.

Quote: "Does anyone use Bryce for their DB projects. How?"


A few things I use it for:
The terrains can be exported as .X objects and used in DBP without modification. You can also export the terrain heightmaps and use them as the heightmap for the advanced terrain object in DBP.

The scenery looks nice billboarded onto plain objects for backgrounds.

IMHO, Bryce is one of the best skybox generators out there. You can also render nice basic starfields for starboxes -- I like to add some nebula from the Flaming Pear Gliterrato plugin for Photoshop to make them look distinct.

Because you can *import* most any 3D object format into Bryce (and because I use Bryce to do all my skies, terrains, etc.) it's a neat way to bring things into a scene and move around it in 3D to see how it might look in a game (arguably this can be done in GS, Milkshape, etc.)

Bryce can import Digital Elevation Data (.DEM) files from USGS and other agencies if you're interested in making a real-life terrain to fight on. I've always wanted to fight a war game in the river valleys near where I live -- if I had the time to code the darn game, Bryce would give me the valleys in one swell foop.

What's missing is the ability to export the non-terrain various base objects (speres, cubes, NURB-based objects, etc.) I'm still sending emails to Daz asking for this. I think it's the #1 outstanding wish-list item among Bryce users.
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Cellbloc Studios
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 06:56
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Has anyone figured out how to export heightmaps in Bryce? I am doing the same as Van B as just taking a screenshot and bringing it into my art package.

-This...is my boomstick!
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Clueless
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 07:16 Edited at: 30th Apr 2005 08:04
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Quote: "Has anyone figured out how to export heightmaps in Bryce? I am doing the same as Van B as just taking a screenshot and bringing it into my art package"


Yes, here is one way:

When you export your terrain, save it in .X format using File | Export Object. On the export screen that lets you choose how many poly's the object will have, there is also a list of the output files you'd like output: heightmap, ambient color, difference map, etc., running vertically down the right side of the window.

Also, in the lower right of the window, you can choose the format for these files (.BMP, .JPG, etc.) and the output size (128x128 all the way up to 512x512).

An unconfirmed bug in this window -- sometimes I don't get all the files I asked for unless I first do File | Render to Disk for my Bryce scene.

Something I'm curious about and hope a DBP terrain plug-in expert can answer: what is the second image file, this "diffuse, diff?" or something of the like, used for? Could this be the Bryce diffuse image I'm exporting? I didn't see a noticeable result when I used it along with my Bryce heightmap in DBP, but since I don't fully understand the DBP terrain plugin, that's no surprise
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Cellbloc Studios
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 07:23
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@Clueless:

Thanks, but I am a little slow. Where is the option for heightmap?



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Clueless
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 07:58 Edited at: 30th Apr 2005 08:08
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@Cellbloc Studios:

My bad, it's labelled "bump" (see image below). You want those little grey led-like icons to show a light inside them to indicate that particular image will be exported with your object. "bump" is your heightmap. "ambient color" will work as the texture map. Depending on what 3D format you choose in export (.X, .3DS, etc.) Bryce seems to default certain images "on" for you.

If Bryce doesn't let you enable the button when you're exporting (the possible bug I spoke about earlier), try rendering your scene to disk before you export the object. Another way I've got the bump image button re-enabled is try a different 3D output format in the object export dialogue. Sorry to be vague here as I'm still experimenting with all this myself. But I'm definitely getting useful heightmaps. When I use them with the advanced terrain plugin, I've got to scale the vertical scale way back, but that seems to be true with heightmaps from other source also.

Good luck.

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Cellbloc Studios
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 08:50
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@Clueless

Great, thanks for the help.

When using it with the Advanced Terrain Plugin, what are you setting your properties for the terrain based on the size of the image file.

Example. Using a 256 x 256 image "bump/heightfield" map, your settings in the ATP is:



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Clueless
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 09:34
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Hi Cellbloc Studios,
Quote: "When using it with the Advanced Terrain Plugin, what are you setting your properties for the terrain based on the size of the image file. "


Love that heightmap file name!

Last tests I ran, I used a 512x512 texture and heightmap exported from Bryce. I'm struggling mightily to understand the DBP terrain's detail texture setting and that's where things kind of stopped for me.

I used the same values (I believe those are the ones from the atp example) as in your code snippet, except I was doing more like:

set terrain scale 1, 4, 0.3, 4 ` set the scale

It may have just been the color depth of my heightmap file, but it seemed that the vertical component was really exaggerated when I used it for the heightmap of the terrain plugin. 30% gave me something closer to what I saw in Bryce but please take that with a grain of salt and experiment.

BTW, I just saw that Daz released V5.5 a week early. I'm disappointed in their so-called discount for registered V5 users -- only $20, which makes it $79 to me, exactly what I paid for the original version. I'm going to take a chance on it though 'cause they've got a longer feature list published and they mention importing and exporting textures "with ease" (ahem). I'll post some impressions on the upgrade here this weekend if anybody's interested.
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Clueless
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 05:52
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NOT BAD! (Bryce 5.5 pre-release, that is)

Daz cut $30 off the somewhat high $99, rather than $20 as they advertised. The new material presets alone *might* be worth it I'm still playing around, my download just finished a few hours ago. But there are new plains/terrains presets, a whole new "Daz Metals" library, new water presets, etc. A lot of new sky presets are in here. Some are way off in sci-fi land but there are others look more like real skies than the 5.0 presets.

They threw in a 211MB "content pack" with the package. I haven't had time to dig into it yet but supposedly there are 30 new preconfigured island terrains in there along with some of their Poser content. Documentation and help files have been reworked. The annoyingly-small preview windows in the terrain editor have been changed and you can actually see what you're doing now.

So far, so good...
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STALKER
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 14:11
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Can the 5.5 update work with corel bryce 5??

and also it would be cool to export trees. Bryce 5 was the first 3d art program i bought, and it is good at what it does.

>>>>>>>>>>>MIRAGE STUDIOS<<<<<<<<<<<
>MEDIEVAL CARNIVAL<>GLADIATOR ARENA<
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Clueless
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 15:07
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Quote: "Can the 5.5 update work with corel bryce 5?? "


Yes, so far it doesn't appear as if there are any compatibility problems at all. The 5.5 release is a full install (there's not a separate upgrade installer to patch 5.0). I imagine this is because of the integration with the Daz 3D studio program (there's now a hotbutton in the Bryce main window to launch the studio).

Quote: "and also it would be cool to export trees"

I'm going to start pestering the Daz support folks with an email a week asking for that... it would be an incredible feature. I also want to be able to export spheres and other such objects -- they've got some really cool planet material presets in 5.5.
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STALKER
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 21:19
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Aye, the materials and combos you can produce rock
I cant say i have played around much with the height and elevation mapping side of things

>>>>>>>>>>>MIRAGE STUDIOS<<<<<<<<<<<
>MEDIEVAL CARNIVAL<>GLADIATOR ARENA<
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David T
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 21:33
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I have to say I'm a Strata works fanbody when it comes to colour maps - I've never see any so good

Facts are meaningless.
You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true.
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Ken Tankerous
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Posted: 3rd May 2005 01:22
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@David T

I dl Strata Works last week and played around with it over the weekend - I have to agree it is quite good. I created a couple height maps in Terragen, loaded them into Strata Works, tacked on a few layers, called them up in DBpro using the Advanced Terrain Plugin and boy did they come out sharp.

Ken
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Clueless
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Posted: 3rd May 2005 06:20
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Strata Works, hey? I'll have to check that out, haven't heard of it before.
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