This is a basic under/over water scene that can be created with any
version of Bryce and a little post work. Like any project, the more
tools the wilder it gets. This image was made with Bryce 5, AGORs
sky, Poser 5, Matisse in Gray, Photoshop 5.5, and assumes a basic
working knowledge of Bryce, Poser and Photoshop. Included within
the Bonus Online Content section are the .br5 files for you to pick
apart.
To get your copy to play with, purchase the Renderosity Magazine - Issue 8 while supplies
last.
The Under Water Scene Set up a Bryce scene with the default
sky. In Skylab, set the fog to a light blue-green with density 7/
thickness 17/ base height 7, then set the haze to a darker
blue-green and use 70 for all haze settings. Enable blend with
sun. Save as dolphin_under.br5. Save often! Use New Mexico
Cliffs [in Planes and Terrains] for the infinite plane. Then
create another infinite plane and move it to the top of your
viewable area. Select the Swirling Water texture and turn off the
receive shadows function, and bump the transparency up to 65.
Next, move the camera so that only 1/8 or less of the image at the
top is water and the angle is downward in the direction of the
sand. Add a mountain to the distant background, to give you
sufficient room to create the foreground scene. Stretch the width
and height so it spans the workspace and protrudes above the water
line. Try the Heavy Foliage texture. Make a second terrain with
the same texture, only this time open the terrain editor and select
one of the random rolling hills fractals. Stretch the terrain the
width of your scene, shallow the height, and sink it partially into
the sand, moving it close to the base of the first mountain. This
will break up the harsh line between the sand and the mountain.
Bryce generates different shapes each time you click the rock tool.
For a more realistic scene, create new rocks instead of duplicating
just one. Sink the rocks in the lower infinite plane. Apply a rock
texture of your choosing. Make sea plants with the lattice editor.
While it is possible to use the brush tool in the lattice editor
directly on the maroon workspace, its more versatile to make a 400
x 400 x 72 pixel image in a paint program, and use the brush
assortment to make white patterns on a black background. The quill
brush that comes with Matisse in Gray is excellent for this. Draw
the white lines, and import that image to the lattice editor. Note:
you can see the pixelization, which will give the plant some
character.
Return to the Bryce workspace. Go to the attributes of the lattice,
and rotate the X axis to minus 90, and set the size on the Y axis
to 2.0. The plant should now be standing correctly, so position it
on the ocean floor. Copy and paste in the same location, and rotate
the plant 1/3 of the way around. Paste again and rotate 2/3. Use
the Heavy Foliage texture on two of the lattices and find a
bright red-yellow rock texture, such as the Desert Sandstone for
the third. Give the bright texture slightly more ambiance than the
default. Group the three lattices - copy and paste again. This time
move the new group to a different location, and give it a different
overall size and rotate it a bit. Do this several times, spreading
the plants around. In Bryce 5, create a tree. Squash the tree on
the vertical axis, widen and lengthen it, sinking to where the
leaves are just on top of the sand. Select the Bamboo leaf shape
for one of the trees and use a texture that has yellow-green tinge.
Make another flattened tree in the scene and use the Baobab leaf
shape. Sometimes there are render issues with copy and past trees,
so make both from scratch. Now pose and export the dolphin from
Poser in .obj format. Use Grouper [www.castironflamingo.com] to
convert before importing to Bryce. Grouper reorganizes the mesh to
match the texture. Reduce in size, and move it towards the camera
to avoid reflection on the water. Create a spherical light and move
it above the water plane; increase the intensity to 35 or more.
Create a second spherical light just above the dolphin and just
below the water plane. Increase the light intensity to 35 and give
it a very light yellow-orange color. Experiment with a third
spherical light and default settings, and position it behind the
dolphin and touching the water plane. That should result in a light
reflection on the water plane for the sun. Save this scene and
export a low quality render for now.
The Over Water Scene. Save with a new name:
dolphin_over.br5. Move the camera just above the water plane and
angle it upward until the water plane covers the lower 1/6 of the
render, exposing slightly more water in the image than the last
scene. Change the sky to a bright sunset color. This image uses the
Agoria 5 sky by AGOR [www.dreamlandworks.com] with modifications
(AGOR has a great set of skies and a new set at the Renderosity
Market Place). Set AGORIA 5 to blend with the sun. Give the sun
control a light blue color, lavender ambient, and yellow skydome.
Adjust the sun to an azimuth of 175 and a height of 40. Flatten the
terrain on the Y height axis and reposition it to give the
appearance of a realistic mountain protruding from the water.
Modify the Heavy Foliage texture. Open the texture editor, and
change the brown colors to white. Flatten the lattice to a Y height
axis of 7. Reposition it so the lattice is positioned at the water
line on the right side. Let a very small strip of water show
between the lattice and the bottom of the screen. Still using the
New Mexico Cliffs, turn down the diffusion to 50 and the ambiance
down to 5. Use the same water texture, turning the ambiance up to
30 and the diffusion up to 20. Give your overhead spherical light
(the first one created) a deeper yellow-orange color and turn down
the intensity to 25 or less. Pose and import two more dolphins for
the jump scene using Grouper. If the scene has a natural flat spot
in the water then position the jump over that. Experiment with
either crossed dolphins or tandem jumps. Next, import a posed
horse. The Renderosity Market Place has some excellent horse
textures. You can make a unicorn horn with a cone primitive, or
grab one of the unicorn horns in from this issues Bonus Content
section. Position the horse over the lattice. Save again and export
a low quality render.
Putting It Together. In Photoshop, create a work area and
insert both renders on separate layers. Line up the sandy over
water lattice slightly to the right of the underwater lattice.
When both images line up, render at a high quality and put them
together again in Photoshop and flatten the layers. Experiment with
adjusting the contrast, curves, and color balance to get a brighter
look to the image at this time.
Distort the water line by using the rectangular marquee tool,
selecting slightly above and below the line, and along the entire
width. In the built in filter from the pull-down menu, select
Distort/Twirl. Move the slider slightly to the right to create a
low rolling line along the water seam. Click OK. Select: Distort/
Ocean Ripple and use the default setting - then, disengage the
selection marquee. Use the smudge and blend tools, to smudge and
blend the ripple. Insert white water droplets with one of the
Sapphire brushes found on www.freephotoshop.com. Create rings in
the water to use as the exit points for the jumping dolphins.
Clicking the brush tool quickly with the mouse stationary creates
sharp edge. As the water droplets get closer to the exit point in
the water, click and hold with a slight pull on the mouse to get a
blurred brush Experiment with the square or elliptical marquee
tool, and drag your cursor from the top left to the bottom right.
Under Select set the feather to 10, and select Inverse. Use a
black round brush to fill in the outskirts of the image. To add the
finishing touches to your image, experiment with various standalone
filters, such as the Dreamy filter [http://www.autofx.com/]. If
you have any questions or comments, drop me a note on the
Renderosity website.
####
Who is EricofSD?
I was born in Tucson in 1959. Dad was a retired fighter /
interceptor pilot and mom was a descendent of the Cremonese violin
maker. I have two older siblings. Alvin currently is a mechanical
engineer professor at Arizona State University with a Ph.D. He is a
fantastic artist with graphite and oil. Ann is a professional
artist and works in oil, graphite and wax for bronze sculptures.
Like many artists, she works a side job. In grade school, I started
assembling a black and white darkroom including a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4
Speed Graphic sheet film Graflex. It seemed to me that the whole
world needed to be photographed. By the time I started in high
school, dad was taking me to the airport on weekends where I picked
weeds and worked around the hanger in exchange for flying lessons.
I hardly ever went up without a camera. In my last year of high
school, I went to a local community college and completed an
emergency medical technology course. When I was 20 I went to work
for a local ambulance company and stayed there for a year and a
half. Then came college. Those were the experimental years. I just
didn't know what I wanted to be so I dabbled in everything.
Finally, I went to an aircraft maintenance school. By age 27 I was
promoted to director of maintenance for a helicopter company in San
Diego. I was in the hangar, out on seismic and forest fire
contracts, and occasional sea excursions on helicopter carrying
tuna boats. In 1988, an F-14 crashed into the hanger where I was
working. I used the settlement money for helicopter flying lessons
and went back to sea as a pilot/mechanic. Always there was a camera
and by then I had settled on a Canon A-1. By the early 90's I
started messing with computers. AOL was my first online experience
and I was assigned the name EricofSD, as in San Diego. Oh my, the
world of graphics and special effects was of interest, but back
then, the software was few and far between and very expensive.
Well, I took a summer off from work and went to Indonesia to help
Mission Aviation Fellowship. Then on to college again and by 1995 I
had earned a Master of Divinity and was pastoring a small Baptist
church in San Diego. The pay wasn't all that great so I went back
fishing for a while and then on to a flight captain position with
Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters. Always, I had my trusty camera
and occasionally a camcorder. In 1999 I graduated from law school
and ended up in northern Arizona working for a small law firm. It
wasn't long before I found myself wearing not only an attorney hat,
but a network administrator hat. One of our vendors said he had a
promo copy of Bryce 4 and sent it my way. Wow, a new hobby was
born. Renderosity was the first real online community that I joined
and the folks were so helpful and encouraging. In 2003 the staff at
Renderosity decided to let me start up a monthly challenge for the
Poser forum. We are now well into our second year and going strong.
Deemarie invited me to help out with the magazine on the technical
editing side of things. Just a few months ago my first Bryce
graphic was published as a book cover. Where life will take me in
the future is anyone's guess, but I know one thing, it will be fun.
See more at
EricofSD's
artist page.
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