Bryce 7.1 Pro - re-lighting scene supplied by Vivien - by David Brinnen.

Vivian was kind enough to supply a scene for me to perform a lighting experiment on to show a couple of alternative approaches that could be made.
To some extent the lighting of the scene is as much a matter of taste as the content of it. So the video is as much about the process as the results. Hopefully the results are also good. But if they are not to your taste, remember that not everyone shares the same aesthetic opinion.
Better viewed in HD - some of the controls in Bryce are quite fiddly and small.
For more tutorials visit www.bryce-tutor...

[@Sunlessmage]

Glad you're back.

[@davidbrinnen]

+Sunlessmage Thanks, well but really I've not been gone, just waiting on the right challenge to motivate me.

[@alain2086]

superbe video et travail, bravo a vous et merci du partage

[@davidbrinnen]

+ma kar Je vous remercie de vos aimables remarques . Je suis heureux que vous aimez la vidéo . S'il semble que je parle nonsence , se sentir libre de blâmer s'il vous plaît google translate, depuis que je vous avoue que je ne peux pas parler le français . Cheers, David .

[@TIM82-j6r]

obviously you must be very busy these days, but im glad to see a new video up...thanks for sharing :)

[@davidbrinnen]

+tim bateman, you are welcome. Yes... "optimally" busy. It is the peril of self employment, concerns over if there will be future income, inevitably leads to taking every job and opportunity to work now. There is no such thing as job security these days.

[@DavidKahlVFX]

Came here to decide between Bryce and Vue Pioneer - This helped to choose :)

[@davidbrinnen]

+Life Effects, I'm glad the video helped. I am also now curious what choice you made? Don't worry I won't be offended if it wasn't Bryce. Bryce isn't everyone's cup of tea. In comparison to something Like Vue I expect using Bryce looks both archaic and overly complex.

[@DavidKahlVFX]

I will go with Bryce for now. Vue might me stronger in some areas but It's true potential comes with quite some costs. After some research i found Bryce to be able to get the looks i was after AND with your channel alone there are enough sources to work through the complexities.

[@davidbrinnen]

+Life Effects, yes I understand that Vue can be quite a pricey choice. Well, since you have chosen Bryce for the time being, I suggest that you visit the Bryce Talk forum over at DAZ3D, you will find there are some helpful Bryce enthusiasts that frequent the forum and if you have questions you stand a good chance of getting an answer there. Most are hobbiests like myself, but there are one or two that use Bryce commercially and are willing to share their expert knowledge. If you have a look through the "Show us your Bryce renders thread" you will get an idea of the kind of effects that can be achieved in Bryce. I tell you now though, there are not many animators in Bryce and the only one that was friendly to the forum has not been seen for a while. Here however is his tutorials if this is something you might be contemplating. kzbin.info

[@DavidKahlVFX]

I work mainly with After Effects and Element 3D but i am sure there are synergies. Thanks for the link.

[@CAL1MBO]

Nice

[@davidbrinnen]

+CДLЭВ Ц Щ Thank you.

[@iolojones138]

Hey there, just wondering if you are gonna keep carrying on with the wings 3d man, they're great!

[@davidbrinnen]

Well I'm glad you like the Wings 3D videos, but sorry to say for a couple of years now I've moved on to learning Modo. Not that there is anything wrong with Wings. I have made many models with Wings, but I found that I was reaching the limitations of the software for some of my larger projects and had to take a commercial decision to make the expensive upgrade to Modo. Going over to Modo from Wings was relatively painless, but going back to Wings from Modo is not so easy. Modo I can recommend for larger projects, but as always, be sure to try out a demo before you part with hard cash!

[@iolojones138]

So, any recommendations for better 3d modeling software?

[@davidbrinnen]

Well, depends on how you work and what you want to make. Z-brush is very impressive, but you need a pretty powerful PC to take advantage of it and it works along very different lines from the likes of Wings and Modo which are subdivision modelers. Autodesk stuff is the industry standard, I've tried it but it didn't suit me workflow. Cinema 4D is another great package. Marvelous Designer is again a different but powerful piece of software, which is used primarily for clothes models - I found it a bit of a handful. Always try before you buy, everyone might tell you something is amazing, but if you don't get on with it yourself, it is no good you using it.

[@iolojones138]

Thank you David, what I'm trying to make is another item for a game called Team Fortress 2, thus I need a good enough program to create the item. Thanks David.

[@davidbrinnen]

In that case you may find these tutorials worth watching. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJzKkniCmpZsbtU

[@richardphilip9028]

Stupid question, probably: Is it possible to achieve the same effects without HDRI lighting?

[@davidbrinnen]

+Richard Philip, perfectly valid question. Provided you didn't need the image as a backdrop what you could do is put multiple radial light sources in the sky of differing intensities and colours to simulate the effect of global lighting. Or as in the case of True Ambiance rendering, you could illuminate the scene with the TA optimized radial light by either directing a light source at it instead of using the HDRI option or through material ambient. The main reason to use HDRI is convenience. But no, you could still achieve the same results, it would just be fiddlier to set up.

[@richardphilip9028]

Thanks for the response, David. Also, I don't know it it was just me, but the example you showed without TA seemed much more crisp than the one with, which was much softer.

[@davidbrinnen]

+Richard Philip, that I think is the difference between direct lighting and true ambient lighting. With direct lighting as you are dealing with point light sources then there will tend to be more areas where light cannot get, so there will be greater contrast across surfaces which will give the impression of sharpness due to greater variation. TA lets light wander around into all the nooks and crannies, so contrast will be reduced, as it is in real life and so the scene will look softer because there is less contrast in the detail for the eye to latch onto. Think of the difference between an overcast day and a day where the sun is out. The other thing to consider is that TA rendering uses the premium effect render engine which can have a much higher per pixel sampling rate than a regular render. This generally improves the appearance of complex material but at the same time it has a smoothing effect because it reduces any artificial "grittyness" that comes about due to the texture detail being far higher than the screen pixel detail.