Populate your Scene with Flat Trees - 2

Author: White Knight

Tools Needed

• Bryce 5 or bryce 5.5

This tutorial was inspired by one of the tree tutorials included with the bryce 5.5 content kit. I wanted to be able to create my own flat trees to use to populate my scenes. As a result of my work, here is a tutorial that will show you how to create your own flat trees in Bryce 5 or Bryce 5.5.

Begin with a new Bryce Document.

Then Setup the Sky for a Simple Gray Background.

Next you want to delete the Infinite plane.

And last you want a high Resolution output so when you render to disk you will have a good image to use.

I set my work size to 640 x 480, and the render size as 1:3.00

Create a Tree, then click on the “E” to enter the tree lab. Here you will edit the tree parameters to create a more detailed tree. I selected an Elm.

If you want to make a test render, you should first change the Document Settings back to 1:1.

After your test render, make sure you sent the settings back to 1:3.00

In the File Menu, select render to Disk.

In the Redner Popup I change the default 72Dpi to 300dpi.

I also save the image as a tiff file.

This disk render may take a few minutes.

After the Image is rendered. Change the render options to Object Mask.

Now Render to Disk again. I use the same Name but add ”-mask” to the end of the name when I save it.

Once Your two renders are complete.

Delete the tree object.

Create a terrain.

Select the “E” to enter the terrain editor.

You will Load the MASK into both of the Pictures and then Apply them to the Terrain.

Also raise the clipping of the terrain so that there are no edges.

Click the Check mark to apply the picture to your terrain.

A lot took place in this step.

Now Click on the “A” to edit the attributes of the terrain.

Here you can name the terrain Elm1.

Change the Y axis Size attribute to 0 (zero) to create a flat Terrain.

Now you Can Use the Edit Controls to Rotate 90 on the X and then Rotate 45 on the y to bring the flat Terrain into view.

Click on the “M” to enter the Materials lab.

Place a DOT In the “A” column next to Diffuse. Then in the A texture box, click on the “P” dot.

Then click on the Pink Dot at the top to enter the Picture Editor.

Click on one of the Empty Boxes to make a new one. in the File Window Browse to where you saved the Hi resolution render of the Tree and select it as the picture to load.

In the Second Picture box, click on load, and now select the Mask.

Clcik on the Check mark to apply the new Pictures.

Before applying the new Material, select Blend Transparency.

Then click on the Check Mark to apply the new Material to the terrain.

Now you can click on the File menu and Select Export Object.

In the Pop up window Change the File type to Wavefront Object.

In the last Export window, I change the Size of the picture to 1024 x 1024 or 2048 x 2048.

I also Increase the Mesh size to about 3600 polygons. Click on the Check mark to export your flat tree.

Save your Bryce Scene, so you have a back up copy of a flat terrain with your tree texture on it.

Now you can create a new document, or just delete the terrain to test out your new flat tree object.

If you just deleted the Terrain object, be sure to reset your Document Properties back to 1:1, so when you'reder it is the right size.

On the File Menu, select Import Object.

In the pop up window, browse to your new tree.obj file, or in my case I saved it as elm1.obj

Make a test render and it should only take a few seconds.

You can duplicate and populate your scene with your new Fast rendering Flat trees.

Here is a hint. you can link the tree rotation to a parent object such as the camera, that way no matter where you move the camera, the flat trees will rotate and always face the camera.