Author: liquefusion

Tools Needed

• Bryce 5
• Photoshop

London, New York, Tokyo, mega-cities of the future, they all have vibrant neon signs that add character and flavour. This tutorial shows a quick and easy way to add neon signs to your cityscape.

In Photoshop, create a new document (I use 512 x 512 pixels), with a Transparent background. Type your text using the Horizontal Type Mask Tool to create a selected outline in the shape of your text.

Now go to Edit – Stroke and choose the Width and Colour of your signs neon tubes.

To create the Neon Glow, go to Layer - Layer Style and set Spread and Size as required and set the colour to match your neon tubes. Save this as a .PSD file for use later.

Open a new Bryce scene, remember a neon glow works best with dark backgrounds. On the Create palette, click the 2D Picture Object tool. This opens the Texture Source Editor (Picture Room). In the Texture Source Editor is only one Picture-“Leo”. Click on the right empty black button and find your Photoshop .PSD file. Load it. Apply Selected Image.

Click on 'M' to enter the Edit Material. In Materials Lab set all settings as in the image above. Make sure the Texture Mapping Mode is set to Parametric and Material Options to Blend Transparency.

Go back to Bryce Scene Editor and render, you can see it lacks that certain glow.

To add this, create a Radial Light and position it just in front of your sign. Click 'E' to enter the Light Lab and make your settings:

Colour: Gradient a light and dark version of your sign colour.

Intensity: Adjust as you need.

Falloff: Linear.

You now have the perfect neon sign.