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DEM Tutorial
Renato! Sigmon
Part 4 of 6
i 1 2 3 4 5 6

4e - Experimenting in the Sky Lab

You now have an even greater level of control over the skies, the sun, and even the Bryce heavens in your scene with Bryce 4's new "Sky Lab".

To enter the Sky Lab, select "Sky & Fog" and click the cloud-and-rainbow icon just over to the right of it.

The Sky Lab sports a timeline similar to that of the main view; by setting keyframes, you can change the appearance of your sky over time.

There are 3 tabs at the top of the Sky Lab; "Sky & Sun", "Cloud Cover", and "Atmosphere". Clicking on each brings up the palette controlling those elements of your sky.

There's so much to see and do in Sky Lab, the best way to learn how to use it, is to go play! Slide this, tweak that, how you animate your sky is up to you! Just position the Scrub Time bar at the point in the timeline where you want to work with your sky; play with the attributes in the Sky Lab palettes, find a look that pleases you, and set a keyframe. Sky Lab also has its own set of Memory Dots, at the right of the dialog box.

Remember that the timeline you are working with now is for Sky & Fog, not for Camera view. That is, you're changing the look and motion of the skies, not the motion of the Camera.

I chose to start with a bright, midday sun at the first keyframe (0.00), and end with a dark, starry, moonlit night at the last keyframe (8.00).

I also thought it would look nice to see the moon rise over the horizon. I decided to set an additional keyframe at 6.00 seconds, moving only the Sun/Moon Controls trackball so that I could precisely place the Moon as it rose over the horizon.

Finally, because the stars and comets in Bryce look so marvelous over my grand canyon, I decided it would be nice to admire the night time sky for the last second of the animation. I created one more keyframe at 7.00, which is where the stars and comets will really come out and shine. Finally, I set the same keyframe at 8.00, the last keyframe.

I've included below the actual attribute values for each keyframe in the tutorial's scene file. If you want your animation to look exactly like the tutorial movie, copy all of these values into your Sky Lab timeline. Be SURE to set the keyframe once you've set the values where you want them!

If you just want to have your animation start and end like the tutorial movie, but create your own scene in the frames in between, then copy all the values for the keyframes at 0.00 and 8.00, leaving out 6.00 and 7.00.

Because creating an animation timeline involves experimenting and changing so many variables, you should remember to periodically save your scene file. It's not pretty when you have to start over on an animation after losing a half-hour or more of work! I know from hard experience, that it can be difficult to get the scene looking "just so" again, if you crash and lose where you were.

SKY LAB ATTRIBUTE VALUES

THESE VALUES ARE CONSTANT FOR ALL KEYFRAMES

O.OO KEYFRAME

SkyLab at 0.00 keyframe

4.OO KEYFRAME

Sky Lab at 4.00 keyframe

6.OO KEYFRAME

Sky Lab at 6.00 keyframe

7.OO KEYFRAME

Sky Lab at keyframe 7.00

8.OO KEYFRAME

SkyLab at keyframe 8.00

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