MetaCreations logo blue sky
About Bryce BryceTalk Community Support Contact
Products
Bryce 4
About Bryce
  Sign up Manage Account Terms of Service Privacy Policy Events BryceTalk Support


< Previous | Next >

 

BryceTalk Interactive Tutorial with DTE
June 17, 1999
Part 2 of 6
1 2 3 4 5 6

 

BryceTalk DTE Interactive Tutorial II
June 17, 1999, part 2

AuntiAlias: so...

let's go to the DTE and check out, once again, what's going on in basic altitude....

AuntiAlias: because what we're gonna do is this--

AuntiAlias: we are going to put that basic altitude in the texture for brownstone

so...

on Basic Altitude's little border area, there is a faded magenta button... it says...

Texture Source Editor.

Click that to go to DTE.. meet you there!

Clay: §

Charleso: Just in case anyone needs to lok at the pic its here http://www.noahsmaze.com/BT/DTE.jpg

Morpheus: §

and §

AuntiAlias: kay!

Yojimbo: thanks Charleso

ChaMelEon: Yowza

Charleso: np

AuntiAlias: option 6 (mac) gets § which is the symbol I ended up using in the log : )

boru: §

AuntiAlias: okay...

Charleso: uhm I dont have that key

Morpheus: §

kewl

ChaMelEon: Doh

AuntiAlias: at the bottom fo the DTE, there are those pebbles... one for noise, one for filter.... click them both so that noise slider and filter capsule appear

LadyDove: yes i am there

Morpheus: §

Clay: §

Heather: yes

AuntiAlias: You can move them around on your screen, so that you can see both this BryceTalk window and the DTE's contents

ChaMelEon: §100000

Hoffr: c

AuntiAlias: Okay... notice this aabout Noise.. first, make sure that the little lavender sphere is in the left position......

upper left corner of that capusle is gray...

it turns green when:

--your mouse is positioned over it

--there is a noise source present

so... no noise present.. but when you move mouse over it, and click, lo! noise editor comes up! do that! :D

shift T to bring me back! : )

Morpheus: §

AuntiAlias: see? Noise Type is NOTHING

so...

waht we're doing here is seeing what's going on here, because we're gonna duplicate it in the other texture in a little bit

so...

no need to worry about noise

so what is it that gives this texture its personality?

FILTER! :D

AuntiAlias: click the check mark to leave the Noise Editor

LadyDove: wow.:)

AuntiAlias: can't do anything else in DTE if Noise Editor is showing

so.... where it says X(a*Altitude+b)

press your mouse, just so's you cna see that menu with all those lovely names of items

soooooooo intuitive!

so easy-to-comprehend!

; )

Morpheus: lol

AuntiAlias: a and B and X and parentheses and words like clip and slope and alitutde and orientation

what in blazes is going on?

there are essentially two different sets of filters in there

they are named for the mathematical functions that they perform

which is groovy if you're mathematically inclined

Clay: :-(

AuntiAlias: (some people are, I'm told!)

so.. here's how I think of them

ChaMelEon: My brain Hurts

jimbeaux: mine too..

AuntiAlias: but notice the one we've got here...

it's got ALtitude

the name itself is meaninful enough for us

Morpheus: it's kind of odd concedering most math people aren't artisticly inclined and vice-versa

AuntiAlias: alitutde has something to do with lowness and highness

(and none of this your highness; I don't mean THAT!)

Clay: LOL!

Morpheus: darn there goes the punch-line to a perfectly good joke

ChaMelEon: ah smitt

AuntiAlias: so....

you've got a set of forumlae for just grayscale contrast... similar to Photoshop's Curves asnd levels

Morpheus: still have the lowness card to pull out hahahaha hahahaha ha ha ha he....

AuntiAlias: hey, we want dark wehre it's lownesss and light where it's highness! ; )

ChaMelEon: X(a*y+b)

AuntiAlias: anyway, there are filters to adjust grayscale values.....

take this noise and tweak it...

make it more complex, give more contrast

maek darker

ccasady: noise?

AuntiAlias: make lighter... make discontinuities

ChaMelEon: Tweek my nose?

AuntiAlias: well, yes, in a matter of speaking, Chris

ccasady: I thouht we were noiseless

AuntiAlias: take whatever the output of the noise and tweak it...

and, since we have nothing here with a noise, what we get is a straight gradation

ccasady: How can you filter "nothing"? Can you filter nothing?

AuntiAlias: there's no extra detail

Morpheus: how do you tweak nothing

ccasady: I said that

Morpheus: oh sorry didn't notice can't type without looking at the....shuting up now

AuntiAlias: let me continue with my Two categories of filters and then let's go back and address this noiseness issue

ccasady: Ah, a straightg gradaton.

AuntiAlias: So...

first category is just basic grayscale adjustments

gdmsynth: Anti-noise is chaosless...

AuntiAlias: second category are what I call world-space properties

it's a variation of the "take this noise and shove it"

shove it to low altitude

shove it to high altitude

shove it to the flat areas (slope)

shove it to the upright areas (slope)

shove it so that it's only on north faces (orientation)

Morpheus: shweet

AuntiAlias: then there's altitude - slope that deals with a combination of altitude and slope

high altitude flat slope

high altitude upright slope

low altitude flat slope

low altitude upright slope

....

and then snow puddles, which kidna does the same thing but the slope is limited to how much flatness do you want there to be?

anyway...that, in a nutshell... is what the filters do

and...

THERE IS MUCH POWER IN THEM!!!!

for making utterly cool Bryce scenes

Yojimbo: ?

AuntiAlias: as you can see, we have something going on with filter only and no noise and powerful effect that can be carefully controlled

yes, Yojimbo?

Yojimbo: did we skip Phase?

AuntiAlias: Well yes and no

Clay: ?

Clay: Doh nevermind:-)

ccasady: ?

AuntiAlias: Basically, for what we're doing here, which is to get THAT effect on THAT rock

Morpheus: i too am perplexed by phase but assumed aunti would get to it

AuntiAlias: we don't need phase

Yojimbo: ahh

AuntiAlias: what phase does is introduce disstortion to what's going on

AuntiAlias: there are times when it works well, and others when it's not needed

Yojimbo: thought is was a quick explanation of all the filters

AuntiAlias: here it's not needed, so I'm not really discussing it

Yojimbo: save it for later then

AuntiAlias: there is no such thing as a Phase Filter

Yojimbo: touche

AuntiAlias: Phase is yet Another Beast in the DTE

Morpheus: kill the beast!

AuntiAlias: which, happily enough, we're not dealing wtih


 

 

Yojimbo: element of distortion then

AuntiAlias: yes

Yojimbo: just quicker to type filter

AuntiAlias: and it distorts your initial noise.

we have no noise here, so phase would be completely pointless!

ChaMelEon: nothing from nothing

boru: We're saving face , er phase.

AuntiAlias: Clay, your question?

ChaMelEon: or something from noting= alchemy

Morpheus: ahem i never thought i'd hear myself say this but maybe it would be wise to get back to the subject at hand

Jammer: hear, hear

AuntiAlias: oh, clay said nevermind.. Okay then, Chris, your quesiton?

ccasady: These 2 'categories' to which you refer, are they the filter names? The formuilas? Where does it break into two groups?

AuntiAlias: aaah, it's just one of those things

I named the 5

ChaMelEon: did'nt have one

ccasady: Am I think of the right list?

AuntiAlias: they're the ones that have names in them that sound world space-ish

Altitude, Slope, Altitude–Slope, Orientation, and Snow Puddles

ccasady: i.e. Filers. Okay.

good

AuntiAlias: and then there are the rest! ;' )

so....

bascially, let's take a look at this filter...

it's the altitude one (I tend to hone in on the name with meaning and ignore all those other as and bs and Xs and * and ()

so this is ALtitude

AuntiAlias: and we got a = 2.16 and b= darn near close to 0

so....

AuntiAlias: let's leave here...

go back to the Materials Lab

Morpheus: §

AuntiAlias: pick up our other texture, Brownstone (or whatever you're calling it)

and then add a component...

click the checkmark to leave here to go to Materials Lab

and click the Pink button on Texture Source A to go to Materials Lab to edit texture for Brownstone. Meet me back in the DTE! ; )

Everyone here?

Yojimbo: §

gdmsynth: §

Charleso: y

JeffP: OK...

Heather: y

ccasady: yeah, Baby! I'm right there with ya Grrr..

Hoffr: $

Jammer: yah

desdanova: §

boru:

Morpheus: § BTW I put the grrrr in swinger

ccasady: (right!)

ChaMelEon: arg!

LadyDove: yes........:)

ChaMelEon: zzzzzz

AuntiAlias: Julio, hang out with us.. we're in the DTE.. working with a scene that isfound in http://www.auntialias.com/bryce/dte

Jammer: "As time goes by...."

AuntiAlias: So...

we got a single component texture.. Upper left corner, there's a green-lit 1

AuntiAlias: click the 2 to wake up Component 2

Clay: groovy!

Morpheus: ohhhhh pretty colors

AuntiAlias: it's gray and yellow and red

and we're gonna change it really soon!

Jammer: that's nice...

Clay: §

Morpheus: it's like i'm on LSD...not that i'd know or anything

AuntiAlias: on either Noise or Filter, click the lavender ball into the 2nd position

LadyDove: those are nice colors

AuntiAlias: and... why yes!

so easy!

we have no noise...

and orientation filter

Jammer: yes

AuntiAlias: which is pretty dang near what we had for altitude

Clay: §

AuntiAlias: let's do this

so we can see clearly what's going on

opn Component 1

click C and B so that we see NOTHING there for a moment

C and B will go darker whereas now they're lighter

and, for component two, click the C so that it goes dark and the only thing that is light is the A

gdmsynth: How do I open component 1?

AuntiAlias: no need to open it.

it's showing

on the right, you have the letters C and A and B

C = Color output

A = Alpha output (also known as value)

and B = Bump output

to make all those darker, means that there's NO output whatsoever

which we're doing for the moment

so we can concentrate only on one thing!

So:

Status check:

Component 1 C A B are all dark

Clay: §

ChaMelEon: §

boru: §

Heather: y

Hoffr: $

AuntiAlias: Component 2: A is light so only one showing

LadyDove: y

Jammer: Þ

gdmsynth: yup

desdanova:

Morpheus: § baby very §

Heather: y

LadyDove: yes

Jeffric: y

JeffP: K

AuntiAlias: and a light-on-the-left dark-on-the-right gradient is what you see in both conmponent 2 and combination windows

Clay: §

Hoffr: $

JeffP: weeeee

Heather: y

LadyDove: yes

Charleso: n

Morpheus: as i said § baby very...oh forget it

Jammer: Si

Charleso: Combo is oposite

AuntiAlias: so... for the next dramatic moment..... on Filter for Component 2 (lavender marker is in 2nd position!), cahnge filter from Orientation to Altitude!

Charles, we'll get to that

Charleso: k

Morpheus: ya das ist zer interesant sorry sliping back into german

Clay: §

Wolfie: ?

AuntiAlias: so.. does it now read alitutde?

Morpheus: §§§§§§§§§§§ oh and §

AuntiAlias: black at bottom and white at top?

ccasady: Ya, Und, Ya!

Hoffr: $

boru: pi

Charleso: y

desdanova:

JeffP: y

AuntiAlias: easy, eh? ; )

Heather: lavender in 2nd position, but reads orientation

ccasady: Tis dramatic moment!

AuntiAlias: okay, Heather, change Orientation to Altitude

there's a pop up menu there

Heather: how?

AuntiAlias: press mouse down on word orientation

AuntiAlias: pop-up menu appears

Heather: got it

Clay: oh momma!

AuntiAlias: Mother! What a terrific nickname!

AuntiAlias: reminds me of the book, Are You My Mother?

Mother: Old football nick. :)

Hairy chested kind. :)

Morpheus: MOMMY!

AuntiAlias: So.. we're in the middle of an interactive tutorial on DTE...

Mother: I've been catching up using the log from part 1.

AuntiAlias: I've got the floor (mostly) and we're doign things to a scene that you can find on http://www.auntialias.com/bryce/dte

Morpheus: mother sudenly thinks there nick-name may have been ill-conceived

ChaMelEon: doh

AuntiAlias: I think you can hang out here and catch up later...

we're getting a little bit far into it to catch you up

Mother: No prob.

Carry on.

 

>>>> Next up: Changing the Filter Graph for Altitude Filter

< Previous | Next >