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Other
ClydeSight Productions Bryce 5 Tutorials:
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Learn Bryce 5 modeling by building a robot model based on "Robby, the Robot™"*
See local media coverage of this tutorial!
| This tutorial is intended to teach Bryce 5 users basic modeling techniques by building a robot BASED on the character Robby the Robot™. The Bryce 5 model can be used for educational and personal use ONLY. Commercial use of the model will require a license from Turner Entertainment Co., A Time Warner Company. ClydeSight Productions does not condone or imply any use of this model that would be construed to violate their rights, nor does it use the model in any of its own commercial products. See Disclaimer |
Building
Robby's LegsNote: This is a highly detailed tutorial in many sections. I STRONGLY suggest that you print these pages and use the hardcopy as a guide while working. It's much easier than having both Bryce 5 and your browser open and then flipping between applications!
To build our version of Robby, the Robot, all we need is Bryce 5. Bryce 5 works the same way on MAC and Windows machines, but this tutorial will show MAC screens for Bryce 5. They should be similar on Windows versions of the product.
This tutorial is designed so that even a beginner can complete it successfully. However, a "beginner" means more than "I just took Bryce 5 out of the box." You need to know the basics of getting around in Bryce 5 and its terminology, especially the palettes and icon column and their function. It also is not the most efficient way of building a model. It is intended to show you many Bryce 5 techniques that you can use with ANY model project.
In this tutorial, I will tell you what I have done to make the Robby model. You can, of course, use other methods if you like. But I will take you step by step through the way I did it, and we'll do it by the numbers, using the Attributes Box. These numbers are very important to getting the many objects to align, so watch them carefully!
I will also use the SOLO mode at times to show the individual objects, as it would look very confusing if they all appeared together in wireframe! The SOLO button is located at the bottom of the workspace in the Bryce 5 "VCR" controls. It is a toggle switch. When you are in wire frame view and pick an object (or groups of objects) and click the SOLO button, only your selected objects are displayed. To get back to your full wire frame, click the SOLO button again.
VERY IMPORTANT!
Bryce is more than a modeling program, it can also animate! But this can cause modeling problems if animation is active WHILE you are building your model. Make sure that Bryce's animation "Auto-Key" is turned OFF (unchecked) before working on your model.
DO NOT try to animate while you are building you model. Bryce will relate everything to a time line if you do, and when you build more things, they will act strangely. If you want to animate, do so AFTER you model is completed.
Tip: If you look in the Animation palette and the key icon is GOLDEN, you can be sure Bryce thinks you are animating something, and this will cause problems. The icon should remain WHITE throughout your project build. In Bryce it is safest to model FIRST and animate AFTER the model is made.
We will build Robby based on the arbitrary dimensions called "Bryce Units" These do not relate to real world measurements (inches, meters, etc.), but are a unique measuring system to Bryce 5. However, I will show you at the end how to "translate" these measurements so you can accurately size Robby for scenes that you may want to make which relate to real world dimensions.
Note: I type all negative values in RED for clarity.
We're going to build Robby from the ground up. We'll start by setting up Bryce 5 and then make Robby's legs. For the model building portion of this tutorial, we will often use the default Bryce 5 color for many of the objects we create and after the model is complete, we'll apply a special "gunmetal" color to Robby's body. The normal Robby body color is so dark that it would be hard to make out the details during modeling if we used it right away.
However, there are many parts that DO require special materials be applied at the time of creation. I will tell you exactly what and how to do that when the time comes. We'll manage all the materials (I call it "painting") with the Bryce 5 "Family" organizer, so it will be logical and easy to follow. At the end of the tutorial, we'll finish up the "paint job" and place Robby in a scene and light him properly.
We also take advantage of Bryce 5's automatic Boolean addition feature. Bryce 5 allows objects to merge when part of one is placed within part of another. So our model does not have to have "edge-to-edge" accuracy. We will overlap objects to create a seamless appearance.
But first things first. We have to get comfortable with 3-D space and learn our X,Y,Z's!
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The X-Y-Z Coordinate System. Bryce 5 (and all 3-D programs) use the X-Y-Z coordinate system to define direction in 3-D space. These coordinates are fixed in the Bryce World, and as you move around in that world, they appear to change. But they don't--only your relationship to them changes. This can be confusing. So, to make things simple, I orient the camera to the match Bryce 5's FRONT view and do a lot of work in the FRONT view. To see things in the Bryce 5 FRONT view, just press the number 4 on your keyboard. When you switch to the Camera view, the scene will look similar. When in the FRONT view (or camera view when it is aligned to the FRONT view), the coordinates work as follows: X = side-to-side relationships or WIDTH. You can also think of it as left - right as you face the workspace. Y = up-and-down relationships or HEIGHT. Z = in-and-out relationships or DEPTH (or thickness if you like). When you are in the Bryce workspace as I set it up, the coordinates are at perfect right angles to your screen. By default, the Bryce 5 workspace places the camera at 135 degrees when you start a project. I have no idea why. I always re-orient my camera for zero rotation and set it to match the FRONT view. Thus, in my tutorials, you are looking "along" the Z axis. As you move objects along the Z axis, they will appear to move closer or farther away from you. As you move objects along the X axis, they will appear to move side to side, and as you move objects along the Y axis, they will appear to move up and down. To keep the numbers simple, we will build our model around the coordinate center of the Bryce 5 world, location X= 0, Y= 0 and Z= 0. Because the Robby model is symmetrical (same on left as on right) logically "paired" objects will have negative as well as positive values, depending on where they are relative to the zero point. For example, his left foot is at location X = 13.25. His right foot will obviously then be at location X = -13.25. This makes balancing objects very easy, just change the "polarity" of a coordinate!Rotation in the X-Y-Z Coordinate System from FRONT view. All Bryce 5 objects can be rotated around any of the X,Y,Z axes. This can be a bit confusing because rotating objects seem to have an inverse relationship to their axes. But it is easy to understand. X rotation = an object rotated around the X axis will appear to be rotating towards and away from you from up or down. This is because the axis runs side to side. Think of it as a virtual axle with a wheel spinning on it. Y rotation = an object rotated around the Y axis will appear to be rotating towards and away from you from left or right. This is because the axis runs up and down. Think of it as a virtual axle with a wheel spinning on it. Z rotation = an object rotated around the Z axis will appear to be spinning like the hands on a clock. This is because the axis runs in and out. Think of it as a virtual axle with a wheel spinning on it. |
Launch Bryce 5!
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Step 1: Set up Bryce 5 Document Set Up After Bryce 5 launches, choose DOCUMENT SETUP from the file menu and pick a document size you are comfortable using. The illustration here shows a set up for a Small workspace to give you an idea of the Document Setup dialog. If your screen is large enough, go for the Standard set up. This will give you a 640 x 480 pixel workspace. But any size that displays well on your screen will do. Make sure Antialiasing is turned ON and NORMAL. When done, click the Check Mark to close the Setup. |
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Note: We won't be using the camera or ground plane for quite a while. So we can safely LOCK them-- it prevents us from picking them up during the modeling process. In addition, make the camera INVISIBLE. This way the camera won't interfere with your modeling view.
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Step 2: Camera Set Up In the workspace, switch to TOP view (press 2 on the keyboard) and move the camera to the bottom of the screen so it is facing UP. This orientation allows you to use the camera view as a"front" view. To match my set up enter the following data in the Camera Attributes Box. This will orient the camera to face your model From the FRONT and allow all of the model to appear in the scene full face when rendered in Camera View. Position:
X = 0, Y =75, Z = -245 To prevent accidental problems with the picking up the camera, click on Invisible and Locked. This will hide the camera in your workspace. We won't be needing to move it for quite some time. Click the Check Mark to close the Camera Attributes Box. Click on the Ground Plane (it looks like a grid) so you can LOCK it. That way you won't accidentally pick it up. Select the ground plane (Plane 1) and click on its A box. In the Attributes box, check on Locked. Then click on the Check Mark to apply the change. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Step 3: Sky Set Up Click on the triangle next to the words "Sky & Fog" in the upper palette selector and from the pop-up pick the "Low Ceiling" sky. Click the check box to set that sky. Click on the little cloud on the right of the palette to open the SKY LAB dialog. Make sure you are in the Sun & Moon tab. Click on the lower right triangle next to the NANO Preview and select: Render in Scene and Fast Preview. Set: Click on the Atmosphere tab and turn everything OFF. Click the check mark in the Sky Lab to save the settings. This sets up a simple environment with maximum clarity, and the sun is pointed in the same direction as the camera, so it will light our model from the front. In my example you see the complete robot model with its "paint job". SAVE YOUR WORK NOW!
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Note: We will ALWAYS name our objects and groups. This is essential for finding things later on! If you don't name them, Bryce 5 will name them based on their nature: i.e. sphere, cube and so on. Finding the right "sphere" in a listing of hundreds is impossible. THAT's why we name objects and groups! Common Coordinate Entry Errors: Watch for these easy to make and common coordinate value entry errors: Positive vs. Negative numbers. I print all negative numbers in RED, so be sure and enter such numbers with a minus sign (-) at the beginning! Transposition: Watch for transposed entries: 4.20 and 2.40 are NOT the same! Sometimes it is easy to transpose the numbers. 8 or 9 for 0: Some displays make numbers 8, 9, and 0 look similar, and it is easy to type a 9 when you meant to type a zero (0). Forgetting the decimal numbers: 38.30 and 38 are NOT the same. You MUST enter the decimal numbers if they are part of the coordinates. |
Step 4: Make the Left Leg -the Left Foot Note: Right and left indicates Robby's right and left, not your right and left. Robby is facing you, so his right and left are the opposite of yours. We'll start building Robby from the ground up starting with his left foot. In this part of the tutorial, I am showing images from the FRONT view. Press 4 on the keyboard to shift to the front view. Since we are just starting, you can work in wireframe or SOLO mode. If you are in wireframe, you'll see the ground plane. If you are in SOLO mode, you won't see the ground plane. The advantage of SOLO mode is that you can safely ZOOM and PAN. If you zoom and Pan in the camera view, it changes the camera's settings! Select the CREATE Palette and pick the Sphere. The sphere will appear somewhere in your workspace. You may need to enlarge the image or slide around so you can see and work with it. When the sphere appears in the working window, it will have its icon column displayed. Click on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position:
X =13.25, Y = 4.50, Z = 0 PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to the numbers. While any number will give you a result, when you group objects (as we will do a lot), the group numbers will come out wrong if any of the coordinates for an object do not match the numbers I give you in the tutorial. The group coordinates are a way of checking for errors in construction. An error in group coordinates will have to be back tracked to find the object that is "off". Being careful now saves time later! You don't need a material. Bryce 5 will apply the default "gray", which is fine for now-- it makes the parts easy to see. Unless directed otherwise, allow the Bryce 5 default to take place in all the objects you create. We'll "paint" them later on in the project. Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. The sphere will jump to its proper position. Stay in the FRONT view. SAVE YOUR WORK NOW! |
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Step 5: Make the Left Leg - Left Foot Knock Out Robby would fall over if the bottom of his feet were round, so we need to make them flat. We do this with a Boolean subtraction that knocks out the bottom of the sphere we used for Robby's foot. Select the CREATE Palette and pick the Cube. When the cube appears (You may not see it, but you will see its icon column), click on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position:
X =13.25, Y = -3.95, Z =
0 Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. Notice that our negative object is a bit larger than the object area it will affect. This is necessary in a negative Boolean to ensure that ALL of the positive object we want to be subtracted will disappear. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Note: The original Robby had articulated toes, but we're leaving them out to reduce complexity in the tutorial. About Group Coordinate Values: Bryce 5 calculates to many levels of precision, and displays to 2 decimal places. To manage this, it must "round off" the results of its calculations in the display. (The actual numbers DO NOT change, only the display). This is basic mathematics we all learned. So the results I get as a display and the results you get as a display may be different by .01. This is simply a "rounding difference" and will not affect your model. You will only see these differences in Group coordinates. All Object coordinates are entered by you and must be entered correctly. |
Step 6: Make the Left Leg - Group the Left Foot Objects. Shift-Select BOTH objects (the foot and the foot KO). A G in a box will appear that the bottom of the icon column. That's the GROUP command. Click on the G box in the icon column to GROUP the selected objects. After they are grouped, click on the A to open the Attributes. These are the Attributes for your group. If you have done everything correctly, the numbers should read as follows or be close to within .01 difference (i.e. Y = 4.06 or 4.04, etc-- See sidebar.). Position:
X =13.25, Y = 4.05, Z = 0 If your coordinates do NOT match mine (within .01-- see sidebar) then you have made a coordinate error in one or more of the parts that belong to the group. You must UNGROUP the group, go back and check each part to find the error, and then re-group. DO NOT change the numbers in the group coordinates! This will NOT correct the problem properly, but will change the coordinate values of the objects in the group of as Bryce 5 compensates. As you build, this error can be compounded. Click
the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. You've just made Robby's left foot as a Boolean group. You can render the image now and you'll see that his foot has a flat bottom. You'll also notice that it is more than a half-sphere when viewed from the front, and it is oblong when viewed from the side. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Note: The shin and knee are slightly off center of the foot, this is how the Robby costume was designed-- to accommodate the human operator inside. |
Step 7: Make the Left Leg - Left Shin The rest of Robby's leg is made from spheres. Select the Sphere object in the Create palette. It should appear somewhere in the window, but depending on your Bryce 5 preferences, it may be located outside your field of view. Fortunately, the icon column will ALWAYS be in your field of view, and that's all we need. Click on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position:
X =13.15, Y = 23, Z = 3.20 Click
the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. SAVE YOUR WORK! Note: We could NOT duplicate and move the foot sphere to make the shin because it is part of a group. That would have made the duplicated sphere part of that group as well, which is not what we want. |
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Step 8: Make the Left Leg - Left Knee We'll can now duplicate objects (spheres) to complete Robby's leg. The shin should still be selected. If it isn't, select it and duplicate it. Press CMD-D (Mac) or CTRL-D (Windows) or just choose Duplicate from the EDIT menu. When the sphere is duplicated,it will be automatically selected. Click on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position:
X =12.45, Y = 38.35, Z = 1.20 Click
the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Step 9: Make the Left Leg - Left Thigh Robby's thigh is made from the knee object. The knee should still be selected. If it isn't, select it and duplicate it. Press CMD-D (Mac) or CTRL-D (Windows) or just choose Duplicate from the EDIT menu. When the sphere is duplicated, click on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position:
X =12, Y = 55, Z = 0 Click
the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. Notice that the Z position value for the thigh is the same as the center point for the foot! This places the center of Robby's gravity over his foot center. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Where do these numbers come from? When you group a number of objects, Bryce 5 automatically calculates the coordinates of the group and displays them in the Attributes box. The coordinates are based on the logical center of the group. Bryce calculates to many decimal places and then rounds off to two decimal places in the display. |
We'll group the left leg. This becomes a "super group" because it contains simple objects and the foot group. Bryce 5 allows grouping of groups! This makes it much easier to find things in the group selector! Shift-Select the three spheres (or use the marquee -- drag selection method) used for the leg parts and the foot group. BE CAREFUL not to move any of objects during the selection process! You should see a little G icon at the bottom of the icon column. Click on the G and the objects will group. Click on the Attributes Box (A box). Check your work by looking at, but not changing the coordinates. If you have done everything correctly, the numbers should be as follows: Position:
X =12.44, Y = 29.30, Z = 0 If the numbers match (or are very close, within .01), Name the group: left leg group Click
the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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What's in a Name? You'll see that Bryce 5 has named your duplicate group for you. Whenever you duplicate something in Bryce 5, it takes the name of the original and follows it with a number (in this case 1) to give it a name. You can rename it anytime. We'll rename this group when we are finished with it. |
The right leg is a duplicate of the left leg, its mirror image. So it will go on the opposite side of the X = 0 center we are building around. Select the left leg group and duplicate it. A second leg group will appear directly over the left leg group and the icon column will be visible. Click on the Attributes Box (A box). We have to change the X Position coordinates to locate it properly. We simply make it negative: Enter: The
rest of the numbers should read: Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. You'll notice that the new leg group is leaning in the same right-to-left direction as the left leg group. We want it to mirror the left leg, so we have to make some adjustments to the parts. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Flip X will change the sign (+/-)of the coordinate values of the size of the objects it affects. Positives will become negatives and vice versa and the X rotation will become 180 degrees. We need to fix that to keep things oriented properly. |
We'll get the right leg to mirror the left by flipping it on the X axis. There are some steps involved in this method. I am showing you how to do it because it it a useful technique at times, and this is a tutorial about Bryce 5 techniques! Select the left leg group 1. Go to the top of the workspace where the palettes are located and choose the EDIT palette. There are icons for the Editing functions, and we are going to find a special function. Click on the triangle next to the size cube. In the pop-up menu, "World Space" will be automatically chosen-- meaning Bryce 5 is reading the word coordinates, not the object ones. This is the default and what we want. Below that are options to Flip X, Y or Z. Click on "Flip X". This will "flip" the group on its X axis location and thus "mirror" the left leg group "lean" perfectly. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Set As Unity: This can be an important command when you import or otherwise manipulate objects. All objects in a model must relate to the X,Y,Z coordinate system the same way or they will behave oddly when you resize or move or rotate them. Your model could literally fly apart. And "undo" won't fix it! Set As Unity is a quick and simple way of realigning or ensuring that manipulated or imported objects relate as desired to the X,Y,Z coordinate grid. We will use Set As Unity extensively throughout this tutorial! Note: This procedure for making Robby's right leg is not necessarily the quickest method. But the purpose of the exercise is to introduce you to the two very important Bryce 5 features, FLIP and Set As Unity. We are using the model process to learn Bryce 5 techniques, not necessarily make a model in the most efficient manner! |
Robby's right leg is now "flipped", but if you look at the size coordinates, they have become negative numbers. We can restore our proper numbers using a powerful and very important command: Set As Unity. But first , we need to make sure that the command applies to ALL the objects in our group. Bryce 5 will apply the Set As Unity command to whatever is selected. If that happens to be a group, the group will be unified, but NOT the objects within it. So now we have to completely UNgroup the new leg! In the icon column you will see a "U" in a box. This is the Ungroup command. It will appear any time there are groups in a selection. In our case, we have two groups. The leg group and the foot group. So we must click on the U twice to ungroup everything. (Click the U box until there is no more U box to click!) All the objects that made up the group will be selected. Click on the A to open the Attributes box. This box controls the Attributes for ALL the selected objects. Bryce 5 will show you what it understands about the selected objects by displaying values that are common to them all. In this case, the only common values are the rotations. Notice that the X rotation is 180. That's because of our "flip". The rest of the items are blank because each object has a different value from the others. So Bryce 5 finds nothing in common to display. We don't need to worry about that. Click on the little triangle next to the words "Absolute Coordinates". A pop-up window will appear. Click on "Set As Unity". The X rotation of 180 will change to zero (0), which is what we want. Because we have ungrouped and selected all the "flipped" objects, the Set As Unity command was applied to them all. The result is a set of objects as if we had created them from scratch, but in much less time! SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Shift-select (or use the marquee method) the foot and foot KO objects for the right foot, They are named foot 1 and foot KO 1 by Bryce 5. You can rename them if you like, but you'll have to click on each one individually to do it. This will get very tedious as we build our model. Robby has many symmetrical parts! We can use the Bryce 5 naming system as long as we remember that anything with a 1 represents a duplicate of an object of the same name. Group the objects and open the Attributes box. The numbers should read as follows: Position:
X =-13.25, Y = 4.05, Z =
0 If these are correct with what you have (within .01) then Name the group: foot group 1 Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Now all we have to do is group the right leg-- just as we did the left one. Shift-Select (or use the marquee method-- be careful NOT to move any object) ALL the right leg objects, the foot group, the shin, knee and thigh. You'll see a G appear in the icon column. Click on the G to group the objects. Click on the Attributes Box (A box) for the group. The numbers should read as follows: Position:
X =-12.44, Y = 29.30, Z =
0 If your numbers match mine (within .01), Name the group: right leg group Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Go ahead and render Robby's legs now. They should render quickly because we are not using any special lighting or materials. In fact, we won't be doing that until AFTER we complete the model. If you've done everything correctly, your "Robby Legs" should look like the image here. My image was rendered from the FRONT and LEFT Views, so you don't see the ground plane in the images. If everything looks good, then you have completed the first section of this tutorial and Robby has a solid leg -- actually two of them-- to stand on!
SAVE YOUR WORK! |
Congratulations! You have made a matched pair of Robby legs in Bryce 5! In this section you learned how the X-Y-Z coordinate system works, how to enter coordinates for an object using the Attributes box, how to make a negative Boolean group, how to use the Duplicate command and how to create a "super group". You also learned that a duplicated group can have its own name, but the internal names of its objects will be the same as the original names, followed by a 1. You also learned how to assign objects to a Family for selection purposes, how to Flip a group of objects on the X axis and how to use Set As Unity to restore object coordinates to proper alignment with the X,Y,Z, coordinate system.
In the next section, we'll continue building up and create Robby's hip and the connectors that link his legs to his hip! Onward and upward!
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