Section Modeling Steps

Robby's color is very dark, and dark colors don't show detail well. If Robby was pure black, we'd lose even more detail. You might think the answer is to boost reflection. But this simply confuses things more as the material reflects the environment. We can have a small amount of reflection because Robby's body does reflect somewhat. But the real key is specularity!

Specularity adds "shine" to Robby, and by adjusting the Specular Halo, we can soften that shine for a more polished effect. But be aware that specularity is highly sensitive to light conditions and responds differently on flat surfaces than it does on curved surfaces. I use a very soft specularity because in the movies, Robby looks like he has been "buffed" but is not super shiny. You may not agree, and if so, feel free to play with the specular colors and values until you achieve the look you want!

Right now, the sun, a single point light source, is shining directly on Robby and his specular halo is showing the effect. We will add lights and atmospheric effects to take advantage of the power of specularity.

Robby's hands are very similar in color to his body, but they have a different "rubber" texture. We achieve this look by slightly increasing the ambience (making the material a little less "black" by adding some white to it), reducing the specular shine and removing the reflection entirely. Adding the metalicity increases the "matte" effect.

There is a very subtle, but important interplay among all the light values in a material, and they also respond to lighting conditions. So there's no "perfect" formula, since the lighting conditions will change the look of the material! Unfortunately, it's most often a case of trial and error, which involves a lot of rendering time.

Step 1: Paint Robby

If you are in WIREFRAME ( not SOLO) mode and can see your model, make sure you have not selected anything and go to the FRONT view (press 4 on the keyboard). Pan and zoom so your complete model is visible in the workspace.

We marked all the Robby parts that need the final paint job by placing them in the Robby Paint Family.

Click on the family selector at the bottom of the workspace in the objects selector palette. A pop-up will appear listing all your families. Click the one you used for Robby Paint (dark green).

All the Robby paint parts will be selected in the wireframe and you'll see an icon column. Click on the M at the bottom of the icon column to open the Materials Lab.

Start by selecting the Black from the Simple and Fast materials selection. Now we will adjust this to do the right job for us. Just follow along:

Open the color selector for the Diffuse Color (Option/Alt click on the color oval). Set the RGB values to R 10, G 10, B 10. Click on the Check Mark to apply the color selector.

Open the color selector for the Specular Color (Option/Alt click on the color oval). Set the RGB values to R 75, G 75, B 75. Click on the Check Mark to apply the color selector.

Open the color selector for the Specular Halo Color (Option/Alt click on the color oval). Set the RGB values to R 250, G 250, B 250. Click on the Check Mark to apply the color selector.

Set the following Values:
Diffuse = 100
Specularity = 33
Reflection = 6
Set all other values to zero (0)

Click on the word COPY in the nano preview, we'll use this as the base material for Robby's hands.

Click the Check Mark to apply the changes.

HANDS:

We didn't paint Robby's hands yet, but this is easy.

Shift-Select the right hand group and the left hand group.

Click on the M in the icon column to enter the Materials Lab.

Click on PASTE under the nano preview. This will past a copy of the Robby paint material for use by the hands.

Modify the material as follows. In the Values set the following:
Ambience = 5
Specularity = 50
Metalicity = 70
Reflection = 0

Click on the Check Mark to apply the material to the hands.

Go to the camera view and render the image. Robby should look like the image here. Don't worry that he isn't that clear right now, I told you this would happen!

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Robby looks a bit better and more detailed when the Bryce 5 sky has some atmospheric effects applied and the sun is set at an angle to the subject. But notice how the atmosphere effects also apply a type of "seam" to his body paint job. Click here for a large image (640 x 480).

You may notice the rendering "error" in his voice tubes. This is caused by monitor "scan" lines interfering with the fine lines of Robby's voice tubes. Not all monitors will have this problem.

Step 2: Lighting Robby - Natural Light

We'll start with natural lighting and see what we can come up with to improve Robby's appearance.

To help make him look more "realistic", I have added a couple of terrains and applied a material to the ground plane. This, of course, significantly increases rendering time!

Go to the Sky Lab and select the "Low Ceiling" sky again. This will reapply the sky preset with all its atmospheric effects. It has haze but no fog. You can add some fog if you like in the Atmosphere tab. Orient the sun to Azimuth = 220 and Altitude = 45 or thereabouts. Set the shadow to about 60 or 70 percent. Uncheck "Link to View".

If you render your image, you may see something similar to this.

The atmosphere (which would have made our modeling "fuzzy") is now working to some advantage because it is softening the light of the sun. And the sun has been moved to the side, so it is hitting Robby at an oblique angle. So we are able to see more detail in Robby's body. However, notice that there are "seams" on his hips and legs. This is caused by the atmosphere-- Robby's material is reflecting the horizon effect.

Try different settings and see how Robby looks under different natural lighting conditions. Your satisfaction with the results is entirely a matter of personal taste. What looks good to me may look awful to you. So you really have to play with settings and view the results. There's no formula to follow.

Artificial lighting helps bring out the detail in Robby's coloring. Further interest is added by "tinting" the light sources and "scattering" them.

Scattering the lights (around the character and at varying heights) prevents a light wash from occurring, makes shadows more complex and interesting, and alters the "spot" of the specular shine by making it compounded.

Compare this image, created with spherical lights and a soft specular shine to the image at the top of this page nest to the page title. That image was lit with a single spot light attached to the camera, and I adjusted specularity for a tighter halo and much more shine. What you choose to do is, of course, up to you.

Adding artificial lights (of any kind) will ALSO affect other materials in your Robby, the mouth tubes, the valves and the power coils. You may have to take these items (they are grouped so it is easy to adjust them), and lower their ambience and diffusion settings to compensate for the power of the artificial lights.

Click here for a large image (640 x 480).

Step 3: Lighting Robby - Artificial Light - Outdoors

We can improve outdoor lighting the way they do it in the movies, by adding artificial light! If you've ever seen a movie being filmed on location, you know they never leave lighting up to just the natural environment. They have a whole lot of artificial lights to better illuminate a scene, even in broad daylight!

With Bryce 5, you do this by placing spherical lights in your scene to illuminate your subject and some of the surrounding area. Spotlights throw a beam, so they may need to be avoided. The trick with spherical lights in an outdoor scene is to use the LINEAR falloff method. There is so much space in an outdoor scene that this approach usually gets the best results with fewest "hotspots." You may have to adjust any ground plane material (lower the diffusion) if you don't like the light spot that appears with this method of lighting.

A single spot light can be used, and if so, I suggest you align it with the camera and have it point as the camera points (link it to the camera and it will do this). You will have to adjust the values and color in the Light Lab. Be aware that a single spot will only make a single "hotspot" on Robby, so it is less versatile than using multiple spherical lights.

For my Robby, I added four spherical lights:

Light 1:
Position: X = 85.18, Y = 112.15, Z = 7.50
Size: X = 30, Y = 30, Z = 30
The size is just a convenience for grabbing the object, it makes no difference to the light power of a spherical light. The position puts the light on Robby's left about head height.

In the Light Lab, I set the Intensity to 70, Linear falloff and Cast Shadows ON. I also applied a uniform color, a slight orange. Using colors for individual lights gives your subject more visual interest!

Light 2:
Position: X = 30.06, Y = 74.48, Z = -95.22
Size: X = 30, Y = 30, Z = 30

The position puts the light on Robby's front left about chest height

In the Light Lab, I set the Intensity to 70, Linear falloff and Cast Shadows ON. I also applied a uniform color, a slight yellow.

Light 3:
Position: X = -39.78, Y = 130, Z = -92.28
Size: X = 30, Y = 30, Z = 30

The position puts the light on Robby's front right about face height

In the Light Lab, I set the Intensity to 70, Linear falloff and Cast Shadows ON. I also applied a uniform color, a slight green.

Light 4:
Position: X = -86.60, Y = 112.15, Z = 13.60
Size: X = 30, Y = 30, Z = 30

The position puts the light on Robby's right side about head height and a bit back.

In the Light Lab, I set the Intensity to 70, Linear falloff and Cast Shadows ON. I also applied a uniform color, a slight blue.

I rendered this in a night time scene so you could better see the effects. Obviously in a day scene, the effect is much more subtle and you have to boost the Intensity values of the spherical lights to beat out the sun light!

Artificial lighting helps bring out the detail in Robby's coloring. When indoors, Ranged falloff creates more dramatic effects than linear falloff. Familiar objects are placed in the scene to give the viewer a sense of Robby's scale. He is 7 feet tall! Click here for a large image (640 x 480).

Step 4: Lighting Robby - Artificial Light - Indoors

The same lighting principles work for indoor scenes, with a few minor changes:

• The position of the sun will still affect interior scenes, so it can be an added benefit for your lighting, especially if you have windows and doors in the scene.
• The scene should be entirely enclosed within an object to take advantage of the surrounding object's refraction effects. (i.e. use a cube object to create a room, apply refraction levels to the cube to create shadows and depth)
• Interior spherical lights usually work best when used with the Ranged falloff.
• Additional lights can be added to illuminate other parts of the scene. (for example, the table lamp)
• Place familiar objects in the scene to give the subject (Robby) a "relationship" to things people already understand and a sense of scale.

This interior scene uses the same lights to illuminate Robby as the outdoor scene in Step 3. They are augmented by a light in the table lamp and a light on the left (your left, Robby's right) out of camera view to illuminate that corner of the room.

Artificial lighting can help with a posed model to bring the viewer's eye to what you most want to be seen. In this case it is the red robot. Less important, more subtle objects (the pictures on the wall) do not get as much light depending on their level of importance. Click here for a large image (640 x 480).

Step 5: Lighting Robby - Artificial Light - Indoors 2

So far, Robby has been in our scenes in a static pose-- not very interesting. But we gave him joints so we could pose him and make him more "alive".

Posing works with artificial lights just like a static pose, but the lights should be moved and adjusted to bring out more specialized detail.

In the image in Step 4, I wanted as much light to show off Robby's body as would work well, I wanted ALL of Robby to be clear.

In this pose, Robby is in "action", so I lit him to draw the viewer's eye to parts that I felt were important, his face. So Robby's head and front is more illuminated than his lower legs and feet. I also used more refraction in the cube that makes the room to create more shadow on the left (your left) behind Robby. He is stepping out of the shadow and into the light.

The strongest light is on the red robot, who is actually the subject of the scene.

To create this robot, I simple pulled a new "Robby" from my User section in the Create Objects storage area.

I sized it by adjusting the size of the "A lower body group" (everything links to it, so they size proportionately).

I posed it after setting the Edit control to "object space" as we discussed in the section on posing (click here for a refresher).

I used the Robby Paint family to give the robot the red color, and then selected the feet and lips and painted them black.

Artificial lighting works well with materials to increase the impact of a scene. Here the material for the corridor is reflective, giving the illusion of space. I used a fairly extreme camera FOV (100) to give more sense of space and some parallel distortion. I used a few characters and posed them in "action" to give an illusion of activity. Click here for a large image (640 x 480).

Step 6: Lighting Robby - Artificial Light - Indoors 3

Being a robot, Robby would most logically appear in technical scenes rather than domestic ones as in the previous steps.

Of course, a robot like Robby is the stuff of fantasy, so your interior scenes will more than likely lean towards the fantastic.

This scene uses techniques discussed in Bryce Lighting FX and the Bryce Shadow Magic as well as what we have learned in this tutorial.

The enclosing room uses refraction for depth, reflection to add "free" detail (look closely-- the "upper alcoves" are a reflection, not a model). The scene actually has very few objects in it at all (except for the Robbys). There are only 6 objects, the wall panels and shelf in the two foremost alcoves!

There are two types of lighting used here, ranged spherical lighting in the main corridor, and linear down spots in the alcoves.

The robots are all the Robby model posed and sized as needed. This adds a HUGE object overhead to the Bryce 5 file, so even wireframe mode takes a few seconds to refresh!

Rendering time is significantly increased because of the reflection properties of the corridor material.