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Other ClydeSight Productions Bryce 5 Tutorials:
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Shadow
Magic— The Candle:
A candle seems such a simple thing, but it actually is quite complicated. A real candle undergoes a complex chemical reaction when lit. Michael Faraday, the famous 19th century scientist who developed the dynamo, gave a lecture series called "The Chemical History of the Candle" which you can read on the Internet (Go Faraday).
Faraday's findings aren't of much help to us here, but they are interesting. Anyway, for our project we must look at the candle itself the way Bryce has to.
The candle has several parts:
The body;
a wick;
a wax "cup" (the bowl formed by the melting wax
just below the flame);
a wax drip edge (the area of the candle that is burned away
allowing wax to drip out of the wax cup);
a flame;
the wax drip;
and the final grouping.
Whew, who knew it was so complicated! AND, we have to tell Bryce how to make all these parts. Well, Bryce is more than up to the task!
I will tell you what I have done to make the candle. 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 most of it by the numbers, using the Attributes Box. I set the parts slightly off center to the candle base to make it appear better in the scene. You'll notice this if you check the X and Z coordinates for most of the parts. I am using an angled camera view to make the parts stand out more clearly for you.
Note: All negative values appear in RED for clarity.I also used the SOLO mode to show the individual objects, as it would look very confusing if they all appeared together in wireframe!
Let's MODEL!
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Select the CREATE Palette and pick the Cylinder. When the Cylinder appears, click on the SOLO button to see only that object. In the working window, click on it and then on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position: X =-0.22,
Y = 44.32, Z = 0.87 |
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The candle wick is very small, but it would be conspicuous by its absence, so we'd better put it in. Select the CREATE Palette and pick the Cylinder. When the Cylinder appears, click on the SOLO button to see only that object. In the working window, click on it and then on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position: X =-0.22,
Y =57.58, Z = 0.81 |
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The Candle flame is made from a Sphere with a special material applied. Select the CREATE Palette and pick the Sphere. When the Sphere appears in the working window, click on the SOLO button to see only that object. Click on the sphere and then on the Attributes Box (A box) and enter the following data: Position: X =-0.67,
Y =68.57, Z = -0.70 Pick a special material for the flame from the Materials Lab. You'll have to fuss with it to get just the right settings. Here's what I used: I chose the Complex fx selection and the flame material from the lower middle part of the group. Then, in the Materials Lab, I fussed with it using the following settings: Diffusion = 0 Ambiance = 100 Specularity = 0 Metalicity = 0 Bump Height = 38.9 Transparency = 23.7 Reflection = 0 Refraction = 100 Object Space for the material I also made the object "fuzzy" in the special attributes dialog you get by clicking on the little downward triangle in the middle of the upper portion of the Materials Lab to get the Materials Options.
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Well, this is another tricky part! One would think that Metaballs are the answer, as they imitate organic, fluid materials. But there is a problem. Bryce Metaballs won't respond to Boolean operations (neither will Bryce Trees--which are made from Metaballs). We need the top part of the wax drip to follow the contours of the drip edge (made by the stone object), which means a Boolean operation! So what to do? The answer is in Bryce's Terrains! We'll make a terrain object that looks like a wax drip. Not easy, but possible with some fussing. There's no way to tell you how to do this by the numbers. Select the CREATE Palette and pick the Terrain. When the Terrain appears in the working window, click on the Terrain and then on the Edit Box (E box) to enter the Terrain Editor. Set the grid resolution to Gigantic so the drip will have smoother edges. Pick NEW to wipe out the terrain Bryce generated and use the brushes tool to draw what looks like a drip. You may have to do this several times. One tip is to use the Erode and Smooth buttons a lot. Then raise the background (it will turn red) to eliminate it. Anyway, when you are done, it might look something like this. Click on the checkmark when you are done. Now you need to position it with the candle body (we can ignore the stone object for the moment). You should be seeing the entire wireframe of everything we made. It's pretty complicated, so it's good that we named things! Click on the candle body object (you can choose it from the cylinders dialog at the bottom of the working window) and shift click on the terrain object to select them both. Then, click the SOLO button. Whew, easier to see, somewhat. Now, you have to turn and position the terrain so it is against the candle body and the top is in line with the top of candle body. It should look something like this. Apply the same material to this terrain object as you used for the candle body itself. If you like, increase the specularity a little to give it some shine and make it look more liquid. |
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