Bryce 5 has several controllable sources of general ambience:

• Sun and Moon - A directional type of ambient light with color control.
• Ambient control in the Sky Lab controls ambient (but not the sky color itself) color.
• Sky Dome control in the Sky Lab controls the Sky Dome (but not the sky color itself) color.
• Ambient in the Materials Lab for any object, both color and value.

Ambience in Bryce 5 can range across the entire color spectrum from white to black, which means that any color the monitor can display can be set in the various ambient controls.

We'll modify our model created in the Sun and Moon tutorials and play with Ambience. Open your model created in the Sun tutorial. If you haven't done that tutorial, go back and do it now. We'll be using what we learned there. But before we change the model, go into the sky lab and take a look at some of the ambient controls that are provided.

Note: We'll do a LOT by the numbers. I always indicate negative numbers in RED INK.

Sun and Moon Ambience Control:

We've already experimented with the Sun and Moon light in Bryce 5. Their "ambient light" is in effect as long as "Disable Sunlight" is turned OFF (in other words, the Sun or Moon is shining whether they are visible or not).

The ambient color of the Sun and Moon can be controlled by the white box next to the Sun Controls. And yes, you can even set the Sun/Moon to black! The Sun/Moon color will not affect the sky color itself, but it will affect the color of clouds and objects in a scene, even if the objects are in an enclosed environment with no windows!

Whatever color you choose in the selector will become the color of the Sun/Moon light. In this example, the color is a gray.

Ambient in the Sky Lab:

Bryce 5 will set an ambient color in the Sky Lab depending on the sky preset you choose. You'll see it in the Ambient color box. But you can change this at any time. Values of the Ambient are controlled by the intensity of the color, or grayscale level you choose here.

Ambient light set here is a kind of "color wash", it affects all objects within a scene if they have some level of ambience set in their material properties. It kind of looks like a color filter. For example, if you have a scene and all objects have an ambience value of 7 and you set the Ambient value in the Sky Lab to green, your scene will look as it might if you were wearing green tinted glasses.

Ambient does not change the sky color itself. So if you have an outdoor scene in early morning, and change the Ambient to green, the sky color will remain a red hue.

An object's material ambient value setting controls how much effect this Ambient control will have on it. You can turn it off for any object while having it on for others simply by setting an object's ambient value in the Materials Lab to zero (0).

In the example here, the Ambient color is being changed to a green.

Sky Dome in the Sky Lab:

Bryce 5 will set a Sky Dome color in the Sky Lab depending on the sky preset you choose. You'll see it in the Sky Dome color box.

Values of the Sky Dome are controlled by the intensity of the color, or grayscale level you choose here. Sky Dome is a kind of ambient light with a downward "color cast"; it affects the top surfaces of objects, what you see when looking down on them.

Sky Dome color does not change the color of the sky itself.

In the example here, the Sky Dome color is being changed to orange.

Ambience in the Materials Lab:

Every object in Bryce 5 can have an Ambient color and value. If you choose a material pre-set, this value will be given to you by default. For example, if you choose a simple material, such as red or blue, you'll see that Bryce 5 sets an ambient color to white and the value of 7.0 for you.

With an ambient color of white, setting a higher ambient value in the Materials Lab will make an object somewhat less distinct, as if it has a white shroud on it. Setting the color value of the ambient to match that of the diffusion color will make an object appear self-illuminated!

For example, if you had a green sphere and set the ambient color to green, and its ambient value to 100, it would look like a green light!

If an object has an ambient value of 0, then the setting of the Ambient value in the Sky Lab will have no effect on it.

Creating a Simple Indoor Scene:

We want to create an indoor scene and manipulate the lighting. This involves adding two objects to our scene; a cube to make a room that we will be inside, and a sphere to make a ceiling light fixture, an object that represents a light source. Our actual light sources for now will be the Sun and ambient light in Bryce 5. In the next tutorial, we'll apply some artificial lighting and get even more out of Bryce 5 lighting.

Click on the cube in the create palette. A small cube will appear in your scene.

Click on the cube and open the Attributes box.

This cube is going to be our "room" so we have to size it to our advantage. Bryce 5 uses a sizing system called "Bryce Units". The manual explains that this is an arbitrary system of measurement.

I like to think of things in terms of measurements I understand-- inches and feet. Although this is not an exact translation, I find that thinking of Bryce units as inches lets me create scenes more realistically. It works pretty well for creating scenes and objects and having them relate to what I would see in the "real" world.

Open the attributes box for the cube and set the following attributes:

Size: X = 144, Y = 96, Z = 240

This will create a cube that represents a room roughly 12 feet wide, 8 feet high and 20 feet deep. (just divide all dimensions by 12 to get their feet equivalent).

Position: X = 0, Y = 48.10, Z = 18

This will place the cube just over the ground plane so the ground plane doesn't show (in fact, you could eliminate the ground plane because we don't need it.). It also places the cube around the camera is looking at the cube's interior.

In Bryce 5, as with many 3-D programs, objects are hollow. So you can put your camera inside them for various effects.

Since we already have a cube object, name this cube "room" to avoid confusing the cubes and close the Attributes box.

Go into the Materials Lab for the "room" object and give it a simple color of White.

Set the Sky Lab:

Choose the "low ceiling" sky from the sky presets in the sky lab and make the following changes:

In the Atmosphere Tab turn Fog and Haze OFF. These are useful options for atmospheric effects, but for our purposes, we won't be using them.

In the Sun and Moon Tab:

Turn everything OFF except Sun/Moon shadows.

Set Sun./Moon shadows to 50.

Turn OFF "Link Sun to View"

Set Azimuth to 0

Set Altitude to 90

With the NANO preview set to "Render in Scene" and "Fast Preview" your scene should look like the image at the left. Notice that the floor of our room is lit, as are the tops of our objects. Yet we are INSIDE an object. The light of the Bryce Sun and Moon illuminates the interiors of objects and anything the object contains. But it does not cast shadows. We need an artificial light source for that when we are inside an object.

Sun Effects on Interiors:

Change the Sun's Altitude to 45 and the Azimuth to 90. Notice that the left wall of the "room" is being affected by Sunlight and is now lit as well as the floor, and the objects are lit on their right sides.

Keep playing with the Sun control to see how the Sun light affects the interior scene much as it affects an outdoor scene.

As you move the sun around, especially when it is behind the camera, you'll see the interior of the room being illuminated if different ways.

This light does not cast shadows. In an interior scene, you need an artificial light to get shadows.

Creating a Light Fixture Object through Ambience

Our room will benefit by a representation of a light source. Many computer games create dramatic lighting without actually showing a light source, so this is a matter of choice for you. But for our experiments, we'll create an object to represent a light source.

In the Create palette choose a sphere. A small sphere will appear in your scene. We want this sphere to represent a simple dome light attached to the ceiling. You could get fancy here and add more objects to model a dome light you may have seen in the real world, but for our purposes, let's keep it simple.

Click on the sphere and set the Attributes to the following:

Position: X = 0, Y = 96, Z = 90

This makes the sphere look like a dome (the upper half is outside the room object) in the ceiling over our three objects.

Size: X = 12, Y = 12, Z = 12

This makes the dome roughly equivalent to a 12" diameter dome light. Since we have a sphere object, name this object "domelight" so we know what it is.

Now click on the M tab to open the Materials Lab for the object. In the Materials Lab, select the simple color white and set the following in the Value area:

Diffusion = 100
Ambient = 100
Specularity = 100

In the Color area, click on the component color circle next to Diffuse (the white looking color disk) and set it to pure white. Do the same for Ambient and Specular.

Close the Materials Lab.

If you render your scene or look at it in the NANO preview of the Sky Lab, it should look like the image at the left.

Using the ambient attributes of our sphere object, we have created a representation of a light source that looks illuminated by using ambience only! This is only a visible source for light, not a real light source (such as the spotlight or spherical light. We'll use those in the next section.)

Our dome light looks like a fluorescent ceiling fixture. If you want it to look like an incandescent fixture, you just have to change the color from white to a light yellow in all the color areas. Try it and see what happens!

This technique can be used to create the illusion of many electric light sources. For example, if you wanted to create a straight tube type fluorescent lamp, you could make a tube using the cylinder object and set the materials just as we did above. Or a fluorescent ring lamp would be made using the torus and the techniques above. If you wanted to make a green indicator light, such as might be found on a control panel, you would create a sphere, and set the diffuse and ambient colors to green and boost the ambience value!

Finally, notice that Bryce 5 set the Ambient color value to white and the Sky Dome color value to black for this sky preset. Different sky presets will have different colors in these areas. This is how a sky present can colorize a scene. We;ll do some of that next.

SAVE your model, we'll be using it in the next section of the tutorial.

Ambient Color Effects:

Go to the Sky Lab.

Remember my comment about the Ambient control? Since all our objects have some level of ambience in them, this control will affect them.

Click on the white box next to the word: Ambient, and pick a green color.

Now we see the scene in the NANO preview as if we were wearing sunglasses!

Want rose colored glasses? Set the ambient to a red color!

Play with this to get the hang of it.

Sky Dome Color Effects:

Set the Ambient color back to white, and change the Sky Dome to a green color.

Notice that the floor of the scene has become a bright green.

The tops of objects will also have this green color applied, but the camera isn't really looking down on anything, so we don't see it.

You can move the camera if you like for a better view of this. Ambient light adds to the color of an object, it does not replace it, so you will see a combination of colors. You won't see the color of the top of the red cube change to green. Instead it will look red with a green filter influencing it.

Sun Color Effects:

Set the Sky Dome color back to black.

Set the Sun color to green.

Notice that those areas where the Sun light is hitting (the floor and left wall of our room as well as the right sides of all objects) are being affected by the green Sunlight.

You can combine all these effects and get even more results!

Try it, change as many controls as you like in any combination. Bryce ambient light is incredibly powerful and flexible! You can spend hours playing with these controls, and using them carefully can really make a scene come to life!

In Conclusion...

This section of the tutorial has briefly explored some of the power of ambient lighting in Bryce 5.

Ambient lighting has different effects depending on which source you use to create it.

We also learned how to use an object's ambient value and color setting to make it appear to be a light source. We'll explore that more, and give our scene much more depth and interest in the next tutorial, Artificial Lighting - Radial Lights.