The images below are from a scene created in Bryce 5 and show the change in "atmosphere" that application of the Bryce Lighting FX principles can make.

Look at each image and see how by changing the light FX, the scene dramatically changes. The scenes are all the same construction, they have simply been rendered four times with different light and refraction settings, no additional lights or adjustments have been made unless otherwise noted. Also keep in mind that computers and monitors display colors and brightness differently, and even browsers affect Internet image quality. Netscape Navigator on my MAC displays brighter images than Internet Explorer! The final images you see may seem overly dark, depending on your hardware.

Details:

I created a room with a fireplace because this presents several lighting challenges, most notably: the fireplace itself, the firebox (where the burning logs are kept), two candles (made using the candle in the Bryce Shadow Magic Tutorial), some furniture, a mirror and wall textures to generate complex shadows.

There are 6 artificial lights used in the scene: 2 radial lights for the fireplace-- one inside the firebox to create the firebox glow, one outside the firebox to put light in the room. 2 radial lights for the candle flames, and 2 spot lights to give the candle bodies shine (as in the Shadow Magic Tutorial.) The Sky Lab is set to the Moon at 90 Azimuth and -30 Altitude. This casts ambient light towards the camera and allows the moon image to be just barely seen through the clouds outside the window. Sky Shadows are set to a value of 50.

The room itself has refraction capability because it is built using the techniques described at the end of the Bryce Artificial Lights section of this tutorial: Considerations with Ambient Sun/Moon light.

This scene has all its parts, but no sense of drama because it is not properly lit. It does, however, render fairly quickly considering the complexity of some of the objects and textures. The scene is much too bright. One can only assume that there is some sort of strong light source behind the camera. The scene may be inviting because the room is bright, but it lacks drama and a sense of realism.

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By simply turning Shadows ON in the Light Lab (they must also be ON in the Sky Lab), I have given the scene a bit more life and drama. Shadows can be very important as an effect. But they DO come at a cost. The scene with the shadows turned ON for all the lights took a much longer time to render. In this example, I did not adjust individual shadows for the light sources, I just wanted to show how shadows in general can affect and improve a scene. But they can also cause some trouble.

Look over the fireplace. The objects are casting shadows on the wall. Yet the only source of visible light in the room outside the fireplace are the candles. They do not appear to have the power to cast such shadows on the objects over the fireplace. And notice that the chair is casting a shadow on the fireplace wall, while the table and candles are casting a shadow on the window wall. This makes no sense from the light sources (fireplace and candles) that we can see. Visually, it implies that there is a strong source of light behind the camera. But there isn't! Notice that there are complex shadows on the walls and ceiling. Since ALL the lights were given the ability to cast shadows, the scene has conflicting shadow information in it. This render shows how important it is to always think of how light in the REAL world works and adjust Bryce lights accordingly. The scene has more visual interest than the first render, but it is also visually confusing because the visual cues are working at cross purposes.

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Because the scene is now dramatically lit using various light settings it makes a lot more visual sense. Notice that the firebox has the proper glow created by the fire itself, and the mantle columns show the proper glow of light, even with proper coloration. The candles now serve a purpose and we can see that they cast light onto the table for a reason. If you look closely at the mirror, you'll see that it reflects a falloff of light and shows the depth of the room.

The objects on the mantle are also more interesting in how they reflect the low light and there is the proper amount of shadow in this area that logically would come from the firelight and candlelight.

The room itself has a feeling of depth because of the refraction property being used. Notice that the light changes as it approaches the corner, and the window wall is properly dark.

The ceiling beams cast shadows onto the ceiling "flats". This render is much more dramatic and believable than the earlier versions and was achieved simply by altering the light settings in Bryce 5. Rendering time for the scene was a bit longer than in the scene with linear light and shadows ON.

The only thing that is an issue with this scene is: the shadows themselves are a bit harsh and sharp. However, if I had turned ON "Soft Shadows" and rendered the scene, the rendering time would have jumped dramatically. There is a simple workaround but it involves some post-processing work in an image editing program, such as Adobe PhotoShop.

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In this version of the scene, I took the image into Photoshop and blurred the edges of the most significant shadows. I softened the shadows of the ceiling beams and the shadows of the candlesticks on the table, but I left the floor shadows of the chair and table sharp to maintain some definition. It took much less time than what it would have taken for Bryce to render the scene using soft shadows, and I also had more control over what got softened and what did not. Sometimes, however, you may want to have Bryce do the shadow softening for you, but at others, this technique will work.

I could have done a LOT more work with this scene and with enough lights and shadows and a bit of imagination, could possibly have made the scene "photorealistic".

Which brings up an important point with Bryce 5 scenes. You must ask yourself what you want to achieve! If it is photorealism, then you would want to do some research into photography techniques and lighting and get that going in your Bryce 5 scenes. You'll have to take into account some very subtle material textures and reflection characteristics and apply them, just as photographers do. On the other hand, if you want it to look like a cartoon, you'll need to set your lighting so the scene has the "flatter" appearance that is characteristic of that style-- and cartooning is an art in itself, so it would help to learn techniques used by the masters.

For my part, at least with this scene, I wanted it to look like a CGI (computer generated image) possibly from a game. Since Bryce IS a CGI program, all I needed to do was imitate and reflect (pardon the pun) the way light works in the real world, while applying it to a Bryce 5 world.

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