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Other
ClydeSight2.0! Bryce 5 Tutorials
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Make
a Working Simple Steam Engine in Bryce — What Will Happen:
In the final part of the tutorial, we'll set up the linkages and relationships of the Steam Engine parts to make them controllable for animation. As before, we'll do it by the numbers. We HAVE to, to make sure everything makes sense to Bryce. (Get one thing wrong and Bryce can go crazy.) SAVE OFTEN after each step, just to be safe. We'll also set up a time line to get some nice rotary motion on the Flywheel. Finally, we'll render a movie!
NOTE: There are quite a few NEGATIVE numbers you must use to make this model work correctly. To alert you to a negative number, it will be in RED type. So when you see RED for a number in the instructions (not the images-- those are pictures of Bryce things) don't forget to use a minus sign when you give it to Bryce!Getting on Track!
Step 1: Linking and Tracking the Piston Rod.
NOTE VERY IMPORTANT: We'll be animating this model. By default, Bryce 5 turns ON the AutoKey in the animation time line, even if you have not set up any animation! If you worked on your model and saved the file and then re-opened it, Bryce 5 MAY have turned ON the AutoKey again. Go to the animation palette and TURN OFF THE AUTOKEY! (Otherwise, your animation won't work as expected) (Many thanks to the viewers who pointed out this problem.)
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Set the Origin Point We need to set the origin point on the Piston Rod to center over the Crankshaft. We will do it by the numbers to make sure it is absolutely correct. Make sure the Time/Selection Palette (at the bottom of the window) is set to Selection. If it isn't, click on the globe item on the right to toggle it. Click on the cube object and hold the mouse down. In the pop-up that appears, choose Piston Rod. (We do this to make sure we don't move the object when we select it!) Open the Attributes Box (A Box) Check ON the Show Origina Handle option. This will show us a green dot where the origin point is located. We don;t really need it, but it gives us a visual check. Click on the coordinates lock to unlock it. (Negative values are in RED) In the X Origin Box enter: 16.75. Make sure that the Y Origin is 29.85 and the Z Origin is -4.23. If you have set the origin handle correctly, the green dot will be over the crankshaft. Click on the Linking Tab. |
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Linking and Tracking You can see here that the origin point for the Piston Rod now corresponds with the center of the Crankshaft on the X and Y axes, which is what we want. Click on the Object Parent Name box and scroll on the pop-up list until you see Flywheel Group and select it. Turn on ALL propagation options. Click on the Track Object Name box and scroll on the pop-up list until you see Piston Housing and select it. (Negative values are in RED) Check the -X (minus X) orientation. Click on the Check Box to close the Attributes. It will automatically lock the new origin point for you. |
Step 2: Linking the Piston Housing.
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Set the Origin Point We need to set the origin point on the Piston Housing so it will hinge properly. We will do it by the numbers to make sure it is absolutely correct. Make sure the Time/Selection Palette (at the bottom of the window) is set to Selection. If it isn't, click on the globe item on the right to toggle it. Click on the cube object and hold the mouse down. In the pop-up that appears, choose Piston Housing. (We do this to make sure we don't move the object when we select it!) Open the Attributes Box (A Box). Check the Show Origin Handle to make it visible. Click on the coordinates lock to unlock it. (Negative values are in RED) In the X Origin Box enter: -31.95. Make sure that the Y Origin is 29.85 and the Z Origin is -4.23. Click on the Linking Tab. |
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Linking and Tracking You can see here that the origin point for the Piston Housing is on the left end, so it will rock as we want it to. It is now hinged. Click on the Object Parent Name box and scroll on the pop-up list until you see Piston Rod and select it. Turn on ONLY the Rotation propagation option. We do not track anything with the Piston Housing Click on the Check Box to close the Attributes. It will automatically lock the new origin point for you. If you have done everything correctly, NOTHING will have moved. That's important. If you make a mistake, things will align themselves in the strangest way. Let's hope you don't see that! If you do, check your numbers. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
Step 3: Animate - Round and Round We Go!
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Controlling everything with the Flywheel Make sure the Time/Selection Palette (at the bottom of the window) is set to Selection. If it isn't, click on the globe item on the right to toggle it. Click on the down pointing arrow next to the family's box and choose Flywheel Group from the Groups popup list. (We do this to make sure we don't move the object when we select it!) Switch to the EDIT Palette Click on the Z Rotation Ring and drag the mouse. You should see the Flywheel Group rotate, the Piston Rod follow the Crankshaft, and the Piston Housing will rock. Everything should stay in alignment. When you are done playing with this (it's fun to play with!) just open the Attributes Box for the Flywheel Group and set the all rotation coordinates for the Flywheel Group back to zero. Everything should snap into place!
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CONGRATULATIONS! You have made a working model of a simple steam engine that you can animate in Wireframe Mode. Everything is controlled by the Flywheel Group.
Why Does This Work?
The Piston Rod wants to rotate with the Flywheel. But when we set the tracking to the Piston Housing, it got a second instruction telling it to point to that object. So, while it goes round and round with the Flywheel, it always points to the Piston Housing. If the Piston Housing was NOT hinged, the Piston Rod would still point to it, but it would be doing a mechanically impossible thing for a steam engine, because a Piston Rod MUST move in a straight line with the Piston Housing in that type of machine.
When we told the Piston Housing to Link to the Piston Rod in ROTATION only, we told it to reciprocate the angle of the Piston Rod (because the two origin points are opposite each other relative to their object centers). We kind of tricked Bryce into doing something it's not supposed to be able to do. But that's why everything stays in alignment.
And, if this was fun for you and sparked your curiosity and imagination, you'll probably come up with all sorts of machines that can use multiple movements controlled by a single object. I hope so, because that's the really fun part, when you use what you've learned to create something really unique and special. So, experiment! Have Fun!
The "fancy" steam engine model we saw at the start of this tutorial is made the same way as this simple model. I just used a lot more objects and colors to make it more interesting. If you look at pictures of real steam engines (easily found on the Internet), you'll get lots of ideas for colors and designs. Remember that in the 19th century, folks were into color a lot! They really liked reds and greens, and brass was a very popular metal.
But...oh, wait a minute, we have one more job to do with our little model.
While this is lots of fun, it's difficult to share with others, so let's animate this in the Time Line and make a movie!
Lights (no), Camera (okay), Action (YES!)
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Time Line Animation We aren't using any lights, and the camera is pointed at our engine, so all we need is some action! First, let's set up the Animation. Under the FILE menu in the menu bar, choose ANIMATION SETUP. In the dialog box, enter a frames rate (I used 10 fps) Enter the duration (I used 10 seconds) Click on the Check Mark to close the box. The time line will now be filled with a blue color.
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Make sure the Flywheel Group is selected. That's all we have to animate. Make sure the Time/Selection Palette (at the bottom of the window) is set to Time. If it isn't, click on the globe item on the right to toggle it. Make sure AUTOKEY is turned OFF. (Click on the little arrow pointing down and uncheck Autokey) With the Timeline Marker at zero (0), click on the PLUS button and choose: Flywheel Group and Rotation to set them. This sets the origin of the rotation. 1. Advance the time indicator +2.00 seconds (20 frames) 2. Use the Z rotation ring in the Edit palette to rotate the Flywheel. I like to make the wheel move clockwise, so that requires a negative value in the Indicator. You can go either way, but must be consistent. 3. Stop when the indicator reads -359.00 (or 359.00 if you are turning counterclockwise). 4. Click on the PLUS button and choose: Flywheel Group and Rotation. Repeat steps (1 through 4) four more times. In other words, keyframe the rotation at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 frames. Bryce remembers the last point where you rotated and counts the degrees from there each time, so at the end of your time line, the Flywheel will actually be 5 degrees off its zero starting point. If you look at the Flywheel Group's Attribute box on each key frame, it will be a bit odd. The Z rotation will show the numbers: 1,2,3,4,5 for the keyframes. I'm not sure WHY Bryce does this, but it doesn't matter, the timeline knows what is supposed to happen. RENDER! Check your animation by sliding the Time indicator. The Flywheel should rotate and the other parts follow its movement. If you click on the little movie frame icon, Bryce will nano preview the animation in whatever view you are using (This image uses the FRONT view). You'll find it does this pretty fast because there are NO lights, NO shadows and NO textures, all of which add to render time.
If you are satisfied, switch to the camera View and try it again. If you like it, choose RENDER ANIMATION from the FILE menu, and set up your movie compression (I used Sorenson 3 because I have QuickTime Pro installed on my MAC). |
CONGRATULATIONS!
If everything worked, you should now have a 10 second movie that renders in under 10 minutes. Obviously, if you use textures, lighting, shadows, a larger document size and so on, this is going to take a lot longer.
Here's how it worked for me:
The Simple Steam Engine Model we just made took 3 minutes to render as a 100 frame animation using the Sorenson 3 codec on a Macintosh G4 866MHZ machine.
The "fancy" steam engine, which used a spotlight, camera movement, and one texture (the ceiling boards) took 1 hour to render, but it also rendered 140 frames. The textures and the lights are what added to the render overhead. Shadows were turned OFF. Had they been on, the render time would have increased quite a bit.
The "fancy" steam engine images you saw at the start of this tutorial used a picture texture for the brick walls (a brick picture comes in a special folder on one of the Bryce CDs under Picture Textures/Stones), the Planks material for the floor and ceiling, two spot lights (one on the camera, one on the "set"), sky shadows at 50% intensity.
Each image took 30 minutes to render at 320 x 240 on a Macintosh G4 866MHZ machine! The more we add, the longer it takes!
I have been very inspired and impressed with the quality of the Bryce tutorials I have found on the Web. I hope that my little opus will inspire all who read it (and actually understand it!) to have fun experimenting with Bryce to make new and fascinating models that they can animate and use to get projects done, or just entertain themselves and others.(software should be fun!)
If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to drop me a line.
Thanks for trying out my Simple Steam Engine Tutorial! I hope you enjoyed it and it has inspired you to do great things in Bryce!
<-- Visit ClydeSight Productions Company Site
<--Visit ClydeSight2.0! the Fun and Games Cat Site!
Tutorial copyright - © ClydeSight Productions - 2002
Animation Fix:
If your model works fine in the wireframe mode, but flies apart when you animate, you probably are having an AutoKey issue. Here is a fix that may help you out:
1. Open the model. If there is no animation time line, set the animation dialog to 10 fps and 10 seconds time.
2. In the workspace, make sure you are in timeline view. MAKE SURE the time indicator is at zero (all the way to the left). Click the down pointing triangle to the right side of the key and make sure to UNCHECK auto key.
3. Now, you won't see this because Bryce 5 doesn't always show it, but each piece of your model has hidden animation that you have to remove.
4. Select the Piston Housing. You'll see the key in the time line is a gold color, indicating it is animated. (This is the keyed part that makes the others go nuts)
5. Click on the minus sign (-) next to the gold key and from the pop-up menu, select piston housing and ALL TIMELINES. This will clear the object of its recorded animation.
6. Select the Piston Rod. You'll see the key in the time line is a white color, indicating it is not animated. HOWEVER, it has a hidden animation because it was linked and tracked to other objects, so you still have to clear it.
7. Click on the minus sign (-) next to the white key and from the pop-up menu, select piston rod and ALL TIMELINES. This will clear the object of its recorded animation.
8. Select the Flywheel Group. You'll see the key in the time line is a white color, indicating it is not animated. HOWEVER, it has a hidden animation because it was linked and tracked to other objects, so you still have to clear it.
9. Click on the minus sign (-) next to the white key and from the pop-up menu, select flywheel group and ALL TIMELINES. This will clear the object of its recorded animation.
10. Deselect ALL objects by clicking on a blank area of the workspace. At this point no objects are selected and nothing should be animated, hidden or otherwise.
11. Select the Flywheel Group and click on the PLUS (+) sign next to the key. From the pop-up menu, pick Flywheel Group and ROTATION. This will set the first frame of the animation. Keep the Flywheel group selected.
12. Advance the time indicator to 20 frames (2 sec).
13. Rotate the Flywheel on the Z axis (use the rotation ring in the edit menu) to a negative 359 degrees (-359). You have to rotate this with the rotate tool, not enter a coordinate for the rotation to be recorded.
14. Click on the PLUS (+) sign next to the key. From the pop-up menu, pick Flywheel Group and ROTATION. This will set the 20th frame of the animation.
15. If you set the timer to zero and play the animation so far, it should be working fine. You can continue from there.
