Brycescapes

[Betelgeuse]

Messing about in Bryce with old style colonial houses in unusual situations.

This first one inspired by the isolation and tranquility of life in New Zealand.

Almost exclusively built in Bryce, bar the man and his boat on right hand side of pic, and a very few items on the house itself. Also Photoshopped in my own digital photos of sky as can't get a Bryce sky that either matches the big NZ ones I see here, or that look convincing enough anyway.

C&C welcome

[Dirtyskillet]

Great clouds! Were do you get them?

Wow, you are very good with these landscapes.

Any hints as to how to do that water?? Its quite realistic.

[Betelgeuse]

Dirty Skillet

Thanks for the 'wows'!

The clouds are photographed on a Fuji SO3 3.2 megapix digital camera. If nothing else, we are blessed here in New Zealand with some fantastic majestic skyscapes. Big blue skies and a wonderful array of cloud formations. Not a lot of haze at all so you can get some real clean shots.

As I said, I find Bryce skies just too 'Bryce'. So from a 9MB camera file I blew the clouds and sky up about 400% onto the render in Photoshop. I'd rendered the image about 4,900 pixels across with minimal clouds in the sky. Then with the digital photo I erased most of the sky and blended the new clouds in using 'Overlay' as the method. Of course at 400% there's a few artefacts in the image, so a subtle 0.6 gausian blur got rid of those, but still kept the clouds sharp enough. Sometimes you have to paint in some cloud-like colour under the cloud Photoshop layer so that lighter ones don't disappear in the pale haze near the horizon. Also, I'd rendered a mask for the sky area in Bryce so as to easily paste the new sky in.

As for the water, that uses a terrain object in the foreground for the wavey ocean. This has a very low, smooth undulation to simulate ocean swells. It sits right on top of the water plane, but because there's next to no transparency in it it blends in perfectly between plane and terrain.

cheers,

Betelgeuse

[incognito]

Wow, great render for sure, and judging from your last post, you seem to have quite a bit of knowledge and know-how.

Can't wait to see what else you put out :D

[Betelgeuse]

Thanks incognito – if that IS your real name :)

Don't profess to be too knowledgable on Bryce, but have been playing about with it for a few years now, and not always with landscapes either. I think the one thing I've always been aware of is some of the tell-tale giveaways of Bryce images, and trying to avoid using them. e.g. those skies, reflective spheres of any kind, seas, and getting more detail in mountains and terrains.

To remedy the latter, I've started using doubled-up terrains to get varying textures. If you check out the post 'Brycescapes ptIII', the pyramid hill the house is sitting atop is a duplicated terrain using slightly different textures. One has grassy hills texture and another duplicated right over the top has dirt. The second terrain is edited and given extra slope noise and a bit of elevation painting so that its texture pokes through the first terrain. That's how I got the dirt in the virtical parts of the pyramid and grassy stuff over the rest. Same effect was used on the hills in posted image in 'Brycescapes ptII'.

Hope to be sending more stuff in a week or so. Planning a picture of the local pub from the town where I grew up. Just need to decide on a suitably unsuitable setting for it!

[Dirtyskillet]

:wave: I am exactly the same. Although U can't hate the people who do "bryce"ish pics, it does bug me sometimes.

I use alot of the same techniques as u. Clouds and such. Also, I'm a big fan of photo textures. Well...

Cheers, and can't wait to see the next.:D

[Talonsblade]

I also use Bryce. I still havent made to many sceens, but i have made lots of items to put in sceens. Like medevil weapons and things.

I like your pic here, well done.