James J Lemon Graphics New -Black Background

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Painter

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flower

Painter IX brushes include Palette Knife, Bristle. Painter surface texture and PhotoShop tweaks.

Bryce

Glass Boat Hull

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Mesh Yard

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dedec

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cube3jj

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path002a

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dodecZ001a

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whatcube003Compo1

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lantern001a

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cubesExt002a

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topmod

& Bryce

Various experiments with topmod and Bryce.

True, a single Bryce render can have see-through, semi-transparent geometry. What doesn't seem possible is to get the depth renders and altitude renders ... and Ok, mask renders that I used in the composite, specifically the fine linework.

dodecaPenta

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So, I make a scene and ...

1) render as usual, save.
2 depth) Switch to depth render, render, save.
2 altitude) Switch to altitude render, render, save.
2 mask) Switch to mask render, render, save.

Now Hide the glass! or Hide something else! repeat...
3) render as usual, save.
4 depth) Switch to depth render, render, save.
5 altitude) Switch to altitude render, render, save.
6 mask) Switch to mask render, render, save.

Of course, all the renders are made from the same one camera position, lights, geometry. So they will line up perfectly when I stack them up.
7) Then open everything in PhotoShop, copy and paste everything in one multi-layer file.

On depth and altitude renders, use the Glowing Edges filter and tweak the Levels to taste. They come out white contours on black, so use "Screen" mode. Or invert and use "Multiply" mode.
On mask renders, make a channel and use as a selection mask.
On regular renders, put them at the bottom. If only one, 100% opacity. If two, 50% each, tweak to taste.

Now with everything ready, might use the Hue/Saturation to colorize the linework. Might use the raw depth render to add depth cueing, or colorize it and Overlay.

dodecahedron6g0

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Bryce

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Movie

The movies are made with GraphicConverter. They are of a tutorial nature, not to really be played normally, rather viewed frame-by-frame with the sliding time cursor. Drag the cursor left and right to scan through the images of the movie, or just let it rip! Either way, you get a quick view of all the images that went into the making of the boat hull and scene.

wave
land

A ship founders.

The hull is from topmod. The rest of the ship is Bryce primitives such as cubes, spheres, cylinders. The ocean surface is a terrain made from an ArtMatic image - usually the material looks like marble, but here the brightness becomes height-ness. The color is tossed out and replaced with a turbulent water material. Several renders (regular perspective, depth, altitude) combined in PhotoShop using the Glowing Edges to make contour maps of altitude and depth.

Movie

Bryce

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icosa
building

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topmod icosahedron, heavily remeshed. Saved several obj files, serially imported into Bryce. Added booleans, materials, lights.

Bryce

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Z
building

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Trying to learn how to use topmod and Bryce! The building in Beijing is an inspiration, But, mine is different of course. No 11-degree slant so far. It needs to integrate to the transportation grid. Overlay and combine the distance and altitude mask renders with the full render and a better backdrop of clouds. This is the result!

Bryce

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icosa

cube

surfPPC

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abstract

Images

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ArtMatic

movie

abstract

Movies

movie

Bryce

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QTVR

quad

residence

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Bryce

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twisting

tapering

tower

Bryce

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pillow

Here is the raw texture from ArtMatic and SurfPPC

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Bryce

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cube

penta

building

Bryce

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quadropus

building

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InDesign

27.7MB PDF

Index

2008

calendar

PDF

Happy New Year!

A collection of Bryce stuff from 2007, made into a 2008 calendar with InDesign

Bryce

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flower

bowl

surfPPC-treated ArtMatic texture mapped onto a torus and sphere

Bryce

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silk

pillows

topmod cubes with surfPPC-treated ArtMatic textures

Bryce

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snow

flake

house

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See the

gallery for a demo of how to make these with topmod.

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Bryce

panorama

cube

wow!

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Bryce

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cube

Not

Believe it or not, this started as a cube in topmod. Extruding, smoothing and converting the mesh to "columns" were some of the important steps. The building is composed of about six layers - from the inside out, there is a glass copy with a smaller negative glass copy hollowing out the inside. That's enclosing a solid steel copy with 40 negative floors slicing it vertically. Around the outside are the "columns" made from the original mesh edges, in steel. Inside are two stacks of 40 lights, and a few more surround the outside to eliminate the deep shadows. I find that smooth curved boolean meshes made of glass bring out the worst rendering performance in Bryce. At 1600x1200, this took about 60 hours. I don't know exactly since it finished while I was out shopping this morning. When I was setting it up, I hid the glass and it was going to take about 6 hours, so that hints at the impact. But, it looked too naked without the glass! It really could use some trees, but I would bet it might double the render time again.

Bryce

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geodesic

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InDesign

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is Life

a Dream?

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cfdg

Movie

make

roads

context free

design grammar (cfdg)

animation

cfdg

Movie

When I was a kid, I really enjoyed
HO-scale model trains.
I made a big table in the
basement out of 2x4s,
with plywood on top.
Then, I added the train tracks, mountains,
bridges, tunnels, etc.
All according to my favorite magazine,
Model Railroader.
It was a blast. Later I added
HO-scale cars
and it was blissful.
Nowadays, it's all digital.
I bought a copy of Model Railroader
a couple of years ago.
They had a "digital cab".

make

tracks

context free

design grammar (cfdg)

animation