Help On Bryce To DAZ
Mattkire75
Posts: 77
I've searched the forums and some other forums for how to bring a custom object that I have made in Bryce to DAZ. Fair warning this object is very complex in that there are many different objects combined to form a temple. This temple has both an exterior and interior. It is so complex that I had to move the design from my laptop to my brand new desktop I built recently.
Now I tried to send the image both as components and group them and send them to DAZ through the bridge unfortunately the majority of the object never completes the send as Bryce either crashes or the send just, well, stops sending.
I've tried to do the same trying to export the object but as a group it will only export if I change from boolean to mesh. Then it only exports a handful of the components whether it's grouped or ungrouped.
I really like Bryce for the interface and ease of use. However, it seems to have major complexity issues. I must admit this is the first time I am doing anything really big in Bryce (by big I mean complex), so perhaps I forgot something long the way.
I have no problems rendering the image whatsoever, it's just moving the object to DAZ that's really gotten annoying.
As a closing note, I am using Bryce 7.0 Pro for Windows 64.
DAZ Studio 4.6 Pro for Windows 64 as well.
I've tried it both on a Windows 7 64 OS and Windows 8 Pro 64 OS. No difference.
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Comments
I'm not using the bridge to send Bryce stuff over to Studio, rather the other way around. Generally, Bryce materials and Studio shaders are not compatible and there are losses when they are automatically converted. You can convert your models to meshes in Bryce That would be the [C] in options for a booleaned object. Such objects can be exported as OBJ, which can be imported into Studio. Perhaps you give this a try to see whether it gives you the desired result. Start with something simple, the [C]onvert to mesh option may take a while for elaborate models.
Thanks for the response!
For example, last night I created a boolean column with external free textures. Grouped all the pieces together so I have an entire column. I can bring the column over to DAZ but it looses all the boolean features. The grouped item won't let me convert to mesh nor can I export it as an object.
I was thinking along the same lines as you just bringing the DAZ objects over but can't even figure out how to save the column object so that I can just reuse it in Bryce. It was late, so I left it as is and am about to search how to save a custom object to reuse in Bryce.
Also, is there a way to combine boolean groups?
For instance I created a boolean base that's squared off. I'd like to take that base and apply a few other objects to round it off and give appearance of cracks/breaks in the base.
Unfortunately, I'm not a very good modeler. One thing is important to know. If you want to [C]onvert, make sure the booleaned group is set to Positive. If I remember correctly, it won't work when Neutral.
Thanks. Yeah I tried that on two groups today. That doesn't seem to work either. Anyone else know if I can combine two groups to boolean properly?
What you needs is a boolean model tutorial. I'm at work now and cannot write it up for you just yet but when I get home in an hour or so I will get you squared away.
Thank you! Thank you! I've got some of the basics down, but just feel so limited right now. I need to look at ways to make items such as rocks rougher less polygon-shaped.
Here's an example of what I am working on now. I'd like to add some "life" to the image. Make it less smooth (i.e. cut out's in the base to make look weathered.
Booleans are somewhat limiting. If you plan to render boolean models outside of Bryce then you will need to know that from the moment you start building the model because it will greatly affect the workflow. From reading the description you may not find it feasible to send this model to DS because prepping the model will take some effort especially if the model is complex in any way. The issue is with "nested" boolean operations...or better stated... booleans that are multiple generations deep. A few things to keep in mind:
1. Any boolean model that will someday be exported will require "collapsing" via the letter "C." If you cannot get the letter C to appear, there is no chance you will be able to export this grouped object.
2. To get the option to Collapse, each polygonal object in the group needs to be assigned a polarity either positive, negative, or intersect before they are grouped. So for example, you can boolean a positive sphere to a negative cube. The letter "C: will appear and you will click on it to collapse the primitive based boolean into an actual 3d mesh that is exportable. It is important to note if you don't already know this that primitives are not true geometry, but merely angular representations of geometry. This will become an important consideration a little later on.
3. Now lets imagine another example but this time we will use three items, a positive sphere, a negative cube, and a neutral cone. When grouped together the letter "C" will not become available because the cone is assigned as neutral. Change the cone to either positive or negative and the C will appear and you can then export the model.
4. If for example, you have three items you want to export and you dont want them to cut into one another but indeed to remain distinct, then you will assign all three as "positive" and when you group them, then letter C will appear. You will then click on the C and export the model as a single group. When you import the resulting model to another application you will see that the three pieces are still individuals and have not been glued together permanently.
5. Primitives are not real geometry as mentioned above. This means that before you make a boolean collapse you will need to specify the polygon density or resolution of the primitives involved in the construction of the given model. The first image example below demonstrates how and where to find the control that allows you to determine the quality of the primitives being collapsed. The higher the setting, the more polygons that will be used resulting in a smoother mesh. But it also takes more time. On angular objects this doesn't really matter as much, but on spherical objects it makes all the difference in the world.
6. Metaballs are a special consideration. I dont want to go off into it too much but suffice it to say metaballs based objects need to be enlarged physically in Bryce if you want the resulting mesh to have any real quality. If the model is only 3 Bryce units tall and 3 units wide, to get a good mesh you will need to enlarge the object to several hundred to several thousand Bryce units to get a good quality resulting mesh. Indeed, metaballs work very differently than all other forms of geometry in Bryce insofar as exporting and boolean operations are concerned. Remember also that Trees are spawned with metaballs so you should make them large in order to export them with a good degree of detail in the trunk and branches.
7. It is always best once you collapse a mesh to export it into some format 3ds or obj or whatever you like, and then to re-import the model into Bryce and continue from there. The reason is due to the wireframe view boundary boxes, they can get really confusing when dealing with complex boolean operations since the boundary boxes of each component remain intact even after collapse. Reduce that clutter by exporting then re-importing.
8. Lastly, let's talk about the problem with nested booleans. As mentioned above, if you plan to export a model someday you need to build it in a manner that will make it exportable. The key to this is to avoid nested booleans. Nested booleans are booleans inside of booleans inside of more booleans.. you get the drift. What you should be doing is building each element 1 piece at a time, as you complete an element collapse the primitives then export then re-import and continue. The idea is to never build a complex model comprised of billions of primitives, but instead to convert those million primitives into a few solid 3d meshes and continue from there.
9. As far as getting this all into DS, here is what you would need to do. First, you need to deconstruct your Bryce model to insure that you have avoided all nested boolean operations. This can be nearly impossible for truly complex models, but not so bad for simpler ones. You want to go back to the first boolean group of the project and collapse it. In fact you will need to collapse each boolean stage of the construction. In the end you should be left with a model made entirely of meshes. You can even boolean those resulting meshes together into what could eventually become a single master object. If you need to UV map any parts of the model the time to do that is now. Again, you must have a plan in mind from the beginning.
Hopefully this gives you a good deal to chew on and please report back with any questions or observations Best of luck.
Some really good stuff here! Yeah I already had the quality changed to 64 but upgraded to 128. With the image above, I smartly added the boolean pieces for the major sections to Bryce Content User Content. For the bottom, as I really only used the booleans for the stairs, I was able to collapse and export it. I am not sure though on the Mid Section. There are several booleans involved, no really booleans inside of booleans but multiple booleans grouped together. Still no C. So I will see how and if it's deconstructible into it's boolean parts.
I will know this method though moving forward. Is it best to avoid primitives altogether? I really have only used primitives as they are the easiest to work with.
Is there a way to link Materials to each boolean item before you collapse and export? As it seems to only keep 1 Material.
Primitives are fantastic generally. They tend to save on memory and allow for some insane polygon counts. They only get a little hairy when they get complicated and even then are still generally pretty solid. They are trustworthy enough. Its just a matter of exporting. If you ever plan to export it at any point in time you're going to benefit from having considered such things as we've discussed above during the construction process. Primitives have unlimited potential and are the only way to really get much done in Bryce so I'd not shy away from them. There are some "Additional Primitives" that are included with Bryce 7. They aren't true primitives, mind you, but they are great time savers as they can provide rounded edges and other details that would otherwise require painstaking modeling likely including nested booleans. I remember the days of combining cylinders and cubes to make rounded edged boxes. Lots of headaches spent lining everything up!
One of the good things about the way Bryce remembers all of the original geometry is that indeed multiple shading domains can be retained after collapse provided the object is saved as an original Bryce Preset obp. But due to the still crude material exporting of Bryce, there is no appropriate UV mapping available to retain those features in a universally understood way. So when the mesh is exported it will go out as a singe shading domain. It is a good idea to think about shading domains as you are building your booleans, so that they more or less are based on shading domains. If one is careful and plans every single detail it can be pulled off. Admittedly, it gets tiresome.
I tend to build the pieces based on domain, I export the pieces as .obj and UV map them in UV Mapper. After that I bring them back into Bryce.
I haven't really gotten into the UV Mapper too much just the basic stuff. I am sure that is a whole tutorial all by itself. Working on a rock wall. For some reason, one of the rockwall pieces I added to the Bryce Content User are is missing. Not sure how that happened but it causes an endless loop that I have to force quit Bryce. Not even sure how to get rid of it now as I can't even select it to delete it without the loop occuring.
Hopefully you have saved an earlier version of the scene itself that you can go back to?
Thanks for popping in here, Rashad. I knew my advice has very limited value. Great stuff.
If your objects are small and far away and can be darker and unevenly colored, you can often fake roughness a little by selecting an appropriate material. Something with lots of dark spots, small and/or large, can give the illusion of shadows on a rough surface even if that surface is in fact perfectly smooth.
You can also sometimes fake it by adding more detailed objects in just a few key points and giving them the same material; for example, stick a few stones poking out of the edge of a flattened cube and it might look like a cracked and broken platform from a distance. Negative booleaned stones for holes can do the same thing if you are doing the final render in Bryce and not trying to export.
There are also volumetric materials in Bryce that actually DO have holes that can be applied to an object, although that's a whole new area to explore, but of course if you were planning on sending the object to DAZ, those won't translate.
If you are using materials in DAZ Studio after transferring an object from Bryce, you can look into bump and displacement in DAZ Studio materials as well to make surfaces rougher.
Attached is a low-budged example I slapped together quick just to illustrate, you can do better than it.
Bottom left is a stone with a single-color material where you can see polygons; bad. bottom middle is the same stone with a random material, which hides the polygons and looks a little pitted and rough even though it really isn't. bottom right is the same material with the bump slider set all the way to 100%, makes it look a bit rougher with almost zero effort. Of course you could modify the material to add multiple octaves of roughness and so on.
Top is a cube with a single stone stuck to one end. Of course you can make a bunch of smaller stones to make a much more believable ragged end, but hopefully this illustrates the value of combining a small number of objects in key areas to add to the illusion of complexity.