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Robin Wood's pages on the AML should be bought by DAZ and stuffed into the Bryce 7 manual. Actually, any Bryce manual. However, these are reference pages. It's not that you're dense, Mermaid: it's just there's a lot of info presented, all at once, with no real learning mechanism. It's a bit like using a dictionary to learn English: you can't. Rather, you use worked examples and practice, introducing a little bit more as you go. Robin's pages explain everything, but treats all information equally. As a result, it can be confusing to find a place where to start.
For instance, I've never used the AML memory dots nor the dropdown menus associated with the viewing section. There's very little point, and the functions hidden are rarely required for Bryce work.
If I were to break the AML down to Most Used to Least Used functionality, the top five functions worth getting to know are:
1) Looping. Create a three-keyframe animation 2 seconds long. Enter the AML, shift-click the name of the parameter you want to loop, and select Pendulum. Now, extend your animation duration to 6 seconds. The object's parameter will oscillate back and forth 3 times. In the main view, you can drag the scrub tool of the timeline to the right as far as you like, even past the animation duration, and the wireframe will keep performing the loop over and over again. Main Lesson: short loops can be extended indefinitely. Then try the Repeat looping method. Then try the circular looping method. Notice the differences.
2) Timing. The tick marks in a parameter's timeline are movable. Take the example above. Drag the last tick mark in a parameter's timeline closer to the second to last. The last section of the animation will speed up. Drag the last tick mark further to the right. The last section will slow down.
3) Deleting timelines. Keeping the number of timelines down to a bare minimum really helps in understanding what's going on. There's no point having a timeline for objects that don't change. Nor is there a point of having timelines WITHIN a single object if that parameter isn't being used. If you want an object moving without any rotation, yet there's a rotation timeline for the object, delete it! Shift-click the name of the parameter (or object), drag down to "Delete All Keyframes".
4) The Acceleration Curve Editor (ACE). Shift-click in the window. No matter how much you play in this window, shift-click is the most useful: this zooms you out to fill your parameter curve to the window. It's the "I'm lost - Let me see everything!" command :) Other than that, just play around with it and note the changes to your animation.
5) Show/Hide Objects. There's an eye next to the name of all objects in the scene. Clicking on it hides the object's wireframe in the camera view. Re-click it to show it. It helps declutter busy scenes.
Thanks Oroboros for the explanation. I'm copying and pasting it on a Word Doc for reference when I re-view the video you posted at the beginning of this thread.
One quick question, when animating materials if there are 2 or 3 textures to the material, do I change; for example the offset for each one in the last frame, or does it come under experimenting to see which looks better. Thanks once again.
Good question. The Animating Materials video only covered one texture.
When you pop up the Golden Tools, there are 4 buttons on the top right: A,B,C,D. These represent the channels the tools are currently changing.
The tools themselves only affect the selected channel.
So... Let's say you have a 3-channel water texture in channels A, B and C, all in World Space. They all have bump and they're combined using ABC blending. You want to do a simple offset of 30 Bryce Units. If you want all three textures shifted, you will have to use the Golden Tool Channel buttons to select each channel individually and offset each channel by the same amount.
... But, as you say, there's room for experimentation here. Often, water has major and minor interference patterns. To create a more random feel to the water, you may wish to offset Textures A and B by 30 BU... but you might want to offset Channel C by 25 BU in the Z direction and 6 BU in the X direction. This gives a sideways slant to the direction.
It really comes down to the detail of the scene and the effect you're trying to achieve. I tend to think in terms of what camera angle I'm going for and how long I'm going to be looking at a particular shot. Most shots in movies rarely last longer than 6 seconds: for me, anything after 4 seconds and I start fidgeting, and I'll want to see the same scene from a different angle.
Thanks Oroboros once again for the explanation. I really appreciate it.
I found with Animation a lot of experimentation is necessary. especially where the materials are concerned and I'm enjoying the trip. :)
Will come back here if I have more questions. ;)
Here are a few of my experiments with animation. I had such a cool time playing with them.
This one I would like to see a bit more waves. I tried offsetting X and Z axis, and rotation, then I settled for Z-axis offset and raising and lowing the terrain’s Y position a few times.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120756918321/
This second one I worked with day and night and animating the sea but the sea material took a strange appearance.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120756918427/
The last one, with my little ship, I like this one but the ship is moving too fast and she is above the water. I will fix that the next time I make adjustments to the scene
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120756918669/
Looking forward to any help from the experts.
Edited: to add missing link
Hey Mermaid,
Water animations always make me smile :) It has calming effect on me.
"A bit more waves"... This is a little imprecise. If you want the scale of the wave texture to be larger, shrink the Scale factor of your waves down. This is the top-most golden tool. By default, many wave textures come in at about the 70-150% mark. Try decreasing the scale to about 7% and render one frame to get an idea of the look.
If, however, you want actual 3D waves, this can't be done in Bryce with textures alone. You'll have to apply a water material to a smoothed terrain. Try creating a terrain with the Perlin fractal and applying a water texture to it. You'll definitely get 3D waves... but then you'll want to know how to oscillate them (relatively easy) and make the ship bob up and down with them (tortuously difficult, because in effect you'll be trying to simulate collision physics: AVOID SIMULATING COLLISION PHYSICS! :D )
Nice Mermaid.... Before long we'll be seeing you doing a great animation of a mermaid bobbing on the surface of the water. :cheese:
I very quickly knocked this together this morning (only 6 seconds):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fpAu8T6VuM
Moving waves and moving wave materials... And a slightly moving camera.
As Oroboros says, moving waves are relatively simple.
I used the timeline in the terrain editor to morph the terrain between two different iterations of the Perlin Hills fractal.
:)
Thanks Oroboros and Dave :-)
@mermaid010 - I don't comment here a lot because I've got nothing to contribute. But I'm watching this thread and your resulting animations and I see you're really making progress.
Savage: Nailed it.
There are refinements to the modeling of the waves, but that's the gist of it. When it comes to morphing terrains for sea swell, there are a couple of points to keep in mind:
1) Avoid showing the horizon. The awesome power of the open sea is best depicted in the troughs, or hollows of large waves. In tandem with roiling seas, you want stormy clouds. Rough seas do not occur in calm weather conditions, so bring on the thick, purple-grey clouds, bring on the lightning flashes! If you're floating on the ocean and the waves naturally buoy you to the top of a crest, try and look up at the sky, rather than across to the horizon. If you must direct your view across, your best choice of view is of the next-closest, bigger, steeper wave coming towards you, filling the frame, not the series of generally uniform waves along the horizon.
This is one of those situations where the overall 'area' of your ocean works against you. What really makes an ocean vast in undulating seas, is that you CAN'T see how big it is... Only how small YOU are. One of the effective ways I've seen this done in movies is ships in storms at night, where your only comprehension of where you are is illuminated briefly by lightning, and not very far out, because rain dissipates light like a mist or haze.
2) Splashes and wakes. These are dynamic particle physics effects that Bryce can't do, but their real power is indicating dynamism, or interactivity with the environment. So rather than spend days trying to simulate particle physics there's another way to bring dynamic environments into the scene: matte composites.
A matte composite is just a flat transparent plane that has an image on it, that you can see through. There are many ways to create the plane: overlaying an image texture (or image movie) with a video editing program in post-production is the easiest and quickest method, but you can also apply an image to a 2D plane in Bryce and shoot through that.
Some examples that might be appropriate for Mermaid's project (for inspiration/reference, not use):
http://www.photo-dictionary.com/photofiles/list/645/1053porthole.jpg
http://www.mississippicottageantiques.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Ships-wheel-003.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oFNhQud4Cko/TJ-6yQW-cAI/AAAAAAAAAAU/k0qztbGzB04/s1600/rain+on+the+windshield.jpg
You could combine some techniques here: you could parent a 2D plane to the camera, with a picture of a porthole. Just beyond the plane you could design some trickle patterns using metaballs with a glass texture. That way, when you shoot the scene the sea will be refracted in the drops, creating a more dynamic look to being thrashed around by the sea.
Dave- the video is so cool, I finally got to see it this morning. Thanks
Horo - Thanks Bryce truly is a fun program.
Oroboros - Thanks for the additional information. I hope I can come up with something nice using all the info from you and Dave
After many tries and going through the info by both Oroboros and Dave, this is the best I could come up with, not bad but I would like to do better.
To get waves moving is difficult, did I hear someone say easy. ;) not to this dummy :roll:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120757007525/
The second I changed the terrain material something like the example towards the end of Oroboros video on Animating Materials.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120757007447/
Which view is better to animate the camera? In this video Oroboros uses the camera controls but I find I have better control where I want the camera using the top and right views, but that way doesn’t seem to work well with animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgxUdYeRjck&index=4&list=PLFCr9K8dbZNwZ981MAdCSoIXwqO3tCk7c
Thanks in advance.
With reference to the rest of your post, I'm going to change your question to: "How do I animate the camera so I get nice flowing movement without that horrible fly-bounce effect?"
I demonstrated two techniques used to smooth flybounce out: Rollercoaster view and using trajectory modifier keys. For a seascape animation you could try rollercoaster: it's the easiest way to get flowing movement. If you're trying to move your camera at a constant height over the changing wave geometry, things get trickier so you need a process like the one below... And because you're simulating collision physics, try and keep the duration short, like under 6 seconds.
1) Make the oscillating waves as detailed above.
2) Position you camera at the start position, t=0 seconds. Set your Camera and possibly your terrain position. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT ROTATION YOUR CAMERA HAS, AT ANY POINT. All you're doing is plotting a path that the camera will follow through the waves.
3) Shuttle to the endframe: t=100%. Move your terrain to its final position and/or your camera to its final position and set the terrain's position keyframe and the camera's position keyframe.
4) Shuttle to the halfway point: t=50%. Move the camera to roughly the same height as the first two keyframes. To clarify: when I say 'height', I mean 'apparent height over the wave directly below the camera'. You may find that the halfway point finds you either under the terrain (everything's dark) or high above the trough of a wave. So just raise/lower the camera until it's roughly the same height as the other camera heights above the wave.
5) From here on in, just keep subdividing your time. Shuttle to t=25% time, set a new camera position.... Shuttle to t=75% time, set a new camera position. If this doesn't have enough resolution for you, subdivide time again, setting four new camera positions at t=12.5%, 37.5%, 62.5%, 87.5%. (you don't have to be strictly accurate but it does help you track the pace of the movement).
Bear in mind, you can also move a little left, right, forward or back to get your camera in a nice position, but if you move too far away from the main line, your camera will be prone to varying speed as it slaloms through the waves.
6) Finally, Edit [A]ttributes... > Animation > Align. Cross your fingers and render a thumbnail view.
7) Go through the animation and adjust your framing as necessary. Occasionally you will suddenly fly under a wave. That requires a positional correction for one or two keyframes. Often you may be looking in a strange direction. To correct that, you have to move the position of the keyframe AHEAD of the position you're currently in.
===
Having said all this... This is not my preferred way of working :) Rollercoaster view just the easiest to understand and execute.
My preferred way of working is building camera rigs. A basic camera rig is a camera tracking an invisible object. Both the camera and the invisible object fly through the scene, but this offers far more dynamic, smooth movement with far more compositional flexibility. But rigs can get complicated real quick, and are almost always different for every case, so trying to script a tutorial that people can follow is a real trial.
Sorry Oroboros yes you did say relatively easy. :)
Thanks for all the additional information. I’m going to print out this information as well as all the previous info from you and Dave and take it from there.
Another quick question. How many fps, thus far I am using either 10 or 12. The Bryce default is 24.
Thanks once again for the info and the videos on your site.
The higher frame rate, the smoother your animation will be but obviously it will increase render times as you will be rendering more frames per second.
Video standards are 24fps for PAL and I think 25 for NTSC.
Thanks Dave for the quick reply. Presently I'm getting the Avi file converted to a gif. So would you say 12 to 15 should be okay.
Er, not quite. 25fps for PAL, and TECHNICALLY 29.97fps for NTSC, but 30fps is generally OK. 24fps is for celluloid movies.
At any rate (if you'll excuse the pun), if you're just putting stuff out to the web PAL and NTSC formats don't strictly apply. PAL and NTSC are old school analogue video formats that not only describe frame rates, but color spaces, dimensions and electrical tolerances. They're not applicable, if all you're doing is making stuff for Internet distribution.
If you want to make YouTube videos (or videos for any web video portal), I suggest these metrics:
Document size: 1280 x 720 pixels
Frame rate: At least 25 fps (30 is preferred)
Codec: AVI or preferably H.264
Format: AVI or preferably MP4
Oooops sorry for the duff info Mermaid. :red:
I seem to remember that my very old version of iMovieHD (I only ever use newer version of iMovie for uploading because the old iMovieHD is much much better for editing) resamples footage for PAL and NTSC, so if I make the animations at 30fps, iMovie simply makes the animation longer but at 24fps... Of course, I may be wrong on that too, my animation knowledge is rusty as I haven't had much call for it for about 6 years, when stuff was still being written to DVD which did still follow the PAL and NTSC formatting.
This latest clip from me was fun... even if the result isn't exactly a visual spectacular.
In the Bryce timeline, I set all the key frames at the same time and then fixed the timing from within the AML setting an 'ease in' curve for each bar. I'm now wondering if I should do another version where the bars rise quicker and do a little reverse 'bounce' as they hit the top, setting up a curve and saving it shouldn't be a problem and then I can just apply it to each bar in the graph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T2D6CoQ_Z8
It's so cool.
Thanks.
Have done what I mentioned previously and done a small size test here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTnLzZULtaI
The difference is subtle but I think this looks better.
I once sat in on a user experience meeting where two web professionals spent 15 mins explaining the importance of subtle bounce effects on button clicks.
I think it was one of those unimportant-but-let-the-client-choose decisions designed to make the client feel "involved/empowered/in control" :D Nice work Savage - You're on your way to becoming a UX designer, hehehe...
I'll see your bar graph and raise you an interpolated line graph! 10 points for figuring out how it was done :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PATSIxbJs1s
Heh he, nice one, Oroboros ;)
I’ll throw in this one...where the data literally ‘eats’ into its own graph board – perhaps it’s got something to do with dietary data ;)
Jay
A constantly changing slice of a terrain... How many points do I have to get before I loose my licence? :lol:
Too late, Savage...licence revoked ;)
Okay, Perlin Hills might have been more nicer...heh he, Oroboros. Ignored putting in a graph this time, changed lighting over the range...so it’s at least worth 9-1/2 points ;)
Jay
Hehehe, 10 points for both of you :) It wasn't quite as simple as Savage's outline, but there is a practical value here...
1) Some 2D squares were used as graph lines. Nothing special there, and they don't take part in any following groupings or arrangements.
2) A Perlin Hills terrain was created with a mesh density of 512. (This is important for how thick [Z] the line is to be - any less and you will need a thicker line. I'll explain this later.) This was made solid, and in the attributes I made it Positive.
3) The terrain was duplicated, pasted and lowered (how low you make the line is how wide [Y] the final line will be). It was also made slightly bigger. This was set as a Negative terrain, and grouped with the Positive. This creates a thin sheet of the terrain top, which can stand as itself if you wanted a 3D chart. The Negative terrain was made slightly larger to ensure that it negated everything under the surface of the Positive terrain. This group is set to Positive.
4) A cube operated as the 'Slice'. There's some adjustment needed on thickness here, and it depends on the mesh detail of the terrains: if the detail is 256 or lower, you'll need a thicker cube, and cube thickness = line thickness. This cube is set to Intersect and grouped with the Terrain group. This group is set to Positive.
5) A final, large cube is created and rotated slightly around the Global Z, set to intersect, and Grouped with the rest. This is the 'Reveal' cube, used to grow the line from the beginning of the animation to about 8 seconds into it.
That completes the scene.
6) The rest is the simple bit. The Reveal cube is pulled toward camera to 'grow' the line from left to right, then stops. After a pause, the Terrain group is pushed away from camera, while all you see is what the Thin cube reveals of the terrain. (The camera tracks a hidden stone, and there's some easing curves around the place too, but that's just finesse work).
Once more for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PATSIxbJs1s
The cool thing about this technique is... You can have a graph representing actual data here, if you create a terrain in a graphics program capable of producing tailored gradients, and import it into Bryce. You can also produce an animated line graph, showing the transition of one line to another using gradients and masks in a graphics program.
Cheers, Ororboros....but for the second work I used no cubes at all - just a Negative Terrain, and a Positive (thin sliver of) Parallel light. The second render below show use of two lights (the scope of such use is limitless - almost to suggest a 3D render could be achieved like one sees with those brain scan images etc., - though, for some that might be a problem ;)).
Jay
Reading both the comments by Oroboros and Dave, and experimenting, it’s needless to say animating in a 3d program is difficult but at the same time fun to do. Here are some of my not so good attempts.
Oroboros, I did not come right with aligning the camera, even after crossing my fingers and toes.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120757125617/
Metaball animations
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120757133775/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120757133792/
Trying Oroboros’s idea: post #40
Not much of an animation. I still need to learn about the relationship between materials, lighting etc but it was fun putting it together especially trying to make rain drops with metaballs and learning new things ;)
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/504192120757136749/
Edited: Just watched this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L49jq_C9ATw&index=4&list=UUEq6d85bTha1DSK9pTvYVaA
Jay the metaballs animation is awesome, mine looks like kitty-play.
Grand :) Like just about any form of art, the learning and discovery behind the practice is the thrill, and when it comes to simulating life-like motion, it's the little things that count. Good work, Mermaid :)
I'm a big animation nut, but most of my stuff has been 2d animations through GIMP. I really need to dig in Bryce and try to see what I can come up with.
Thanks for sharing.
Art
Hi Fencepost (I always use usernames: it's the only time we get to call ourselves by how we'd like to be addressed, rather than what our parents decided to call us :) )
The jump from cell-based animation (which is largely GIMP-like stuff) to tween animation (Flash, HTML5), to 3D animation only has a sense of timing in common. But timing is a skill that takes practice: if you have that sense of timing already developed, then you'll go far very quickly with Bryce's relatively simple tools... Unless you're into animating animals or people... that can be tedious.
The other thing that's often harder to grasp is scale (and Mermaid: this relates to your landscape animation). Almost everyone's first Bryce animation experience is a landscape flyover. However, the camera almost always moves far too fast. Land masses are generally HUGE, and require a very long time to pass over/through/under. If you want to convey a sense of scale for landscape flyovers, you generally need to make very small movements over a longer period of time, with very slow adjustments. If you want to change your view, it's often better to cut together separate, 6-10 second shots of your landscape, where the camera is barely moving. The only reason your landscape might pass quickly under your camera's gaze is if the camera is very close to it.
Like stills, it's often useful to watch animation 'reference' imagery to get an idea of simulating flight. Have a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSARggPrYfk&t=1m17s
The immensity of the landscape is not only conveyed by detail in the landscape, but the atmospheric haze and the 'relaxed' pace of the aerial footage. One thing you DON'T see is MACH 4 speeds over archipelagos or impossibly high speeds 2 metres over land or water, if you're trying to convey a sense of scale. The higher you are, the less the scene appears to change.
Something to keep in mind :)