Telling a dramatic story - Bryce as the ultimate storyboard

mdk1960 · June 2021

Every Bryce User has a different reason they employ the software. They may find it is easier to use out of the box, than say, Vue. Or they like the speed of composition. Or the materials editor. Or the Sky editor. It may be they use it for completely abstract creations or purely as a landscape tool. I use it to have a quick to obtain POV so I can render the same scene from multiple angles in a very fast way. It is the ultimate storyboard tool. If, like me you use Bryce to "tell a story" in a traditional, representational way then you have at your fingertips a solid, incredibly fast method to test for the best POV in Bryce. I work in a large screen/ document set up and keep to a fairly light in weight mode of using just enough features and assets to allow for short rendering time. At the end of the day I do not consider hyperrealism, as such, more important than overall composition when I work. I know my intentions beforehand and the story to be told will be a simple one. In the examples below, a period-costumed heroic figure needs to charge over a volcanic surface - so the details will be chaotic, widespread and obvious. There will be fires, thick smoke, exploding rock. The figure will show determination as he speeds thru the chaos. I'm testing POV - will a cinematic view work better or a worm's eye? Both renders are of the most basic sort, maybe a 4-5 minute render each, at a usable size for the purposes - 1754 X 1267 on normal anti-aliasing. I export images as .png for lossless compression. The figure was exported as a .OBJ with Bryce texture conversion from Daz Studio. I attempt to imbue dramatic life to the images in postwork, to give the receptive eye a chance to work more easily - so that the viewer is not overwhelmed by the level of detail common to 3D images. To me, storytelling is simplifying. The speed Bryce allows is essential to my workflow and can't be obtained elsewhere.