Here's a fantasy come to life! It's not so much a scene from The Lord of the Rings as from something like The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (and I confess, I can't remember how to spell that). Weirdstone takes place on and around and under moorland, which is how some of today's Bryce work came out. The landscape got me to thinking, and I got into a fantasy mood, which sent me right back to amazing realms when I did a bit more in Bryce later on. This is the first time I've "flooded a landscape" in Bryce:
There's two ways to work in Bryce: you can start out with the ocean, then make a mountain-scape and submerge part of it, till you wind up with an island about the size and shape you wanted. Or you can start out with a "model" terrain and then add a water plane ... in other words, design the landscape -- including the river bed! -- and then flood it. I think I like flooding a landscape, rather than submerging a mountain in an existing ocean. This, I must pursue!
Again, these landscapes have no trees, but that has been fixed!! Thanks to the incredible generosity of a genuine patron of the arts, I was able to go to DAZ 3D this morning, and I got two things. One, the Bryce Content Pack, which is 250MB of textures and maps and stuff, and two, the Foleypro Trees pack, which is going to be fantastic --
I just had to learn how to use them! I gave myself a minor panic when I unpacked the materials and everything arrived as OBP files. What in the (deleted expletive) is an OBP file, and what do you open it with?! Took me a leeetle bit of research and head scratching to get that worked out, and if you're just starting Bryce, and are in a similar fix, join me tomorrow and I'll share the answer!
Make a note to come back tomorrow: "How do I apply an OBP file in Bryce?" All shall be revealed. Turned out to be easy in principle. Just, um complex to set up! By the time I learned how to use the trees, there wasn't enough time to do a proper render ... the River Anduin render took well over an hour to finish up. So -- tomorrow!
Jade, 25 March
