Brycetech: Spaceship Textures

This tutorial will aid you in adding some creative textures to those spaceships that we all love to make. Here you can learn how to apply a picture texture to your ship as either a color and/or bump map.

**How to get a picture to use as a texture from this page or from any other page**
Click the image at the bottom of the Page. Once the full size image has loaded, right click on the image and select Copy from the Drop Down menu.
Open Bryce and select one of the objects in your ship that you would like to add the material to. Select the "M" to open the material editor.
Once in the Material Editor: Next select the first channel for Diffuse, Ambient, and Bump Height. This will cause channel "A" to open. Then select the second button to the right on the bottom row. This will cause the 2d Pict library to be selected. Then select the second button on the top row, this will open the 2d Pict editor.
Now the 2d Pict editor is open
Click "Paste" in the first window of the 2D Pict editor. This will paste the image in RAM to the first channel. This can help determine diffusion (color) and ambience in that area of the ship.	Remember that whatever part of your image is white in channel 2 of the 2d picture editor will be transparent and what is black will be rendered. Also, whatever is black in channel 2 will be the indention in a positive bump map (or a raised section in a negative one).
Click "Paste" in the second window of the 2D Pict editor. This will paste the image in RAM to the second channel. This can be used for several purposes, but in this case we can use it for transparency or bump mapping.
If you already have a saved position 1: It will be necessary to click the last picture box's "paste" dialog to load the copied pict into a new box. Then "paste" it to channel 2.
Once out of the 2D Pict editor, it will be necessary to decide how you want to map the image. In this case, since it's just a random texture, I will choose Parametric. (Other good choices are Parametric Scaled, Object Top, Object Front, etc. Almost any except for Random)
Decide how much Bump you want for this area. Drag the slider to determine how much and which way you want it to be used. I set it to 100 for large ships, lesser bump seems better for smaller ships.	Positive Bump--drag left Negative Bump--drag right
You may not like the frequency of the picture's material. So to change it, simply go to the material property editor and change it by dragging the appropriate control. I find that I like to have small objects with a smaller frequency, larger ones with a larger one. This is a matter of taste.
That's about it for loading the first texture. Now, it's just a matter of selecting or multi-selecting objects and following these steps to get to the 2D Pict editor. However, now all you will need to do there is select the material.
Follow the same procedure above for mapping, bump, frequency etc.

For an idea on how to make an engine flare, go to the Photon Torpedo tutorial.

Site Note:

Slight changes in the tone of the image map can add dramatic changes in the overall image. Even the very slightest hint of yellow, orange, red, black, blue..whatever will add variety and reduce the "eye boredom" with a ship.

Also this is not meant to be an all inclusive instruction on every possible way to have made the final image or produce the desired results. Bryce offers zillions of wonderful ways to replicate, multireplicate, reposition, etc. in its powerful interface. Experiment!

Brycetech: Spaceship Textures in Bryce

Site Note:

Hosted by DAZ3D

If you only want to use the bump map from the picture..that's easy too.
Just select an available channel for "Bump"
Follow the above steps to apply the picture.

If you want to have "Bump" in more than one channel. No problem..here's how.
Hold down the Ctrl key and select channel "B".. We now have bump mapping on two channels.