Brycetech: Texturing Imported Objects for Bryce 4 Part 5

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Review

What did you learn in this tutorial?
Page 1

Here you were shown what each image map looks like.  This is necessary for you to be able to apply each one to the object (whether it be this one or any one that you download).  It is possible to skip this step, but why would you want to?  You need to know what each image map looks like, its orientation, its shading, and its potential for use in bump mapping and diffuse coloring.  I strongly recommend looking at ALL image maps that come with a downloaded model. Also, once you have the object into Bryce, select each object and go to solo mode and look at how the model was created.  This will give you a far better idea how to handle the model.

 

Why were you given furySheridan.jpg?   This should be easy to figure out, but just in case you haven't here is why.   This can be used in place of the image map you applied to the top wing.  It will give you some really cool variations to your model.  It is also meant to drive home the fact that you can create your own image map to apply to a mesh. 

It might be interesting to see your name in the corner and maybe some other color combination for the ship.

An alternate map for the top of the ship.
 
Topwing_upper_Col_Black_Omega.jpg

 

Another alternate map for the wings.
Bottomwing_lower_Col_Black_Omega.jpg

And even another alternate map for the wings. Just be sure to give some bump mapping to the model when using flat textured images. For instance, use these as diffuse color and hullmap.jpg as the bump map.
Page 2:

Here you were shown a little bit about Lightwave model files and the setup files.  It's a really good idea to know what the extension in a file means.  For instance, knowing that .lwo means Lightwave object and .lws is a Lightwave scene which will place all of your objects is very valuable.

You were also shown what will happen when the Lightwave setup file can't find an object.  However, you were not shown how to permanently stop such errors.  So let's tackle that here.
Open the file Starfury_Setup.lws in a word editor.   For instance, open it in Notepad (which ships with Windows)

When you open the file you will see lines like this in the file:

LWSC
1

FirstFrame 2
LastFrame 30
FrameStep 1
FramesPerSecond 30.000000

LoadObject C:\My Documents\Starfury.lwo
ShowObject 7 7
ObjectMotion (unnamed)
9
1
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0
EndBehavior 1
ParentObject 10
ShadowOptions 7

There is more to the file than that, but this will serve as an example.

Notice the line that says: LoadObject C:\My Documents\Starfury.lwo

See that it says LoadObject...that means the setup file is looking in the folder
C:\My Documents for the Starfury.lwo file to load to the scene.  Since you most likely didn't save the file in this folder, the error will appear that states the setup file can not find the object.  All you have to do is change every line that begins with LoadObject to the location on your hard drive where you saved it. 

For example:

LoadObject C:\Some Folder Combination\Starfury.lwo

Then the setup file will know where to find the file.  Be sure to change ALL the LoadObject commands.  Then just click "Save".   Don't change the extension from .lws.  Now Bryce will open the file for you without a problem. 

This really isn't necessary, but if you don't like seeing an error message every time you use the imported object, this is how to get rid of it.

You were also reminded in Page 2 to smooth your imported objects.  It's a big disappointment to render a scene and see the object is faceted and unsmooth.
Don't forget the little tip about the Starfury Null 1 sphere.  I'm not sure if all Lightwave objects have such a control.  If you have trouble with moving, resizing, or rotating an imported object be sure to look for such a controlling object in the model.  If you don't have one, you may want to make one. 

All you need to do is:

  • create a sphere in the center of your model
  • then select all meshes
  • select the "A" for attributes
  • go to the linking tab
  • and select the sphere you created from the list (be sure all 4 linking options are selected)
Also it's a good idea to put some texture on all of the imported meshes to start even if you are going to change it later.  It's quite a pain at times to locate some small insignificant mesh later if you forgot to put some kind of texture on it.

 

 

Page 3 showed you to how to look at the orientation of objects as compared to the image map you intend to apply to it.   Just remember to set your object's attributes for rotation to 0, 0 , 0 for all planes and zoom in on it from top view to see how it is orientated.  Then you can see how a texture should be oriented so that you can easily apply it from the top of the mesh.

 

Part 4 gave you a chance to rotate the incorrect map to match to orientation of the mesh.  If you did it on your own..GREAT!!!  But if you didn't, here is what was wrong.
Fluspec.JPG was oriented wrong when compared to the mating object meshes SF Thrusterfins Small.  You needed to rotate the material map 90 degrees then save it.  This could have been done directly in Bryce, but I believe it is faster this way.

 

Site Note:

After you texture this model as many ways as you can imagine, find some others on the internet to texture.  If the models that you download do not come with textures, create your own or you can get some from the spaceship texturing tutorial.  Apply the same basic rules that were illustrated here to texture your own imported meshes.

Have fun texturing your own models!

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!

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