Section Modeling Steps

This assigning things to families may seem tedious, but it will save time in the long run. Eventually, we'll paint Robby's body a special color. By having all those parts in their own family, we can pick the family and automatically pick only the parts we want to receive the Robby Paint color. Similarly, if we want to find all our"pre painted" objects-- our new family "painted" makes that just as easy. It will select ALL the pre painted objects for us if we need them. Family is a very efficient way to organize things in addition to groups, it just takes some planning ahead!

Step 1: Make the Rocker Deck

Robby's heart box has a set of four "rockers" at the bottom. These flip back and forth constantly. I have no idea why. It looked to me like they were mounted on an angled "deck" in some of the film shots, so I have chosen to make a deck here too. It also adds some visual interest, and is a good practicing project in Bryce 5.

Choose the Cube object from the Create Palette. When it appears in the workspace, open the Attributes box and set the following:

Position: X = 0, Y = 92.65 , Z = -27.70
Rotate = X = 19, Y = 0, Z = 0
Size: X = 16.40, Y = 6.40, Z = 0.40
Boolean = Neutral
Name: rocker deck

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes box.

You can do one of two things here. You can "paint" this object, or assign it to the Robby Paint family so it uses his body color that we'll apply later.

For learning purposes, lets paint it.

If you want the deck to "stand out" more, assign the rocker deck to a Family. We do this because we are going to paint it, so we want to separate it from the "Robby Paint" family of objects and put it in a family of "pre-painted" objects. Choose a color cube for this new family (I chose orange) and name it "painted".

Keep the deck selected, we're going to paint it (apply a material to it) next! This will save us time in the long run.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: Specular is a feature of an object's "shine". An object with high specularity will shine (have a "highlight-- often white- but a color can be used) when exposed to or directly hit by light, whereas an object with low specularity will appear "matte" or "flat".

A rubber tire has very low or no specularity, a polished table has high specularity. This is similar to, but not the same as reflection.

This is important to know because ALL objects reflect, absorb and bounce light. By controlling the color and degree of specularity, we control an object's shininess.

I will say "painting" and "paint" a lot in this tutorial but I really mean "apply a material to". With Bryce 5, you "paint" an object by applying a material to it, You can't paint it like you would an item in a paint program.

With the switch deck selected, click on the M box to open the Materials Lab. Understanding the Materials Lab is a tutorial in itself!

Right now, the material for the deck is the default gray.

We're going to change that. The deck needs a special kind of black material, or it won't show up in the model at render time when Robby is fully "painted". It will just blend into the background. But we want it to stand out a little, so we give it a special material all its own.

Pick the simple black material for the object. We simply need to adjust the colors and values of the material.

Set Diffusion = 100
Set Specularity = 25
All else = 0

Now change the Specular color.

Hold down the Option key (MAC) or the ALT key (WINDOWS) and click in the color oval for the Specular color. You'll see the Colors dialog box. At the bottom of the box are terms: RGB, HSV, HLS, CMY. We want to use RGB, which is the default anyway.

You know you have the RGB color spectrum because it will say RGB next to the three color channels. Enter the following numbers in the color channels value boxes:

R = 75
G = 75
B = 75

Click the Check Mark to close the Colors box. The Specular color is set. Click the Check Mark to close the Materials Lab. You color will be applied to the Switch Deck object. You have just painted it!

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 3: Make a "Rocker"

Now that we have the deck, we need to make the "rockers". We'll make one from the Rounded Cube mesh object (the switches are contoured), "paint it", and then replicate the other three that belong in the heart box on the deck.

Get the rounded cube 1 object from the create palette and rotate it and Set As Unity. You should be very familiar with this process by now! If not, click here for a refresher course.

Smooth the object as much as you like. If you forgot how to do this, click here. Make sure you have "Solid When Boolean Rendering" turned ON.

Click on the Attributes Box. Enter the following coordinates:

Position: X = -5.25, Y = 92.90 , Z = -28.05
Rotate = X = 19, Y = 0, Z = 0
Size: X = 2, Y = 4.25, Z = 0.50
Boolean = Neutral
Name: rocker 1

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Window.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: This "paint job" (material) uses a different light feature: Ambience to influence the look of the material.

Ambience is the amount of "inner glow" a material has under different lighting conditions. If an object has no ambience is has no glow. All its light comes from the external lighting sources. But if it has high ambience, it will appear to glow, even in low light conditions. This lighting feature is used in CGI illustrations to imitate the light of a fluorescent bulb. A strip or long object is given a white diffusion color and a white ambient color and the ambience is set very high. It then looks like a glowing fluorescent light!

Step 4: Color the "Rocker"

The "rockers" need to visually stand out from the heart box and rocker deck, so they need their own material.

Select the "rocker" you just made and go into the Materials Lab.

Pick the simple black material for the object. We just need to set the colors and values.

Set Diffusion = 100
Set Ambience = 40.6
Set Specularity = 40.6
Refraction = 100
All else = 0

Now change the Ambient color.

Hold down the Option key (MAC) or the ALT key (WINDOWS) and click in the color oval for the Specular color. You'll see the Colors dialog box. At the bottom of the box are terms: RGB, HSV, HLS, CMY. We want to use RGB, which is the default anyway.

You know you have the RGB color spectrum because it will say RGB next to the three color channels. Enter the following numbers in the color channels value boxes:

R = 83
G = 83
B = 83

Click the Check Mark to close the Colors box. The Ambient color is set.

Click the Check Mark to close the Materials Lab. You color will be applied to the "rocker" object. Since it is painted, assign it to the "painted" Family that you set up for the rocker deck object.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Here's what happened in Multi-Replicate:

Quantity told Bryce 5 how many duplications to make (we need four switches, we have one, so we want Bryce 5 to make 3 for us.)

Offset told Bryce 5 how many units to move each duplicate object from the other, starting with the original object. So in our case, it moved the second switch 3.50 units from the first on the X axis, then the next one 3.50 units from the previous one, and so on. It could have done this on the Y or Z axis, and even all three at once if we had asked it to.

Rotate told Bryce 5 how many degrees to rotate each replicated object, based on the previous one.

Size told Bryce 5 how many units to alter the size of the replicated objects based on the previous one.

Step 5: Replicate the "rocker"

The "rocker" is all set up and the other three can be made from it, materials, family and all, using the Multi-Replicate command.

Select the rocker and look under the Edit menu (in the top menu bar next to the File menu) for the listing "Multi-Replicate" and choose it. The Multi-Replicate dialog box will open.

This is a really useful function in Bryce 5!

Multi-Replicate will often suggest settings based on the last thing you did. If you did nothing, it will suggest nothing. So watch the coordinates in this window carefully, they are suggestions, but may NOT be good ones! Instead, we'll learn to set our own coordinates just as we do in the Attributes box.

Set the coordinates as follows:

Quantity = 3
Offset: X = 3.50, Y = 0, Z = 0
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0, Z = 0
Size: X = 100, Y = 100, Z = 100

When you click on the Check Mark, the box will close and you'll now have FOUR "rockers" (as I show in the image), the three replicated ones are selected and properly positioned in your heart box! If, for some reason they are not, because they are selected, you can delete them and try again!

Thanks to Multi-Replicate, all the remaining rockers were made in one step-- color, family and all. This can be very useful when doing a LOT of replications.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: Why haven't we used the Robby color yet? Robby's color is a dark 'gunmetal", a buffed satiny black. He's going to need some lighting help to really "shine". We will be applying artificial lights to him. Doing that during the modeling process would make tests renders painfully slow, so we wait until the model is made, then color it and apply the required lights.

Step 6: Make the Aperture

Robby had an "intake port" called the "aperture". In the "Forbidden Planet". We won't make a functioning aperture, just the illusion of one. To do that, we use the cylinder object.

Choose the cylinder form the Create Palette. It will come into your workspace in the wrong orientation for our purposes.

In the Attributes box, set Z rotation = 90. Click on the Check Mark to apply the change.

Open the Attributes box, do a Set as Unity and click on the Check Mark to apply the change. This sets the cylinder in the right orientation for us.

Open the Attributes box again and set the following coordinates:

Position: X = 0, Y = 108.85 , Z = -26.20
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 17.50, Y = 7.20, Z = 6
Boolean = Positive
Name: aperture

The aperture will have the Robby color, so assign it to the Robby Paint Family your chose (dark green, remember?)

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 7: Make the Aperture Slot

To make the illusion of the functioning aperture, we need to give it a seam or "slot", so it looks like the aperture has two pieces. We do that with the cylinder, in fact, we duplicate the aperture and adjust it for our purposes!

Select the aperture object and DUPLICATE it.

Open the duplicate's Attributes box and set the following coordinates:

Position: X = 0, Y = 108.85 , Z = -28.95
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 17, Y = 0.25, Z = 3.10
Boolean = Negative
Name: aperture slot

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

Now this slot is going to be painted, so assign it to your "painted" Family. (The orange box, remember)

SAVE YOUR WORK!

We're going to group this with the aperture, but first let's apply its proper color.

Step 8: Color the Aperture Slot

With the Aperture Slot object selected, go to the Materials Lab. Choose the simple black material and then change its values as follows:

Diffusion = 100
Specularity = 81.3
Refraction = 100

Set all other values to 0 (zero)

Click the Check Mark to apply the material

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Back in the wireframe window, select the Aperture and the Aperture Slot and GROUP them. Note that when you group these two, they keep their separate family assignments!

The group should have the following coordinate values, or something very close to them (remember the Bryce 5 rounding error!)

Position: X = 0, Y = 108.85 , Z = -26.85
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 17.50, Y = 7.20, Z = 7.30
Boolean = Neutral

If this is correct, give it a name:

Name: aperture group

The aperture group will now blend into the frame seamlessly.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Remember, it's worth it to take a second and save your work rather than lose it!

Now we move on to those analyzer dials!

Step 9: Make the Dial Plate

Above the "rockers" are two round "dials" that rotate and flash lights. When I first saw them, I thought they were tape recorder reels! But I am told they are the DNA and molecular analyzer dials or indicators. Who knew? They are not identified as to which is which, so I am calling them "left dial" and "right dial". We'll make a left dial assembly and then duplicate it and modify it. This will make our left and right dials.

Select the Sphere object from the Create Palette and set its Attributes as follows:

Position: X = 4, Y = 100.15 , Z = -26.70
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 6.75, Y = 6.75, Z = 1
Boolean = Neutral
Name: dial plate

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

Assign this to your "painted" family.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: This object is supposed to be a flat disc. But in Bryce 5 (and other programs) a flat disc doesn't do well with metallic materials, which this will have. So I used a flattened sphere, which makes the metallic material shine better.

Step 10: Color the Dial Plate

The left dial plate is a metallic golden color.

With the left heart box disc selected, go to the Materials Lab. (Or use the Materials Selector from the Palette at the top of the workspace-- triangle next to EDIT.)

Look in the Materials selector for the METALS category and pick the Brushed Bronze material.

Click the Check Mark to select the material and pick the Check Mark in the Materials Lab to apply it.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: The torus makes a convenient rim because it has some curvature, which makes its metallic surface shine well. And because we duplicated the dial plate to make, it, it has inherited the dial plate's material, which is what we want!

Step 11: Make the Dial Rim

The dials have little rims. We'll make them from the torus object.

Select the dial plate object and Duplicate it.

Go to the EDIT palette at the top of the workspace.

On the right top side of the palette, you'll see a double headed white arrow (<-->)

Click and hold on the arrow to expand the "objects selector" and slide over to the torus (it will turn white) and let go.

This will change the duplicated object from a sphere to a torus.

Edit the torus radius to 30 (If you need a refresher on how to edit the torus radius, click here).

Set the duplicate's Attributes as follows:

Position: X = 4, Y = 100.15 , Z = -26.70
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 7, Y = 7, Z = 2
Boolean = Neutral
Name: dial rim

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

Assign the dial rim to your painted family.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

If you look at your dial light carefully, you'll see that it is in the "12 o'clock" position on the dial plate and there is a red line extending to the center of the dial plate. The green box at the end of the line is the dial light's origin point.

Origin and Position:

Normally we have the same origin point and position point for an object. The position point is always the logical center of an object or group. Changing it moves the object or group based on its logical center. The origin point can be place anywhere, though it is normally also located in the logical center of the object (such as the center of a circle.) Sometimes, it is useful to set the origin point outside the object (this allows one object to "orbit" another, for example). To do this, we have to unlock the relationship between the origin and position points. When we do that, the object itself will center on the position coordinates (based on its logical center) but the origin point can be somewhere else. The object will always rotate around its origin point, but its position is based on its logical center. This is yet another really nice feature in Bryce 5! (You could have dragged the origin point by hand, but that is less accurate than doing it by the numbers.)

Step 12: Make the first Left Dial Light

The left dial has four lights. We won't use Bryce 5 lights for this, we'll make spheres! We'll make one from the left dial plate and then Multi-Replicate the others.

Select the dial plate and Duplicate it.

Set the duplicate's Attributes box. We are going to do some advanced coordinate assignments with this object to make the replication process work for us.

The dial lights are located around the dial, much like the numbers on the face of a clock. To get Multi-Replicate to put our replicated objects in the right places, we have to set up the first object so it can rotate around a center point that matches the center point of the dial plate. We do that by assigning different origin point and position coordinates.

In the Attributes box:

Turn ON "Show Origin Handle" (this is so you can see what is happening)

UNLOCK the Absolute Coordinates (click on the red lock and it will turn gray.)

Enter the following figures in the coordinates.

Origin: X = 4, Y = 100.15 , Z = -26.70
Position: X = 4, Y = 101.75 , Z = -26.70
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 2, Y = 2, Z = 2
Boolean = Neutral
Name: dial light 1

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes box and set the new object in place.

The dial light is already assigned to your "Painted" family.

Keep it selected, we have to color it.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 13: Color the Dial Light

With the dial light selected, enter the Materials Lab.

Open the materials selector and choose the Metals category.

In the metals category, select Brushed Pewter or Brushed Silver. Don't used "polished"-- that has too much reflection and will not look as good!

Click the Check Mark to select the material, then click the Check Mark in the Materials Lab to apply the material.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: If you need to make any of the dial lights "light" you can easily do so by increasing the ambient value of its material. This will not actually give off any light, but it will give the illusion of light. It also saves a lot of rendering time because lights in Bryce demand a huge amount of calculation. So this is a simple trick to making the appearance of a light without costly rendering times!

Step 14: Multi-Replicate the Left Dial Lights.

We can safely Multi-Replicate the first dial light and generate the others at the 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00 o'clock positions on the dial!

Select the dial light and open the Multi-Replicate dialog box from the EDIT menu (not the Edit Palette!)

Set the following values in the coordinates:

Quantity = 3
Offset: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 90.00
Size: X = 100, Y = 100, Z = 100

Click the Check Mark to close the Multi-Replicate box and apply the changes. You'll see four spheres on your dial plate! The three replicated ones will be selected.

Open the Attributes box (it is controlling three items!) and do a Set As Unity (but do not change anything else.) This re-aligns the replicated spheres to the coordinate system (they were rotated, so we have to treat them like any rotated object.)

The replicated dial lights will belong to the "painted" family and will have the color of the first light.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 15: Group the Left Dial

Carefully Shift-Select the objects we made for the left dial.

You should see that little G at the bottom of the icon column. Click on it to group the objects.

Open the Attributes and check the coordinates:

Position: X = 4, Y = 100.15 , Z = -26.70
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 7, Y = 7, Z = 2
Boolean = Neutral

If these numbers match (or are within .01) Name the group: left dial group

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 16: Make the Right Dial

The right dial can be made from the left one.

Select the left dial group and DUPLICATE it.

Open the Attributes box and set the following coordinates:

Position: X = -4, Y = 100.15 , Z = -26.70
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 7, Y = 7, Z = 2
Boolean = Neutral

Actually, all you had to do was make the X position a negative value!

Name your new group: right dial group.

It has inherited the family and materials of the left dial.

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 17: Delete the Extra Right Dial Lights

The right dial has a single button/light in the center. We'll make that from one of the lights it already has but first we need to get rid of the extras.

Use the sphere selector (click on the sphere at the bottom of the work space in the icon row) and select:

dial light 5
dial light 6
dial light 7

Delete these spheres. (Dial lights 1 - 4 belong to the left dial group)

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 18: Position the Right Dial Button/Light

We'll "reverse" the process we used to change the origin point of the first left dial light. This will put the right dial button/light in the proper place.

Open the Attributes box.

UNLOCK the lock next to the Absolute Coordinates and turn ON "Show Origin Handle" (this is so you can see it-- it isn't absolutely necessary)

Set the coordinates as follows:

Origin: X = -4, Y = 100.15, Z = -26.70
Position: X = -4, Y = 100.15, Z = -26.70
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0, Z = 0
Size: X = 2, Y = 2, Z = 2
Boolean = Neutral
Name: right dial button

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box. The button/light will move to the center of the dial, just where we want it!

Now, for a quick trick. The right dial needs a silver color.

Select the right dial group, go to the Materials Lab and apply the Brushed Silver color.

You've recolored the entire group in one step!

But the light/button in the center is hard to see. We'll change that now.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 19: Color the Right Dial Button/Light

Select ONLY the right dial button/light object.

Open the materials selector and pick the simple gray material, then alter its values as follows:

Specularity = 42.3
Metallicity = 42.3
Reflection = 35.5
Refraction = 100

Set all other values to 0 (zero)

Click the Check Mark to apply the material

SAVE YOUR WORK!

We use a cone instead of a pyramid to give some curvature to the star point surface. This makes it render a metallic material with more interest.

Step 20: Make the Right Dial "star"

There is a decorative star at the base of the right dial button/light. No, I don't know why. We can make this in Bryce 5 by using the cone object and-- you guessed it-- multi-replicating!

Select the right dial button and DUPLICATE it.

With the duplicate selected, go to the edit palette (not the EDIT menu!) and click on the double white arrow and hold the mouse button down. Slide over to the cone object and release the mouse. The cone object will appear in your workspace.

Open the Attributes box and set the following coordinates:

Check ON "Show Origin Handle" (so you can see it)

UNLOCK the lock next to Absolute Coordinates

Enter the following:

Origin: X = -4, Y = 100.15, Z = -27.15
Position: X = -4, Y = 101.55, Z = -27.15
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 1.80, Y = 2.80, Z = 0.30
Boolean = Neutral
Name: starpoint 1

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

The star point will jump to position. You'll see that the origin handle is now at it's base, not its logical center. We needed to do that for out Multi-Replicate step

The star point will belong to the "painted family" but will have the same material as the button. We want to change that.

With the star point selected, go to the Materials Lab and choose a nice brushed golden metallic color. I chose Brushed Bronze. Don't use a polished color, it will have too much reflection.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Note: You could have made the star points back when we duplicated the left dial by simply changing the left dial lights in the duplicate to cones. But I wanted you to get practice with Multi-Replicate and re-setting origin points. In Bryce 5, there are MANY ways to do something!

Step 21: Multi-Replicate the Star Point.

We can safely Multi-Replicate the first star point and generate the others at the 3:00, 6:00 and 9:00 o'clock positions on the dial!

Select the star point and open the Multi-Replicate dialog box from the EDIT menu (not the Edit Palette!)

Set the following values in the coordinates:

Quantity = 3
Offset: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 90.00
Size: X = 100, Y = 100, Z = 100

Click the Check Mark to close the Multi-Replicate box and apply the changes. You'll see four star points on your dial plate! The three replicated ones will be selected.

Open the Attributes box (it is controlling three items!) and do a Set As Unity (but do not change anything else.) This realigns the replicated star points to the coordinate system (they were rotated, so we have to treat them like any rotated object.)

The replicated star points will belong to the "painted" family and will have the color of the first star point.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 22: Group the Heart Box

Everything for the heart box is made now, we just have to group it all so we can get to it at any time easily and it acts as a single unit.

Carefully select ALL the objects you created for the heart box, including the heart box frame group.

You should see a little G in the icon column. Click on the G to group the items.

Open the Attributes box and check the following coordinates:

Position: X = 0, Y = 101.35, Z = -26.85
Rotate: X = 0, Y = 0 , Z = 0
Size: X = 19.45, Y = 26.95, Z = 7.30
Boolean = Neutral

If these numbers match yours (or are very close-- only off by .01 in any value) then Name: heart box assembly group.

Click the Check Mark to close the Attributes Box.

SAVE YOUR WORK!

Step 23: Render!

Your rendered version of the heart box should look something like the image here.

If you click on the SOLO mode to get back to the full wire frame and do a render, you'll see the heart box in it's proper position in Robby's chest.