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Other
ClydeSight Productions Bryce 5 Tutorials:
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Learn Bryce 5 modeling by building a robot model based on "Robby, the Robot™"*
See local media coverage of this tutorial!
| This tutorial is intended to teach Bryce 5 users basic modeling techniques by building a robot BASED on the character Robby the Robot™. The Bryce 5 model can be used for educational and personal use ONLY. Commercial use of the model will require a license from Turner Entertainment Co., A Time Warner Company. ClydeSight Productions does not condone or imply any use of this model that would be construed to violate their rights, nor does it use the model in any of its own commercial products. See Disclaimer |
Building
Robby's Voice Box Note: This is a highly detailed tutorial. I STRONGLY suggest that you print these pages (there will be a lot of printed pages!) and use the hardcopy as a guide while working. It's much easier than having both Bryce 5 and your browser open and then flipping between applications!
Robby's mouth is one of his most distinctive features and has three sections: his cheeks, his voice box (voice tubes) and his lips. They look pretty complicated, but Bryce 5's features make them very easy to make-- if you know the tricks!
And that's why you're here, to learn the tricks in Bryce 5! In this section, you'll use the Boolean Negatives and Multi-Replicate to make short work of what looks difficult. Here, we'll make his voice box with those wonderful "speaking tubes" that light up when he talks. We can't make them out of lights, Bryce 5 doesn't have such a feature. Instead we'll make a special material that will give the illusion of lights!
If you have saved and closed your model, open it now and go to the RIGHT view. Select NONE and click on the SOLO button. You should have a blank workspace.
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After you Set As Unity this rotated object, your size coordinates will read: Size: X = 46, Y = 12.43, Z = 44.46
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Step 1: Make a Voice Tube. Robby's mouth was made up on nine mercury vapor tube lamps that lit up when he spoke. They had a special shape and curvature which we can easily make in Bryce 5. The trick is to use a torus and then Multi-Replicate. If you are in wireframe mode and can see your model, make sure you have not selected anything and click on the SOLO button in the VCR controls. This will hide all objects in your wireframe view. You should be in the RIGHT view (press 3 on the keyboard) and your workspace should appear to be blank. Click on the Torus in the Create Palette to bring it into your work space. It will arrive in the wrong orientation for our needs. Open its attributes box and set the Rotation X = 90. Click on the Check Mark to apply the changes. Open its attributes box and perform a Set As Unity to align it to the coordinate system. Click on the Check Mark to apply the changes. We need to edit the torus radius. Click on the E box at the bottom of the icon column to open the Edit Torus Window. Set the radius to 15 and click the Check Mark to close the window. Click on the Attributes Box and set the following coordinates: Position:
X = 0, Y = 119, Z = 0.30 Perform a Set As Unity. The 15 degree angle in the X rotation will become a zero (0) and the coordinate size values will change. This is because Bryce 5 creates a bounding box to define the object and gets all its coordinate information from there. Click on the Check Mark to apply the changes. We are going to give this tube a special material. We want a separate Family for the tubes (this makes selection easier). Open the Family box (click the second box in the icon column) and choose the Top row, second color cube from your left (light blue) and name the family "Voice Tubes". SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Note: This color makes a "lit" voice tube. To darken a voice tube, just lower the ambience and diffusion values, but leave the specularity. The tubes are glass and shiny which specularity provides. |
Step 2: Color the
Voice Tube
Robby's voice tubes have a unique color when lit, and we'll apply that to the first voice tube. When we Multi-Replicate it (you knew that was coming, didn't you?) all the replicants will have this material applied! With the voice tube 1 selected, enter the Materials Lab. We'll make our color based on the default gray that Bryce 5 provides. Change the Diffusion color to a light blue. To do this, hold down the Option (Mac) or ALT (Windows) key and click on the color oval. A Colors dialog box will appear. Make
sure you are in RGB mode and enter the following values: Assign the same color to the Ambient oval. There is a short cut for this. Click on the Ambient color oval and drag while holding the mouse button down. You'll see a little eye dropper. Point it to the color oval for Diffuse and let go. The Ambient color will copy the Diffusion color! Set the Specular color. To do this, hold down the Option (Mac) or ALT (Windows) key and click on the color oval. A Colors dialog box will appear. Make
sure you are in RGB mode and enter the following values: Now we set the Specular Halo color. To do this, hold down the Option (Mac) or ALT (Windows) key and click on the color oval. A Colors dialog box will appear. Make
sure you are in RGB mode and enter the following values: Finally,
we set the values in the Materials Lab: All other values should be zero (0). Click the Check Mark to close the Materials Lab and apply the material! SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Even though our voice tube is angled, because we did a Set As Unity, Bryce 5 will treat it as if it is horizontal! To Bryce 5, it is simply a diagonal object located inside a rectangular box. This is why the size coordinates changed value after SET AS UNITY. Bryce 5 will deal with the imaginary box defining the object. This also avoids skewing that could occur in Multi-Replicate So we only need to specify the Y offset. The voice tubes will simply move straight down on the Y axis. Thus, their fronts will be perfectly aligned to the Y axis, which is what we want! |
Step 3: Multi-Replicate
the Voice Tube.
There are 9 voice tubes in Robby's mouth. So we need to Multi-Replicate the first voice tube and that will make the other 8 for us! The first voice tube should still be selected. Go to the Edit menu (not the Edit Palette!) and pick Multi-Replicate. In the Multi-Replicate Window set the following coordinates: Quantity
= 8 Click on the Check Mark to perform the replication. You will see you have nine voice tubes in a row for Robby's voice box. They are all assigned to the same family and have the same Boolean properties and materials. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Step 4: Make the Voice Tube Brace The voice tubes are very delicate and would shake and clatter when Robby walks, so they have a brace in the center. This is clearly visible in the films. We'll make it from a cylinder that is very thin. This will give it a type of "point" which we could not get if we used a thin cube. Select the Cylinder object from the Create Palette. It will come into the workspace in the correct orientation. Click on the Attributes Box to enter the Attributes window. Enter the following coordinates: Position:
X = 0, Y = 121.70, Z = -21.25 We'll keep the Bryce 5 default color so it is visible. If we made it black, it would look like there was a gap in Robby's mouth! Since this makes it a "painted object", assign it to the "painted" family (I used the orange color cube) You don't need to set the rotation coordinates, they are already zero. Click on the Check Mark to apply the changes. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Step 5: Make the Voice Box Intersection Object If we left the voice tubes alone and just grouped them now, they'd wrap around Robby's head. We want to crop them so they are only be just slightly larger than the mouth KO we created in Robby's cheeks. Intersection to the rescue! Switch to the FRONT View, it will make things easier to see. Select the Cube object from the Create Palette. Click on the Attributes Box to enter the Attributes window. Enter the following coordinates: Position:
X = 0, Y = 121.24, Z = -20.18 Click on the Check Mark to apply the changes. Select any voice tube and COPY its material. Select the voice tube intersect and PASTE the material onto it. Assign it to your "Voice Tubes" family. SAVE YOUR WORK! |
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Step 6: Group the Voice Box Perform a "drag select" with the marquee to select all the objects that make up the voice box (be careful not to grab the camera!). A G box should appear at the bottom of the icon column. Click on the G to group the objects. Open the Attributes box and check the following coordinates: Position:
X = 0, Y = 116.11, Z = 0.09 If your numbers match mine (they might be off by .01 for some figures) Name the group: voice tube group SAVE YOUR WORK! NOTE: When Bryce 5 has a group or collection of objects and they belong to different families, it displays a gray box in the icon column. This does not ruin your family assignments, even when you group. |
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Step 7: Render Your Work If you stay in the SOLO mode and render your work, it should look like the image here. Remember that we set the tube material to be "lighted". To turn it off, just select the "Voice Tubes" family. This will select the tubes themselves. (Bryce 5 Family is VERY useful!) Change the material by reducing the Diffusion and Ambience values. Because the tubes are supposed to be glass, leave the specularity alone. That will give them a shiny appearance as if they were glass. |
Congratulations! You have made Robby's voice tubes (his voice box) . You used the same principles as for the cheeks but you also learned the power of the Set As Unity function. Has you not used it, when you did the Multi-Replication of the first voice tube, all the others would have "stair stepped" because they are set at an angle. Set As Unity made Bryce 5 treat the angle as zero. Now all we have to do is make Robby's lips and put everything together and his mouth will be complete.
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Tutorial copyright - © ClydeSight Productions - 2004
