Tutorial:
Creating 3D panoramas with Bryce

This tutorial describes how to create complete panoramas using Bryce 2 or Bryce 3D, by creating six images (forward, right, back, left, up, and down) that together form a seamless, complete panorama.

Note: The SkyPaint user manual describes creating panoramas using Bryce's built-in "Render QTVR" function. This document describes a different method that produces full panoramas (you can look straight up and straight down) of higher quality.

Requirements:

• Bryce 2 or Bryce 3D
• SkyPaint

Step 1: Set image size

First, set the document properties so that the images rendered will be the right size and so that they will fit together correctly. Open the "Document Setup" dialog:

Type in "1 : 1" for the aspect ratio, and choose whatever resolution you like for Document Resolution. Remember, six images make up one panorama, so the larger the resolution the longer it will take to render (and the longer it will take to download, if you will publish the panorama on the Web). 512x512 creates nice looking panoramas.

Step 2: Make sure nothing is linked to the view

Be sure that the sun (or any other object) is not linked to the view.

You will render the panorama as six separate views, and if the sun or any objects are linked to the view then the illusion of one continuous world will be ruined.

Steps 3-9: Render the panorama images

Next, render images corresponding to the view forward, right, backwards, left, up, and down. Do this by first opening the "Camera & 2D Projection" dialog in Bryce:

Be sure to use a 'FOV' of 112.5 degrees. This field-of-view will make each of the six images produced line up perfectly with the images surrounding it, creating a seamless panorama. Technical note: most other 3D applications would call this a 90° FOV; Bryce field-of-view settings must be multiplied by 0.8 to get the "true" FOV.

For each of the six images, set the camera's rotation as follows:

Live Picture / VRML "Background" format
X	Y	Z	Image Name
0	0	0	_FR.bmp
0	90	0	Byrce3d: _RT.bmp Bryce 2: _LF.bmp
0	180	0	_BK.bmp
0	-90	0	Bryce3d: _LF.bmp Bryce 2: _RT.bmp
-90	0	0	_UP.bmp
90	0	0	_DN.bmp

If you don't want rotation 0/0/0 to be the "forward" view in the panorama, you can simply keep the Y rotation of your camera and just add the values in the above table as you render each image. For example, if you want the view forward to be at Y rotation 55, then the Y rotations to use would be 55, 145, 235, -35, 55, and 55. (Another technical note: Bryce always displays rotations as values between -180 and +180; you can enter a rotation of 235°, but if you go back and look at the values again Bryce will display it as -125°)

We strongly recommend that you use the X and Z rotations given in the table; if you use other values for the X and Z rotations, the panorama will be tilted. Leave the position of the camera the same for all six renderings.

3DStudio MAX R2 environment maps use a very similar format to the above-- just reverse the front (_FR) and back (_BK) images. QuakeII uses the old 3DStudioR4 environment map conventions, which are different from 3DStudio MAX R2-- the top and bottom images are rotated 90°, as follows:

Bryce on the PC can render to either BMP or Photoshop formats, but QuakeII supports only Targa images, so the images must be converted. If you are using SkyPaint, it is easiest to render BMP files in Bryce to the Live Picture "Background" format and then use SkyPaint to preview your panorama and Save As... QuakeII Targa. SkyPaint will do all the required image swapping, rotating, and converting.

Once you have set the camera appropriately, render the image to disk:

Decide on a name for your panorama, for example "WaterCanyon". Then, in the Save As dialog box give the forward image the name "WaterCanyon_FR.bmp", the looking-right image the name "WaterCanyon_RT.bmp", and so on (back: WaterCanyon_BK.bmp, left: WaterCanyon_LF.bmp, up: WaterCanyon_UP.bmp, down: WaterCanyon_DN.bmp).

Final step: Check the results in SkyPaint

Finally, run SkyPaint. Choose 'File->Open' and select "LivePicture Background, BMP" in the 'Files of type:' list. Then select the _FR.bmp image that you saved, and SkyPaint will read in all six images and display the panorama, allowing you to look left/right/up/down to be sure that the entire panorama was created correctly.

Use SkyPaint to touch-up or add elements to the panorama, or use 'File->Save As' to save the panorama in another format.

Troubleshooting

Some problems you might have:

• Colors in the images don't match. This can be caused if the sun is linked to the view. Be sure the sun or any other objects or effects are NOT linked to the view.
• It takes a really long time to create each image. At the expense of some disk space, you can do the following to render the panorama overnight:
  1. Use Save As... to save six different copies of your Bryce world, giving each copy different camera parameters and different names (e.g. Foo_FR.br3, Foo_BK.br3, and so on).
  2. Drag and drop all 6 worlds onto the Bryce executable. It will then render all six views, saving them in separate image files.
• Images don't match up properly. Be sure that the camera's FOV parameter is set to 112.5°. And be sure to use the correct camera rotation values.