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Backdrop landscape advise

Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in Bryce Discussion

Dear All,

I am hoping to make a backdrop for a model slot car set up I have. It is large though and I'd need to create something 24ft long and may be 3ft tall. I have access to poster printer which will do a roll so printing is not a problem.
But I am not sure how to handle Bryce for this. I want the look to be distant hills with a lovely rendered sky. But I don't want it to be a 360 panorama because I think I will need more than one render and thus cannot have wrapping around on it self several times.
I hope to be able stitch bryce renders together to make a bigger picture of the distant landscape.
I think I need a telephoto focal length for the camera and then translate the camera along the landscape to capture separate renders and then stitch/blend them together.
Will this work ? I am thinking that I will have problem that each render the scene lightning will not be based on the renders I would do each side and thus I would get band in the light levels as I join them together.
As anyone done something like this before - stitch two separate renders - what sort of camera focal length do you think might work.
I have tried some simple tests, but I don't they will stitch together.
Thanks for any advise. Karl

Comments

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    karlharrison said:
    Dear All,

    I am hoping to make a backdrop for a model slot car set up I have. It is large though and I'd need to create something 24ft long and may be 3ft tall. I have access to poster printer which will do a roll so printing is not a problem.
    But I am not sure how to handle Bryce for this. I want the look to be distant hills with a lovely rendered sky. But I don't want it to be a 360 panorama because I think I will need more than one render and thus cannot have wrapping around on it self several times.
    I hope to be able stitch bryce renders together to make a bigger picture of the distant landscape.
    I think I need a telephoto focal length for the camera and then translate the camera along the landscape to capture separate renders and then stitch/blend them together.
    Will this work ? I am thinking that I will have problem that each render the scene lightning will not be based on the renders I would do each side and thus I would get band in the light levels as I join them together.
    As anyone done something like this before - stitch two separate renders - what sort of camera focal length do you think might work.
    I have tried some simple tests, but I don't they will stitch together.
    Thanks for any advise. Karl

    Sounds like an interesting challenge. OK have you got anything to work with so far are you just talking hypothetically?

    Or if you have any reference images that show what you are trying to achieve that would be a great help to putting some kind of solution together.

  • Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for reply. I hadn't started but was thinking just some low distant rolling hills and the main focus to be a lovely colour wash of the expansive sky. That is why I was thinking it would be tricky to get the stitching of the sky to work with such a long horizontal spread.

    I just read Horo's PDF about stitching bryce renders to get bigger than 4000px width but that article was about rotating the camera at its nodal point to stop parallax errors. But is my case I think I need large horizontal shifts of the camera between renders and thus I'm not so sure the sky will join.

    Here is an example found via google search on model railway backdrop

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TSEaMgO8iA0/TJZ1SBl_8QI/AAAAAAAAAmA/dhGtqU2XLBk/s1600/Redmond+Shelf+186.jpg

    Karl

  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,533
    edited December 1969

    @karlharrison - welcome to Bryce and these forums. You can always render the scene as a 360° panorama. That will be a cylindrical panorama you can wrap around a cylinder. A cylindrical panorama leaves out the sky and the ground. If you need a full spherical panorama, you can use our Bryce 7 Pro Spherical Mapper and render a spherical panorama in one go. There are other means, too: with Bryce 7.1 Pro you got tutorials how to make a light probe from your renders. Leave out the HDRI part and concentrate on the panorama. You find those tutorials in Content\Turorials\Horo in the Bryce main folder.

  • Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    P.s it is funny to see me listed as a new member, I used Bryce professionally for nearly 20 years and it is still one of my favourite software packages despite the many owners durning that time.

    I use Bryce to produce science illustrations and they appear almost monthly on science journal front covers c.f

    http://research.chem.ox.ac.uk/karl-harrison.aspx

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    karlharrison said:
    Thanks for reply. I hadn't started but was thinking just some low distant rolling hills and the main focus to be a lovely colour wash of the expansive sky. That is why I was thinking it would be tricky to get the stitching of the sky to work with such a long horizontal spread.

    I just read Horo's PDF about stitching bryce renders to get bigger than 4000px width but that article was about rotating the camera at its nodal point to stop parallax errors. But is my case I think I need large horizontal shifts of the camera between renders and thus I'm not so sure the sky will join.

    Here is an example found via google search on model railway backdrop

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TSEaMgO8iA0/TJZ1SBl_8QI/AAAAAAAAAmA/dhGtqU2XLBk/s1600/Redmond+Shelf+186.jpg

    Karl

    Ah, ha. Got it. I'll have a ponder.

  • Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Many thanks Horo I'll do some reading, the subtle depths of Bryce is that there is always more to learn, and I have been using your tutorials of late to add HDR effects.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    Something like this?

    Bryce 7.1 Pro Advanced - create a tracking panorama - by David Brinnen

    Long_hills1.jpg
    1750 x 219 - 145K
  • Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Dear David,

    What an amazing service, that was lovely video tutorial to answer my puzzle. I loved the idea of the infinite plane to give me a projection lens and the PanV in the camera was something I had never noticed before and answers one puzzle straight away.

    I will have a go very shortly.

    I think I'll want the sky render to actually be inline with the actual view of the model backdrop i.e. it is for a wall which is 24 ft long along just one side of the track and therefore its real field of view will be at most 160 degree from one end of the wall to the other, so the sky would ideally match that rather than 360 degree. Of course your video illustrated how I can achieve that.

    Many thanks again, Karl

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    karlharrison said:
    Dear David,

    What an amazing service, that was lovely video tutorial to answer my puzzle. I loved the idea of the infinite plane to give me a projection lens and the PanV in the camera was something I had never noticed before and answers one puzzle straight away.

    I will have a go very shortly.

    I think I'll want the sky render to actually be inline with the actual view of the model backdrop i.e. it is for a wall which is 24 ft long along just one side of the track and therefore its real field of view will be at most 160 degree from one end of the wall to the other, so the sky would ideally match that rather than 360 degree. Of course your video illustrated how I can achieve that.

    Many thanks again, Karl

    You are welcome Karl,

    Since you are a Bryce veteran I didn't think you'd struggle to adapt the idea to suit your needs. The science magazine covers look really good. You might consider popping some in the gallery here to show Bryce being used for things other than landscapes.

    Anyway, if you have any further questions or challenges, please feel free to put them to us. That was an interesting one certainly!

    Cheers,

    David.

  • Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    The PanH on the camera setting gave me an idea and I have found this will actually provide what I need. Since I have all the panorama stitching tools from my other work role (seeoxford.com) the PanH just acts a Shift lens and then I can stitch multiple views together and a quick test, which is a blend of five landscape each with a PanH shift of a few hundred pixels, is shown below.

    This should give the resolution and aspect ratio I am after - I just measured it and it actually more like a ratio of 24ft to 1.5ft based on the background board I have, this is very long and thin.

    Need now to create a lovely sky and rolling hills with a nice tree line now.

    Many thanks for your help.

    Karl

    backdrop_Panorama.jpg
    1800 x 173 - 508K
  • Karl HarrisonKarl Harrison Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yes, I have always meant to add some of my science illustrations to the gallery.

    Here is a nice sample - this was concept for a design I worked on a few months ago, and was created using real calculate 3d coordinates of RNA strands and real protein files which I uniquely bring into Bryce.

    Karl

    concept20v2.png
    612 x 792 - 820K
  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,533
    edited December 1969

    Very nice render. Thanks for sharing.

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    Very good. Be sure to pop it in the gallery so we can give it our vote!

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