Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved. back he next chapter addresses editing objects. Bryce can resize, reposition and rotate 3D objects. There is some discussion of world (absolute), object (relative) and camera (relative) 3D space. The center of Bryce's world is at 0, 0, 0 on the X, Y and Z axis. Objects that are newly created will be at that location provided the edit/preferences dialog box has the create objects at world center button selected. World space refers to the location of things in absolute terms or, in other words, where they are in the world. Object and camera space are relative terms that relate to their individual situations. The edit palette and its associated icons is discussed. The icon on the extreme left is the edit materials icon. This feature will be discussed at length later. The small triangle just below and to the right of this icon provides access to the edit 2D and 3D texture areas which will also be discussed later. The next icon is the resize icon. When the cursor is placed on any of the spokes of this icon an x, y or z box appears to let the user know which direction the selected object will be resized. When the cursor is placed over the box in the middle of the resize icon, depressing the mouse button and dragging will resize the entire object. The text in the lower left corner of the interface provides a description of the action. The control and alt keys provide additional assistance. Perhaps the best way to discuss this is to just describe what happens because the text didn't make any sense to me. First, visualize a box object. When the control key is depressed and the top spoke is selected, dragging the mouse causes the entire box object to be resized in all 3 directions however the bottom of the box doesn't change its location. The sides expand or contract thus moving in and out. The top expands and contracts thus moving up and down but the bottom of the box doesn't move down or up. It remains on the same plane. Of course its edges widen or contract since that is where the sides are but the bottom doesn't otherwise move. When the alt key is depressed the 2 opposing sides will expand or contract. The small triangle below and to the right of the icon provides access to a drop down menu that allows the user to select world, object or camera space. It allows the user to undo all resizing performed so far. It also allows flipping the object on any of its axis although the manual states that this is not flipping in the usual 180 degrees sense. It is more of an inversion of the object's dimension along the selected axis. The drop down menu also provides access to the 3D transformations dialog box. This box allows precision, numerical entries to be entered thus providing precision in scaling, rotation and positioning. The scaling is in percentage, the rotation is in degrees and the positioning is in Bryce units. A Bryce unit is a measurement increment that is peculiar to Bryce. They have essentially invented their own unique yardstick for measurement purposes that doesn't relate to any other measurement method that is used anywhere else. Essentially what all this means doesn't appear to be terribly important except when dealing objects. All objects in Bryce are 2048 X 2048 X 2048 Bryce units in size. Some objects, such as terrain, are modified at creation to look the way they are supposed to look but the reality is that everything is the same size when created. Bryce further simplifies (or complicates depending on your point of view) the situation by moving the decimal 2 places left when dealing with dialog box entries. So, back to the 3D transformations dialog box, if the user wants to move a selected object exactly one diameter of its unresized size, all the user has to do is type in 20.48 in the appropriate axis box. There, that wasn't so hard was it?! he next icon on the edit menu is for rotation. When the cursor is positioned over any of the 3 bands that are around the box, a small x, y or z will pop up thus denoting the axis around which the selected object will be rotated. Holding down the shift key constrains rotations to 45 degree increments that increase or decrease from the existing position. The small triangle below and to the right of the rotate icon opens a drop down menu that allows selection of object, world or camera space. It allows the unrotation of the selected object. It also provides access to the previously discussed 3D transformation dialog box. The next icon is for alignments. Objects are usually aligned in some fashion or other to each other. Furthermore they are aligned in relation the object created first. So if a sphere and a box are selected and the sphere was created first then the box will be aligned, in what ever fashion is selected, to the sphere. If the user desires the sphere to be aligned to the box then the sphere must be selected, cut, then pasted. The sphere will reappear in its original location when it is pasted but now it will be the most recently created object so it will align to the box. The alignment options are align X (left, center and right), align Y (top, center and bottom), align Z (front, center and back) and align XYZ center which places all selected objects in the center. When objects are selected they may be positioned by the drop down menu that is accessed via the small triangle below and to the right of the align icon. The snap to grid option will cause selected objects to jump immediately to Bryce's invisible grid. Snap together is used when 2 or more objects have been selected and will cause them to snap together in such a fashion that they occupy the same space. Snap to world center will cause all selected objects to go to the center of the world. Snap to ground will cause selected objects to move so that their bottoms are touching the ground plane. The snap to land selection will cause all selected objects to fall until the encounter something beneath them. If the object overlap is less than 50% then the object above will pass through the object below. If the overlap is greater than 50%, then the object above will rest on top of the object below. If the land selection is repeated the object will continue on down until it eventually hits the ground plane where it will stop for good. The next icon deals with randomization, dispersal, rotation and resizing of selected objects. The appearance of the icon changes depending on which type of option is selected from the drop down menu. The easiest way I found to utilize this feature is to select the objects you wish to randomize. Use the drop down menu to select one of the 8 randomization options. Then place the cursor over the small green ball just above the icon and drag. You will see all of the selected objects flying about the view in a method that you determined when you selected the option from the drop down menu. The last icon is the terrain/object editor. This icon accesses 4 very different editors for 4 different types of objects. It can be used to edit lights, a polygon such as a rock, a torus or terrain. If a light object is selected and this icon is clicked, then the edit lights dialog box opens. This dialog box has quite a few options and features associated with it. The largest window in the edit lights dialog box is the light preview window. This gives a thumbnail view of what the light might look like in the scene. It will also allow isolation of the light and render against a neutral scene if the user wishes. The small top window to the left of the light preview window is for adjusting light intensity. The user simply clicks and drags left or right inside this window and the displayed light gets brighter or dimmer as the dragging occurs. A numerical display appears above the light preview window that will change from zero for no light to 100 for maximum light. The small window just below the light intensity adjustment window is for adjusting softness. The user clicks and drags inside this window and adjusts softness from left to right. A number appears above the light preview window that changes from zero for no softness to 100 for maximum softness. The light color may be changed by clicking in the small rectangular area just below the light preview window. This action immediately calls up the color swatch where any of 16 million colors may be selected. Just below the color swatch is a strip that goes from black to white that may be used for light color too. The edit light dialog box also allows the importation of pictures and textures to use as gels. A click in the pict gels area launches the pictures dialog box. A click in the texture gels area launches the materials dialog box. The pictures dialog box will be discussed later as will the materials dialog box. If a rock or polyhedron is selected and the terrain/object editor icon is clicked then the polyhedron editor dialog box is displayed. Polyhedrons may be smoothed or unsmoothed by clicking on the appropriate icon. Just to the left of the smooth icon is a smooth gauge. The user can drag the little thermometer like gauge to whatever degree the user wishes. It will determine the maximum angle to be smoothed. In the adjacent image, the Bucky ball on the left was smoothed with the gauge at 180 degrees. The original is on the right. The terrain/object editor will display the torus editor when its icon is clicked and a torus is selected. This is quite strange in use but it works fine. The torus on the left above the ring like object in the adjacent image is actually spinning. The torus on the right is the one that is going to be edited. Editing occurs when the mouse is dragged across the spinning torus. This causes the hole in its middle to get larger when dragging to the left or smaller when dragging to the right. Once the user is pleased with the hole size, the white bead like area of the ring just below the spinning torus can be clicked to accept the change. The enter key may also be struck to accept the change. The manual incorrectly states that a click away from the torus editor will cause the changes to be accepted. A click away from the torus editor actually causes the changes to be ignored. The manual also incorrectly states that the escape key can be struck to exit the torus editor without any changes occurring. The escape key has no effect on my computer. Bryce can also convert any object or objects to any Bryce object. When an object or group of objects is selected, the cursor can depress the small left/right arrow at the top right of the edit palette. When this action is performed a menu flies out to the left that shows all of the various Bryce objects. The cursor may then be moved to the object desired and when the mouse button is released the selected object/objects will be converted to one of the Bryce objects. more   All pages copyright© Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1997 Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.