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4/15/00
My first work with Bryce and Poser. The first frame of a large
animation, this uses the sky and terrain features of Bryce. In addition, the
figure is shaded with Bryce textures on top of the base Poser textures.
The trilobite was made in Carrara using the spline modeler.This
was an interesting task which almost defeated me. I finally found that starting
with the general shape of the trilobite from above and below, and then adding
the points needed to create the segmentation was the easiest way to proceed.
A separate light was added for the sunset highlights on the beach,
because the actual angle of the sun that allowed it to be in the frame didn't
allow it to provide the fill light that I needed to add dimension to the beach,
especially at certain angles in the animation. In addition, the default waves
and the default reflectivity of the water used were altered to more correctly
match what would be expected.
The use of the blue light was an attempt to make the original
landscape somewhat more exciting in visual terms. A later development of this
animation is expected to show it as the light cast from a nearby door.
The following are some selected frames (unfortunately, the whole
animation is about 12 Mb, making it impractical to offer online) - note how
the sun sets during the animation. Also, the clouds and ocean are animated (the
ocean is an infinite plane, moved slowly past the island:
Note how the extra fill works in the first and second of the above
images, reminding us of the presence and location of the sun.
The following "Director's Camera" rendering of the face
shows details of the texturing of hair, skin, eyebrows, lips, and some of the
clothing of the Poser character used; texturing was also used to add wrinkles
to the jeans.

Unfortunately, my ambition to animate the Poser figure in Bryce
was somewhat defeated by the alterations in import size produced by Bryce attempting
to interpret the scale of multiple framed figures. I had intended to bring in
all of the figures for all of the frames, and simply hide and reveal them (I
still don't know if that's possible) or to create a variety of single frames
and later assemble them into the animation. That remains a project for the future.
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