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Exporting Terrains
The Export Terrain Lab allows you to convert Bryce terrains into polygonal meshes. The Lab provides you with full control over the level of detail in the polygonal mesh.
You can adjust the number of polygons with realtime feedback so you can instantly see the resulting change to your mesh.
In addition, the Lab allows you to manage the all-important texture maps so that your exported meshes retain the cool look as generated within Bryce.
To access the Export Terrain Lab:
- Edit and save a terrain in the Terrain Editor and click Export, which is located at the bottom of the map view.
Features of the Export Terrain Lab
The Export Terrain Lab is divided into two areas:
The mesh previewer allows you to instantly examine the quality of the current tessellation.
To manipulate the mesh:
- To rotate the mesh, click and drag in the previewer.
- To zoom the mesh in and out, Command/Control-click and drag in the previewer.
- To change the previewer display mode, select one of the buttons to the right of the previewer.
Available preview modes are: Wireframe, Shaded, Textured, and Textured With Wireframe Overlay.
- To adjust the colors of the wireframe and the shaded preview, select the color swatches underneath the preview mode buttons.
- To adjust the polygon count, move the slider below the previewer. This changes the quality of your mesh. The number of polygons in the mesh is displayed in the right bottom corner of the previewer.
Preview Options
Selections on the right hand side of the Preview window allow you to preview your terrain in the following ways:
Types of Tessellations
You can create two types of tessellations in the Export Terrain Lab: Grid and Adaptive.
The default method is Grid Triangulation. The initial tessellation is set to 5,000 polygons. If this is not sufficient you can add polygons by selecting Add Polygons in the drop down menu at the right bottom corner of the previewer.
To switch between tessellation types:
To switch between Grid and Adaptive tessellations, click on the triangle to the left of the previewer and select the tessellation type.
Grid Tessellations
Grid tessellates the original height field with a grid.
In order to achieve a good mesh representation of the source terrain, selecting Grid requires a large number of polygons. This method is suitable for geometric shapes.
Adaptive Tessellations
Adaptive achieves much lower polygon counts with good representation of the terrain.
This is an excellent choice when the terrain models natural landscapes.
Exporting to MetaStream
When exporting to MetaStream, you can select additional options: Clamp Minimum and Clamp Maximum.
These options define the lowest and highest polygon counts within the multi-resolution mesh.
To reset the Clamp Minimum and Clamp Maximum:
To apply the Clamps:
1 Use the slider to set the desired lower polygon count.
2 Select Options menu>Clamp Minimum.
3 Use the slider to set the desired higher polygon count.
4 Select Options menu>Clamp Maximum.
If Clamp Minimum and Clamp Maximum are set to the same amount, the MetaStream file will contain a single resolution.
Handling Image Maps
The second area of the Export Terrain Lab deals exclusively with handling image maps.
A large part of the appeal of Bryce terrains are Bryce materials, which consist of different significant properties. Each of these properties can be exported, along with their geometry, through the Export Terrain Lab.
The image map controls let you refine which of the material properties you wish to export by selecting out of the list of ten. By default any material properties of the terrain that use image maps will be exported.
Depending on the selected export file format, the image maps will be embedded within the export file. If, however, the export file format does not support embedding of image maps, they will be saved as separate image files in the same folder as the export file. The filename of each separated image will be the name of the export file appended with the name of the appropriate material property.
To adjust the resolution of the exported image maps:
To save the tessellated terrain and all its image maps:
If you do not wish to save, click on Cancel.
To export a terrain:
1 Create a terrain and apply materials.
2 Either select the terrain and go to File>Export Object or enter the Terrain Editor and click Export.
3 Choose the desired file format and target folder.
4 Adjust the complexity of the mesh.
5 Select material properties to be exported as image maps.
7 Click the OK icon to cause the tessellated mesh to be written to the exported file.
Tips for Speeding Up the Terrain Editor on Slower Machines
To speed up performance on slower machines, disable both the Realtime Linking and AutoRotate options.
To speed up the Elevation effects, use the single-click method rather than the click- drag "dial in" method, as the latter can be quite slow.
The larger terrain grid sizes, such as Massive, Gigantic, and Planetary, require a significant amount of memory and computing power. Only use these terrain grid sizes when necessary. If you are working on a slower machine, you may experience problems such as "out of memory" errors.
When you create a terrain in your Bryce scene, a natural impulse is to immediately dress it up with a cool material and render it right away to see what it looks like. For serious composition, consider keeping your terrains free of textural attributes until the final stages, as procedural textures take longer to render than smooth shaded surfaces. This will keep you working rapidly on your composition. Then, before your final output, you can take some time to design textures for your terrain.
 Corel Corporation http://www.corel.com Voice: (800) 772-6735 Fax: (716) 447-7366 www.corel.com/support |