Stained Glass Mini-Tutorial


Recently on the MetaCreations mailing list, someone asked about how to do a stained glass window in Bryce 3D. My interest was sufficiently piqued by this request, so I did a technical exercise to see if I could make something that looked somewhat like stained glass. Here's the resulting image:


[stained glass image]

Creating it was quite straightforward. Here are the steps:

    (Photoshop)
  1. Create the outlines of the individual glass pieces in Photoshop.
  2. Create a layer underneath that and fill it with 60% gray or so.
  3. Save that image out as an intermediate file, flattened. It will be your transparency map.
  4. Fill the individual glass pieces with color. Hide the gray layer.
  5. Save a copy as a flattened image as well. It will be your color map.

    (Bryce 3.1)

  6. Create a Pict Object. Select the color file as the color map and the transparency map file as the transparency map (aka alpha channel).
  7. Hit OK and enter the scene with your Pict Object.
  8. Take the Pict Object into the Materials Lab and assign the color map as the Transparent color as well. Add bumps, refraction and specularity to taste.

Enjoy!
-Ollie, MetaCreations Online Services

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