Product Description

See the power of Bryce come to life as you embark on a creative journey that travels far beyond the realm of reality. As you work your way through the vast array of Bryce tools, you'll learn how to create fascinating 3D worlds from conception to final 3D imagery.

The emphasis throughout the book is on the creation of eight unique projects, ranging from "The Great Blue-Ice Throne Room" to the "Abode of the Lizard Masters." Detailed tutorials cover every step of the creation process, including a variety of ways to use Bryce with other popular tools. Newer users will find these in-depth tutorials indispensable as they learn the program, and experienced users will get new ideas on how to use Bryce's extensive set of tools and techniques.

Whether you are a 3D designer, artist, movie-maker, game designer, or comic book designer, you'll find fresh ideas and techniques to use in your own 3D world creations. About the CD: CD (Win/Mac) includes the complete tutorial files for all 8 projects, all of the book's images in full color, and some movie files to illustrate how Bryce handles animation. Key Features - Covers Bryce versions 4.1 and higher - Includes 8 complete 3D worlds - Explains how to use Bryce as a high-end, professional illustration tool in conjunction with other powerful programs including KPT, Photoshop, and Poser. - Teaches 3D scene composition and lighting in new ways - Presents digital artists with new ways of illustrating stories - Shows users how to create all types of environments and worlds from photorealstic to complete fantasy! - Demonstrates the use of a variety of elemental effects for creating new worlds

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1155331 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 401 pages

Review
Advanced Bryce Creations covers eight unique projects, providing detailed tutorials covering all steps on using Bryce with other computer tools. -- The Midwest Book Review, August, 2001

About the Author
Shamms Mortier is a seasoned graphics professional and the author of a number of titles in the area including The Poser 4 Handbook, The Bryce 3D Handbook, 3D Studio Max: Building Complex Models, and Creating 3D Comix. He also writes for a variety of magazines and is a regular contributor to the Graphics Resource Club, an online subscription service that provides monthly tutorials and online books on leading 3D and 2D graphics applications

Customer Reviews

Misleading Title; God-awful Graphics!
This book was published in 2001, and by those standards you'd expect a better treatment of the term "photorealism." Unfortunately, it's far from being so. The examples in the book and the animations on the CD look faceted, bizzare and surreal (even Dali, the author's so-called inspiration, would be horrified). They remind of graphics from the early eighties when stick figures and garish polygons ruled the desktops of a chosen few, and quite frankly, that's where this book belongs, if not right in the trash can. It's a very, very far cry from anything close to photorealistic in this age, let alone something (what?!!) 'advanced'.
The saving grace, however, is the creation of eight different story worlds that the author takes you through in fair detail (sketch to final setup), alongside how Bryce "handshakes" with packages like Poser, Painter, Amorphium, and a myriad other plug-ins and 3D modelers. This, in a way, makes it look like a catalog of all the different tools and products you could/should/will use to do something useful in Bryce. It's like: 'OK, Bryce can't do this, so why don't you get that... I can't imagine your *not* getting that!' In the end, this book feels disconnected and reads like an instruction manual (do this, create this shape, etc.). It forms a good enough source of ideas about Bryce world creation, but I recommend buying it only if you haven't yet bought any other Bryce book. "Real World Bryce 4" by Susan Kitchens, in comparison, does a far better job, costing about as much as this one.
Moral of the Story: Don't go by the look of the title 'Advanced Bryce Creations'; it's an insult to Bryce and Bryce users worldwide.

I should write a book...
This book is definitely not for the intermediate looking to tweak their skills with. The pictures are poorly done and the writing is totally unstructured. As I recall, this book was suppose to be for the advanced level and it's more like grade school level. Don't waste your time or money on this one.

Don't waste your money
After my original review of this book, I've had more time to look over the book. This book is horrible, the graphics are pitiful. At first glance they didn't seem so bad, but upon closer examination you'll realize that the terms photo and realistic don't belong on any of the book's pictures.

I've taken the time to look over some of Mr. Mortier's other books, based on comments I've read, and they too seem to fall in the garbage category. His book on Poser is particularly horrid, anyone can play with the controls of a program and generate something that looks awful, we don't need a book to tell us how to do it.

Unfortunately, the poor quality of this book has forced me to more carefully review books by his publisher. Mr. Mortier continues to crank out books about software he has no mastery of, and they continue to be published.

I do have to give Mr. Mortier credit though, it takes a lot of effort to produce such hideous renders from Bryce.