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4 |
Now that the Texture Source Editor is open, click LOAD on the top left
hand side to open your first image. Browse through your system to find and
select your image, preferable stored in a bitmap file, but you can also
use .jpg, .gif, and other formats as well.
Since I am wanting it to be a texture that has a bump effect, I
must also have an image in the "alpha channel", that is the
window in the middle of the Texture Source Editor. An Alpha Channel is a
special part of an image that is used to hold selections and other odd
information . Only more advanced art programs, Such as Paint Shop Pro,
Photoshop, Bryce etc deal with Alpha Channels.
You can use any image for the Alpha channel but I used the same
fractal one, so in the first channel (far left) I COPY the image then
PASTE it into the Alpha channel. Now close the Texture and Material
windows and go back into the main Bryce window. Note that I used a fractal
on the blue sphere as well as the pyramid. You can see both fractals in
the small gray cells in the pic above.
Next you render the image
and save it out. I always save images out in Photoshop format (.psd) as
it's very high quality, easy to work with and Paint Shop Pro (my favourite
2D paint program) works with that format too.
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| 5 |
Now I load the rendered image into Paint Shop Pro.
Now here is a VERY useful tip, when an image is first loaded it
is a "background layer". This means that some special effects
etc will not work on it, so you need to "promote" it to a true
layer.
(1) This shows opening the Layer
Palette, then Right Clicking on the Background layer to bring up an
options window, click "PROMOTE TO NEW LAYER" and it then becomes
LAYER 1, ready to work on. A faster way is to do this double left click on
the background layer's name bar.
"LAYERS" are an important part of working with images in
advanced paint programs, basically you can have stacks of images, one on
top of each other. So you can cut bits out of one to see the layer below
etc, this is VERY useful, and lets ye get up to all kinds of fun! ;)
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| 6 |
Next I'm going
to make a copy of the original layer, so I can work on the copy and if
anything screws up, I can always go back to the original layer, which is
on the bottom! Another useful tip if ye screw up as often as I do! :>
It's also a great way to let you see what you originally
started with for comparison, merely by selecting the original layer, right
clicking and selecting VIEW CURRENT ONLY, the first image can be seen. |