Greekgeek's 3D Computer Art

Ranked #3,538 in Arts & Design, #52,434 overall

Landscapes and Fantasy Scenes Rendered in Bryce

In the 90s, I enjoyed creating fantastic landscapes with the help of a graphics program called Bryce. Computer graphics tools have improved a lot since then, but I'm still proud of what I achieved with simple tools!

Want to try and make scenes like this yourself? There is now a FREE 3D graphics program, Terragen, which lets you design 3D landscapes and objects. It's a lot newer than Bryce, so its results look better than what I could do in 1993-1999!


Images © 2009 E. Brundige. Some Rights Reserved.Creative Commons License
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License.

Example of Building A 3D Scene

What It Looks Like Working in Bryce

These look so simple, but they're actually composed of mountains and simple shapes like spheres, cubes and cylinders grouped together. You can tell it to use some shapes like cookie cutters to delete parts of other shapes. Then I have to tell the computer what textures to "paint" on them, lighting effects, and a lot more details like clouds and skies. Here's a finished scene and the pieces I used to build it.

Elven Bow 3D

Here's the wireframes for it!

Wireframe for Elfin Bow

Early Experiments in 3D Art

I was heavily influenced by my favorite game, MYST.

By Balloon over Moss Islands Bryce 3D

Bryce only has terrains, planes, and a limited number of 3D shapes like eggs and cubes, but you can do amazing things with textures, clouds and skies:
Bryce textures eggs

Hedge
Flooding a hedge maze terrain.

Playing with the materials editor trying to make striped sandstone:
Sanddunes 3D

I started experimenting with using the mountain editor to carve odd shapes:


I've always been fascinated by Anubis, a jackal god from Egyptian mythology.
Desert secrets
"Desert Secrets"

Another Egypt-inspired one:
Eye of Horus Pyramids

Another one inspired by MYST:
Atrus and Catherine's summer home
"Atrus and Catherine's Summer Home"

A mother's day card!
3d Mother's Day Card

Inspired by Rene Magritte, the table has a miniature version of the lanscape outside the window:
room with a view
"Room With a View"

The frame of the mirror was inspired by a Klingon sword:
Mirror 3d
The tree and island are build off screen; then I had to move the camera to get the reflection right.

Seamounts
"SeaMounts"

I had a cheap 3D modeller that let me make models and import them into bryce. I made my lyre -- a Greek harp -- then the program died!
Olympus
"Olympus"

3D harp

Moby Dick 3D
"Moebius Dictum"

Good 3D Graphics Programs

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Lord of the Rings Inspired 3D Art

I've always loved Lord of the Rings. These were all done in the 1990s, well before the Jackson films.

"Isengard" -- notice the ent!
isengard painting 3d

"The Dead Marshes"
The Dead Marshes

"The Arkenstone"
The Arkenstone 3D

"The Lonely Mountain" -- this is homework from my Robin Wood class (see below)
The Lonely Mountain

"The Grinding Ice" -- From The SIlmarillion


"8-Ball of Mandos" (Mandos is a Valar in charge of fate)


"Vingelot" -- Ship of Elrond's father Eärendil

Homework For 3D Art Class

Taught By Robin Wood

Robin Wood is a wonderful fantasy artist and a friend. She once taught an online class in Bryce 3D art. Here's some of my homework from that class. Now and then she'd give us object and models to import into the class to teach us about lighting and particular effects.

Bottle in the Sea
The bottle is Robin's; she was teaching us how to do water surfaces.

Bryce textures
Bryce textures and repetition.

 shaman=
Teaching us sky and terrain editing. I need to drop C-3PO in here.

Fantree
Fantree -- taking a fan she gave us and making it into leaves.


More textures experiments. Hershey's Kisses?


Teaching us about weather and sky.


More weather lessons.

Mirrormere
"Mirrormere"

Grail
"Grail." This became my desktop for a while. She gave us the little ornamental texture I put on the hilt, but the rest is mine.

Temple
The Venus di Milo is a free 3D model; Robin was teaching us how to build complex shapes with cylinders and cubes.

Hourglass
My final project, an hourglass.

Robin Wood Books and Art

Robin Wood's pagan and fantasy art is for sale on her site, Robinwood.com. (No, she's not paying me, she's just a person I admire -- not only for her art.) She's got just a few items available through Amazon.
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More of My Artwork

Hand Drawn and Computer Art

I mentioned that much of my 3D art is inspired by the game of MYST. So below is a hand-illustrated, hand-calligraphed journal I made based on the game, with lots of drawings! Also, I do freehand digital art with a drawing tablet; see below for my digital paintings.
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Guestbook



I'm not the greatest artist in the world, but I hope you enjoyed viewing my art gallery! Feel free to leave a note.

  • Froehlich May 11, 2012 @ 2:10 am | delete
    Great Lens.. :)
  • southridgefarmsinc Jan 17, 2012 @ 10:20 am | delete
    Great artwork!!!
  • jseven Jul 18, 2011 @ 7:48 pm | delete
    Nice lens and art! I posted on my Facebook. :)
  • JonBurgess Apr 3, 2011 @ 1:02 pm | delete
    Nice to see some props for good old Bryce! I've been playing with it since about 96. . . eek! . . That is a long time. I got seriously into texture making. B7 is really nice and stable and is able to import B4 files which is great. The render engine has always been the weak point imho, but for the price its such a great piece of software. Glad you enjoy it ;-)
  • Psycho-Gamer Mar 15, 2011 @ 2:28 pm | delete
    WOW You ve made some great stuff ....have you ever tried to sell them? I am not kidding .... you have some great artwork here and you can earn enough money
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Greekgeek

Storyteller, former Latin teacher, student of mythology and the ancient world: I've worn many hats, but always I've dabbled in computers and the web.

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