Bryce Tutorial: How To Make A Waterfall

With Bryce, there are several ways to make waterfalls. In this tutorial I'll show you the easiest and most effective one.
Using this method, you can also make a stream or river flowing into a lake.

End result:

Author:

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Practice tutorial

Tags:lakeriverstreamwaterwaterfall

Step 1

Create a Terrain. Then click on the E next to the terrain to Edit it.

Step 2

Click New. This makes the current picture dissappear so you can make a new picture. Make sure your Opacity is all the way up and it is easier if you use a larger brush- these are on the left hand side. To change these, you click and pull right or left. Now you will draw a rounded square. You will want to bring your bottom bracket up until you see red around your picture. If your bracket is not showing, click on the little picture next to the arrow that is on the upper right part of the drawing area.

Step 3

It should now look like this.

Step 4

At this time you can add a Material. Click the little arrow next to Edit. From there you can pick your material.

Step 5

Here is the material applied.

Step 6

Now go up to Edit and click on Duplicate.

Step 7

Now you will be creating the water. Click on the E next to the duplicated terrain to Edit. Slide your opacity dot all the way down (this is to the left) and start to erase an area. Make sure to only erase on the "sides" of the water and not in "front". I chose this side because it already had a natural curve there.

Step 8

Apply a water Material by clicking on the little arrow next to Edit.

Step 9

Now you will Move this "water" up a bit by clicking and pulling the 4th Edit Icon on the top arrow (see picture). You will only pull it a tiny bit to the right so it is just high enough to see. You can view it in the preview window in the upper left hand of your screen.

Step 10

It should look something like this now.

Step 11

At this point, I wanted to view it closer. I moved my trackball around and used the views above it also. I wanted to move the water forward a bit so I clicked and pulled the southwest arrow of the 4th edit icon (see picture)

Step 12

I render often to see what it looks like.

Step 13

I wanted to fix the opacity of the water so I clicked on the M next to the water wireframe. I brought the transparency down some.

Step 14

You now have a waterfall. You can do more with it though at this point. To make mist you create a sphere.

Step 15

I used my trackball for different angles and moved the sphere to where I wanted it- right in front of the waterfall.

Step 16

You can resize it and flatten it. I flattened it some by clicking and pulling to the left on the 2nd edit icon on the top little box- see picture.

Step 17

Apply a material to this by clicking on the little arrow next to Edit. I used a volume. I picked "cotton ball".

Step 18

It will look something like this now.

Step 19

You will want to bring the density down. Click on the M next to the sphere wireframe and lower the number in 'density'.

Step 20

It should look something like this.

Step 21

Click on your ground plane or click on the lower small icon to pick your ground plane from there to select it. Click on the small arrow next to Edit to apply a water material to it.

Step 22

It should now look something like this.

Step 23

You will want to either zoom in on the waterfall by using your trackball or add some background terrains.

Step 24

I added a few rocks and a tree but to be honest with you, I like the "mist" better if done in a paint program so I hid my sphere--to do this click the A next to your wireframe and click on "hidden".

Step 25

I saved the image a as JPEG and pulled it into Paint Shop Pro 7. I added a new layer and used my airbrush to put a "fog" like mist first. I blurred that layer and added another layer and airbrushed white in again and blurred that layer a little less than before. Then I added another layer and airbrushed some more white dots in and left this layer like it was. I like this mist effect better than using a sphere in Bryce.

17 Comments:

nishagandhi says:

very nice result!!

(3 years and 267 days ago)

billyboy says:

go,go, go..excellent, more colors pls, a sunhine, a rainbow, something to grab my eyes, its Corel, king of the colors hand on Bryce, wait for the next, good luck.

(3 years and 267 days ago)

Guest says:

Thank you. Yeah, I realized afterward that I could have used a bit better material for the cliff so it would all stand out a bit more. I think I'll change it.

(3 years and 267 days ago)

k5683 says:

Yikes! I didn't realize that you couldn't change it afterward. Darn, the new one looks so much better.

(3 years and 267 days ago)

momvera says:

I don't know why, but in my Bryce textures wouldn't apply. All surfaces stay gray.

(3 years and 264 days ago)

k5683 says:

Did you render the image after you changed the texture/material? Did you select the correct object?

(3 years and 262 days ago)

Guest says:

that was so awesome!!!!

(3 years and 255 days ago)

Guest says:

very nice

(3 years and 246 days ago)

Guest says:

Incredible, but what if you want a MOVING waterfall?!?

(3 years and 238 days ago)

Guest says:

nice but i need to know how to link to objects together on bryce so that you can animate them together

member on DAZ screen name KTP0KSR

note the 0 is a zero

(3 years and 237 days ago)

k5683 says:

Guest, I have been using Bryce for a couple years now, but the animation part of it confuses me honestly. I do know that there is a link button and a tracking button right next to the object. How these may work with animating, I'm not sure. I have a book that explains animation but I need to practice more on the rest of it first before I start animating--plus my computer can hardly handle rendering pictures at the moment.

(3 years and 233 days ago)

Guest says:

Are you able to do a more detailed version? Like a cliff or a river making it's way down a mountain?

(3 years and 231 days ago)

Guest says:

sweet thanks for the info

(3 years and 62 days ago)

Guest says:

I followed all the steps and coulndnt make it

(3 years and 26 days ago)

Guest says:

im a\

(2 years and 358 days ago)

Invité says:

Thank you!!!

(2 years and 10 days ago)

Guest says:

Thank you for the tutorial! I had a blast making it.

(1 year and 37 days ago)

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