One of the main advantages of using 3d programs in your comics is re-use. Once you create a scene, you can change elements like lighting, cameras, and weather to use the same environment in new scenes or panels. Here we focus on how you can achieve different shots by changing skies and camera angles in Bryce 6.

Tools Used:

Bryce 6 from Daz

Bryce Masters Series: Cloud City

Adobe Photoshop

If you are a comic artist creating your comics on the computer, 3d applications are likely an indispensable part of your toolbox. Even if you draw your characters and most other elements, a good 3d program can be useful for backgrounds.

This tutorial is going to show you how to get different shots from your backgrounds by re-using one 3d scene file and changing only the sky and/or camera angle.

If you want to follow along with the tutorial, go to the downloads area and grab the tutorial files (Downloads>Tutorials). I've uploaded the finished comic page in PSD layered format, the first Bryce scene file, and the finished backgrounds to the freebies area - however I did not include the Cloud City model in the scene files since it is an item that must be purchased at Daz. You can get more info on the Cloud City model here.

Ready? Let's dive right in!

What's the benefit to you as an artist? Well, consider this...you have an establishing shot of a landscape or building as in Figure 1. Let's say you want closeups of the buildings in a later panel, whether the same page or later in the story. By creating a 3d scene with all the basic elements you need, it can be saved and used again - as much as you want - in any scenes you like and even future issues of your comic with only a minimum amount of tweaking.

In Figure 1 above, I've created a simple scene in Daz Bryce 6.1 with mountains and used the buildings from Daz's Bryce Master Series: Cloud City. I used a sky preset from Bryce and did some minor tweaking of the settings in the Sky & Fog Menu.

This would be used as our "establishing shot" and in the final comic example is the first panel of the story.

Now, let's just look at Figure 1 with different variations of skies and see how they impact the look. For simplicity, I will keep the same sky preset for now and change only the position of the sun:

Now, we can take this a step further and change the sky completely. Go into Bryce's Sky & Fog menu, and choose a different sky. Here are some examples of the scene with new sky presets:

(Click for larger image)