Texturing imported models using materials files

Last updated: 08.05.2002

If you have both Poser 4 and Bryce 4, the process of applying textures to your figures is greatly simplified. When you export an object from Poser in Wavefront OBJ format, Poser writes an additional file with the extension '.mtl', for 'Material'. This file contains information that identifies, for each object in your '.obj' file, the texture map that should be used to texture it. These are the same texture maps that you applied to the figure when you were posing it in Poser.

Bryce 4 has the ability to read these files. When you import a Wavefront OBJ file, it will automatically read the '.mtl' file and apply the textures indicated. Effectively, you get the texture applied without any need to go and fiddle around in the Materials Lab (although you may still want to do so if you're unhappy with some of the default settings made by Bryce).

To use this feature, do the following:

1	Construct a Poser texture map for the figure that you want to use, or use one of the predefined maps provided with Poser (or any other map you happen to have handy).
2	Pose the figure in Poser, and apply the map(s) you want to use through the Materials command on the Render menu.
3	Export the figure to be used from Poser. It should be exported as a Wavefront OBJ file.
4	Import the figure to Bryce, using the Import Object command. The materials file will be applied automatically.
5	If necessary, you can use the Materials Lab to tweak the materials setting for your imported figure so that diffusion and ambience (for example) are appropriate for your scene.

Although this tutorial describes Poser 4, the same process should work with any application that can generate Wavefront OBJ files with accompanying '.mtl' material files.

There is one important thing to note: when Poser writes the '.mtl' file that specifies the materials to be used for your figure, it writes only the filename of any texture maps that you have applied to the figure, not the full pathname of the map file. This means that when Bryce reads in the figure, it will not be able to find the texture map unless the map file is located in the same directory (folder) as the '.obj' file. You need to copy any texture map files that you use into the same place as the '.obj' file before you import (afterwards, once Bryce has loaded the texture maps into its 2D Pict library, you can throw away the copies if you wish).