This is the first time I've tried anything like this in Bryce, and if I'm going to do landscapes, I'll need to know how to do this properly, any help appreciated...:) Zhann

It would be a great maiden hair fern if it wasn't for the black areas...

Take a look at the matierals lab. Under the tab 'Bump Height' is the tab 'Transparency'. This is the one you will need. See that little blue dot? Click the next little empty space over. This should cut out the black area.

I concur. This is how I modeled a mesquite tree. I did the limbs. Then made a bunch of polygons where my leaf clusters would be. Then I laid a leaf cluster on my scanner and got mesquite leaves for my tree. Don't freak out this is very doable and with good results.

Thanks guys, I'll try it...I wasn't really freakin' just frustrated...:)

Set the blend transparency middle top lil arrow?

lol....it was a race for the screen capture....

hehehe

Uh.....;o/

Dunno. Here's some shots in the dark; Make sure your ambience is set to 15 or less. Make sure the transparency is at the number zero.

uh, place the other transparent bead into channel A.... ...shake a black cat by the tail in the pale moon light..?

make sure your alpha channel isn't flipped in the picture import box as well.

a sacrifice to the Bryce Gods may be order... they must be appeased.

There'll be no cat shaking goin' on here, not unless you wanta be sliced and diced...had a thought on the mesh ghost, if the "black" surrounding the texture(fern leaf)isn't truely "0", would that leave a ghost? Tried ambience at 11, trans at 0 and the mesh ghost is still there,.........ah HAH, just found it, refraction was way up, reduced it and the ghost is gone (as well as a few leaves, but I'll take the trade off)...Thanks guys, sometimes you just have to think out loud...:)

FWT, got too many gods now to appease, my kitchen gnome must be mad at me cause the dishes haven't been getting done...those guys are sooo demanding...:P

Something I read in Real World Bryce was that sometimes you must hit the second button on the right of the render button because Bryce remembers what it has rendered in a scene before, and clicking this button makes it a totally clean, fresh render. Hope this helps Zhann. Catlin

Is the dark part of the mask 100% black? Maybe it isn't completely black. Some brightness-contrast adjustment can change that.

Sometimes I scream out loud. I must truly confuse my neighbors with my recounting of Bryce XYZ coordinates at the top of my lungs...

Rayraz, since I bought the package these came in, I supposed everything was as it should be, but the same thought had occurred to me as well, so I'm checking to make sure they're all "black" as in 0,0,0. Also found the refraction was up there for some odd reason, so when I lowered that it disappeared, but the leaves got weird as well, do leaves have refraction? I dunno...:P

AS, I scream, but my hubby just tells the neighbors I'm an artist, and they just nod in understanding...it's great to be excentric!...:) (Wish I had the money to go with it...)

Zhann if you want, send me the dang model/scene file and I will fix it for you and send it back. And no I won't keep it for myself I have enough Bryce junk to last for ages LOL! clayh@mchsi.com

Yeah, refraction should be 0-100 (100 is air; i.e. no refraction. I've never seen any difference in refraction in settings 0-100; has anyone else?)

Went back to your first pic, and you did at some point have refraction at water setting. Been a long time since I've been there, but in the Options settings for Bryce you can choose whether new objects have the last texture used or a randomly chosen texture appropriate to the object. Terrain textures for terrains, for example. Perhaps you had been playing about with a water-textured object?

clay, I'm not worried about it, I learn by fixing, my Dad taught me to fix just about anything, it's all about creative problem solving, however, I always have some parts left over after fixing things....hmmmm.... Actually, no, tjohn, my Bryce just randomly picks things for refraction unless I'm using water or glass then I have to set it up....strange, I set it to 0 and the ferns are fine now, go figure....:)

Wow, weird quirk with the refraction. Never heard of that one.

A little off topic here, but I'm glad to see that I am not he only nut up at this hour (9:20 on the East coast) screwing around with Bryce and the forum. Actually, I know it's even earlier for some of you. I feel so much better now. :) Now I'm wondering if these little tricks will work for me and some aircraft meshes that I bought that have been giving me problems with the textures coming out black on import. Hmmm...Well my day is shot now, I know what I'll be doing. hehe

Click the button Next to transparent so that the A channel is used for it as well. This is the last button before the volume button in the first group. See the image in reply number 2.

When I try to add Transpond's crested fern to my preset library, I get an error message saying an unexpected error has occurred (generic failure). Weird part is that Bryce lets me import it, but I can't save the Bryce file or save it to the library. Any idea why this is happening? All the other ferns work OK. Peggy

I suggest instead of saving it as a preset object to just save it as a scene by itself and merge it into scenes when you need it. I've already lost models saved in presets several times due to corruption.

Peggy, are you using multiple accounts on your system? Like administrator, user, ... it might be that you don't have sufficient rights over Bryce in that specific account. Just a thought...

Peggy, it won't let me import directly, I select the obj and get an error, then go and use the "all files" and it lets me import, then I've been saving them to the presets, soI can use them in anything, ready to go...

I too have lost presets due to them becomming corrupt. I always keep a backup of my preset folder. If all of the ferns did this, then I would know that I screwed up, but this is only happening to one out of ten ferns. For the crested wood fern only I can import it, set the texture, render, etc. The only things I can't do is save the Bryce file (it only has the fern in it) or save it to the presets. I sent an e-mail to RTDNA to ask them about this. If I get an answer I'll post a message. Thanks! Peggy

Zhann, Not sure I understand the situation but: If you use grouper and the poser bump map is in bum format you can convert bum maps to something usable from within grouper. If there is a seperate poser bump map give the bmp map it's own channel(2), and only use the bump height with channel 2. If there is a seperate poser trans map give the transparency map it's own channel(3) and only use the transparency with channel 3. just my uneducatable guesses, - TJ

Peggy...look at the file names on the textures. Especially the trans maps. They are longer than 32 characters. That's why you can't save them to presets or save the Bryce file. Just rename them shorter. Bikermouse, you don't need to use separate channels unless there is both a separate trans and bump. Each automatically takes its info from the proper 'thumbnail' position.

Very interesting! Never knew that about the limit on texture file names. Funny part is it allows the texture to be used. Maybe this should be added to FAQ? Thanks! Peggy

It's my fault, Peggy. Really. I bugged and bugged them to fix the 32 character limit when you load a picture texture. And they did. Nobody, including me, noticed the limit on the other end. LOL