I have a project requiring me to render a 3D image and animation of a specific piece of property with specific elevations, a stream and trees in specific places.
I have managed to create a terrain model that pretty closely matches the topography of the property, and I think I can create acceptable mapping for color, bumps, etc.

The PROBLEM...

Is in placing the trees and some other elements in exact locations on the terrain - (there are lots of trees and they need to be in the correct arrangements). When viewing the terrain in the Bryce modeling window it appears as a wireframe... unless you do a quick render... but when you place an object into the scene - back to wireframe.

HELP!! - - How do I get my trees where they should be?... there must be a way, but this is driving me nuts.

Bryce is a neat program, and you can make imaginary landscapes out the yazoo - but how do you make a replica of a view with terrain and items placed in precise positions?

Any help will REALLY be appreciated!!

Thanks

You could use PSP or PS7 to create a basic layout in grayscale. Then load this image in to the terrain editor and use it as a guide. When you're happy with all just remove the terrain that was there to guide you.

Or turn on OpenGL view to get a better view of the scene instead of the wireframe. I use this a lot. J.

I also use the top, front and left ortho views a lot to aid in positioning objects

OpenGL view is great. But bryce 5 treelab-trees don't get solid in OpenGL. However if the terrain is solid you can often place them quite easily anyway.

Aye, this is the true deep work of Bryce. You will grow used to plop-rendering soon enough... One way to do it is to use a paint program, like Photoshop. Copy into the clipboard your greyscale heightmap, then open it in Photoshop, and make white dots right where you want each set of trees. Start small. Try it with five or six tree-spots. Duplicate the original terrain in Bryce and then load in the white-dotted image map from Photoshop. Clip the levels, until you just get a terrain of your white tree-placing dots. Select the inverse, lock, box, and hide everything, then place some Bryce trees on your five or six dots. Seems complex, but this technique only works in 2 dimensions. After you place the trees on the tree-spots, unlock and unbox and unhide everything else, and delete or lock-and-hide the treespot terrain, and all you have left is to make sure the trees land properly. Usualy, you want to push them a bit below the terrain surface, due to Tree Lab roots. Good luck, and please show us what you come up with!

Thanks for the ideas and tips. I'm going to do some serious experimenting with all of these to see what works in my situation... I knew you guys would have some good ideas... I really appreciate the speedy feedback Nate.